64 karma · joined March 31, 2017
Here are the results when the number of max births per family is dropped to 2:
boys = 74861 girls 75166
boys = 74752 girls 75464
boys = 75047 girls 74933 A leader in this campaign has been Peter Daszak, president of EcoHealth Alliance, a non-profit organisation given millions of dollars in grants by the US federal government to research viruses for pandemic preparedness.1 Over the years EcoHealth Alliance has subcontracted out its federally supported research to various scientists and groups, including around $600 000 (£434 000; €504 000) to the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Daszak’s behind-the-scenes role in orchestrating the statement in the Lancet came to light in November 2020 in emails obtained through freedom of information requests by the watchdog group US Right To Know.
"Please note that this statement will not have EcoHealth Alliance logo on it and will not be identifiable as coming from any one organization or person,” wrote Daszak in a February email, while sending around a draft of the statement for signatories. In another email, Daszak considered removing his name from the statement “so it has some distance from us and therefore doesn’t work in a counterproductive way.”
boys = 100000 girls 99350
boys = 100000 girls 100333
boys = 100000 girls 101195
Wouldn't it make more sense to wait until evidence and the case in general has been presented before making statements like this?
Personally, the "conspiracy theory" I've heard is that members of the US government were sending messages directly to Twitter's staff requesting censorship of specific posts. It seems reasonable for the courts to get involved if a private entity is censoring on behalf of government agents personally, but I'm not a lawyer.
By having the disinfection agent spread through the pool, any bacteria or other contaminant will be acted on immediately. Algae is another big problem in many pools. Oftentimes there is some corner of the pool (or ladder, etc) that will harbor a little bit of algae that is waiting to take over the rest of the pool. Having chlorine dispersed through the water is very effective at preventing algae. Also, shocking the pool water with high levels of chlorine is oftentimes needed to keep the algae under control.
The common approach for making a pool need less daily maintenance is to get a salt water chlorine generator. A small amount of chlorine is generated by running an electrical current through electrodes. The electrodes need to be replaced every so often. Liquid chlorine is generally considered to be cheaper, but requires a lot of diligence because the chlorine dissipates pretty quickly.
I've seen hot tubs that use ozone for disinfection but not pools. I'm not sure what makes it a reasonable choice for hot tubs but not pools. Ozone would disperse through the water like chlorine, but it dissipates even more quickly.
One more interesting tidbit I picked up alone the way: the chlorine smell in a pool is not from the free chlorine. Free chlorine is what's available for disinfection. After a free chlorine molecule bonds to it's target, it's called combined chlorine. Combined chlorine is what is responsible for the nasty smell in pools. The solution for combined chlorine is to add dd more free chlorine!
If we sit a team down to discuss the architecture of a software application or how to solve a problem in a general, is it better to get all opinions or for some opinions to be forbidden?
I believe the answer is it depends. If someone is being destructive to general collaboration, then censoring them would likely help the group reach a better decision.
If the censorship goes further and prohibits certain ideas, what is the cost? If it's a bad idea, probably not too much. What if it's a good idea? What if it's an idea that would have halved the effort for this particular solution? The cost of censorship starts to increase!
How do you know the value of an opinion that you don't hear? Silencing dissent is a component of group think. I found this example which shouldn't be controversial:
However you justify censorship, it still has a cost. Legalistic arguments about the first amendment and who it restrains doesn't change the fact that the free exchange of ideas has value and that is being taken away from us. Note that I'm not specifying who is doing the censoring in any of my arguments. Censorship has a cost all on it's own.
For example, look at how the lab-leak hypothesis for covid was censored. There were many good questions being raised that were shot down as a "conspiracy theory", and were censored.
This is a net negative for everyone.
Bringing up the first amendment is a way to emphasize the importance of the free exchange of ideas. It only legally restrains the government, but now other powers have gained the ability to regulate speech. The principle is the same no matter who the censor is.
Have they always been problematic? I would love to hear some historical conspiracy theories and their deleterious effects.
It's the absence of action that is the issue. There is all kinds of left wing (I'm from the US for reference) dreck on here that receives no push back nor moderation. It's very common to see very low value statements on HN that disparage Republicans. People on here have said all kinds of nasty things about Republicans and conservatives. I rarely see any push back from you against these. It's pretty common to see people assume that Republicans don't care about people and state so, like it is an obvious truth without any supporting argument. How is that thoughtful or substantive?
I think your personal biases are blinding you to just how low value much of the accepted discussion here at HN is, when it is left-leaning
An EE degree will absolutely help you pick out components for a circuit.
Computers and digital logic lend themselves towards a sense of everything being deterministic and understandable.
Analog electronics, radio waves, radio wave propagation- I've heard all of those described by EE's (with degrees) as essentially black magic. It isn't black magic obviously, but I think much of those issues end up driving people to experiment with physically building things instead of relying solely on paper. This is just my impression. I think antenna simulation has gotten better recently for example.
Another weird thing about EE, that seems to break what many (including me) expect it to be.. it feels like assumptions and approximations layered on top of one another. Take a simple diode. It has a certain current/voltage curve, but what I was taught about designing with them, is that generally you would use an approximation of the curve. Not the actual curve. Oftentimes, in lab, we would treat the voltage drop across a diode as being independent of current, which is absolutely false! But that is the way that EEs think of diodes, because it works! It's a game of learning what assumptions can be made to simplify analysis.
You might want to try this for learning about electronics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_Electronics
another good example of how EE's reduce more complicated circuits down to simpler approximations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Th%C3%A9venin%27s_theorem
I wonder if dang could point us to a reference of ideological boilerplate to be avoided, or if its just supposed to be something "we should know."
dressing it up under the term "boilerplate ideological rhetoric" doesn't change anything.
Discussion is good. It's ok for people to be wrong and disagree. I'm not even saying they are wrong, but if they were- do you really need to go around telling everyone that some opinion that crossed their mind over a cup of morning coffee would be a disaster if implemented as national policy?
IMO, that is inflammatory and arrogant.
More broadly speaking, much of the arguments in this post seem almost political. They are dressed up in fancy language, but essentially boil down to "We can't give these peons information that they aren't smart enough to deal with"
That is an extremely arrogant position to take, even though I do believe there is some truth that knowledge can be counter-productive.
Who gets to be the gate-keeper?
I've moved from collaborative teams to more cooperative teams without really being able to put my finger on what the missing magic was. Collaboration is a beautiful thing and results in much more robust results, however it can seem nearly impossible to collaborate at times. This is a very rich and nuanced subject, imo.
> we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons...who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.”
Those quotes are from Edward Bernays, considered to be the father of public relations. He ran many big public relation campaigns in the 20th century. He is responsible for millions of people who say, think and believe that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. He helped to popularize smoking, and promoted the idea that smoking was healthy. He often would form institutions of experts to help promote his campaigns with authority.
Why are we so sure that we know what is a conspiracy theory and what is true?
Why is it so important for everyone to believe the "right thing" as told by authority figures?
Why is it so important to demonize people who believe alternative hypotheses (aka conspiracy theories)?
I suspect git would make a fine back end for a more polished product for scientists. A github for scientists sounds very interesting.
I'm guessing what you really want is:
1) open formats for data
2) plain text instead of proprietary blobs
3) the ability to replicate calculations easily
4) the ability to see some sort of evolution or mistake-fixing in the project's history.
I think the danger comes from people using results that aren't (can't?) be replicated and treating them as if they were fact.
"It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so."
I see no way to read that as BLM supports the nuclear family. So the largest social justice movement in the US doesn't support two parent families. That seems pretty significant
Again, why in the world would it be necessary to disrupt the nuclear family to gain greater connection to extended family and the community??
I do see it in maybe a less overt way in a lot of comments on HN. There are comments in this discussion blaming a lack of social programs in the US for the problem. Things like that. There's nothing wrong with believing that, but the counter arguments don't get much visibility around here.