benten10

Sorry, the 'Destruction of Baghdad destroyed the learning' is categorically false. If you will look at history, Islamic scholars kept churning out knowledge quite a bit after the destruction, and in terms of academic achievements, it doesn't seem to have had a LOT of interruption. My history professor explained it this way: If Cambridge/Boston MA area were to disappear tomorrow, we would most definitely lose a LOT in terms of knowledge and research. It would however not be a beginning of a dark age. I have been led to believe that modern historians mostly agree that the traditional interpretation of the sacking of Baghdad as being the ending of the Islamic Enlightenment is mostly overblown.

I believe the issue was that the 'white man' demographic had been given special reservations in the first one. When they asked him if a bunch of white men had (unknowingly to him) influenced him to overrepresent by a laaarge margin, he opted to account for the unconscious bias by 'thinking' more consciously about it.

Of course, now those goddamn petulant PC white men want all the spaces in the list, even AFTER he has acknowledged his bias inherent in the original list. If they'd ONLY choose to be objective and stop being selfish about the goddamn unconscious bias they are favored with. But nooo, in this ridiculous age of political correctness and 'everyones view is correct', they get do goddamn complain that they didn't get 100% of his opinion. These people are pretty much Hitlers to free speech : /

PS: BTW, what's the politically correct term for a 'petulant white man-child"? I've gotten some sideeye once in a while by one of those radicals when I've used the term in public.

Meanwhile, we have this: https://github.com/ecprice/newsdiffs

Hoping to make some contribution myself...

Haha, love it! There's definitely a space for forced animal anthromorphization humor. Smart, funny books! Like Madagascar, et al. but adults.

In this case, for example, the first 95% of the story would be from a touching documentary-type narrative, about how smart, thoughtful, loyal etc. penguins are. In the end, we find out Penguin newspapers all have headlines like "Penguin swims 5,00 miles for other personal reasons, calls in on man while he's there. Is treated as a goddam hero" etc.

I like to call this the 'plantation owner defense'. Any mistreatment of other peoples can be justified by 'but they would be even WORSE without us.' The original plantation owner justification being that the 'workers' (ha, euphemism!) were wild savages in a wild land, and any kind of treatment they were put through HAD to be better than what they would otherwise go through.

The other place I've seen this defense used regularly is in South Asia. People treat their servants and house workers really poorly there, and then the defense is 'sureee, they may be given the same food as we give our dogs and cats, but they would be DYINGGG of thirst and hunger in their villages without us.' Fortunately for most South Asians, more and more people are getting out of the situation where they are pretty much bonded laborers.

It seems to me that things are going in the opposite direction in the US. I have a lot to thank the US for personally, but sometimes, I get this intense emotion of schadenfreude. The increasing wealth gap, the increasing racial hostilities, outright hate for anyone who doesn't happen to be in the 'in-group'. As an American, I would be terribly terrified. As a non American I am sometimes all 'HAA, you acted if you were above everything else, as if you were post-history. Now YOU bear the baggage of history the others have had to overcome'.

My favorite are the techie-engineer-objective types. The HN Bros. I've been told over and over and over again how "history is over" and "nothing in history matters anymore because technology" and "context doesn't matter because not we have the means to establish absolute truth". Like literally. When you value technology over people, the process over the end goal, things will break. And they seem to be breaking. I am secretly glad, even though I am myself a part of this env, and might lose my livelihood too if things go South.

...Relevant to the article because it was meant to reflect how things seem to be for people outside the core bubble.

...so how many women are actually commenting on this post? Raise your hands please?

Hahaha, this is a classssic hackernews discussion. "There is absolutely no discrimination. Women are held to the same standards as men. They just complain. Saying that women have it unfair is ITSELF sexist" type arguments are the best (for entertainment value).

@dang and other hackernews people: Regardless of if you agree with them or not, you do realize that this will reflect on Ycombinator's perception/PR right? No amount of office hours for women is going to counter this RIDICULOUS volume of INSANELY UNAWARE sexism going around in these forums. I mean, for YCombinator's sake I hope you guys agree with most of the comments here, otherwise this is just deadweight on whatever your 'diversity' aims may be. Calling them lazy, complaining fools is how you put the bullseye on your backs for the time when the pitchforks come out.

Just saying. This is ridiculous. It doesn't have to be this way. Really.

Pro tip: It is often a good heuristic to identify a sexist by their use of 'male' and 'female' for humans instead of 'men' and 'women', because it sounds dehumanizing. Call them 'women', never females, etc, etc.

>>You f\king w\\re, I'm going to ra\e you, and kill your family and pet, and tort\* you till you beg for mercy, and I'm going to feed your pieces to your dogs, if you dare talk anything on this issue again.

As you see, this works both ways.

Above, it should have been clear I was clearly using threatening language for elucidation process. And yet, something _must_ have 'jumped' in you. Even if a little bit. Even after '' out the important words. Even after I toned down what I'd originally planned to write. Now imagine, I didn't make it as obvious it was for education purposes, but it was reasonably clear to guess I meant it that way. And then imagine there was no commentary. Now consider the possibility I am a random stranger who might actually have meant it. Women and minorities do* go through it every day. Every damn day. Now, you can call it free speech, and banning anything similar censoring. In which case, I will have to work on a few sockpuppet bots to prove my point more clearly ;). My point is, you are being reductive in looking the world as 'censorship', and 'free speech'. This argument has happened for thousands of years, and it speeds up if all caught up on the definitions of 'reasonable threats', 'hate speech' etcetera, and the historical contexts surrounding such issues.

The money-quote for me was:

>>"When you force the industry from a well-equipped infrastructure like the Valley, with not only traditional sound stages, but a large number of easily rented homes where adult filming is permitted and encouraged, and push it to the margins, and to area and locations where people are not aware that adult film is being shot, you're seeing the beginning of an industry moving underground."

AKA, you don't let us what we want to, we'll do things illegally. And that's the issue I have with all the 'disruption' (belch) happening around.

Soo, the porn industry is 'disrupting' location/set industry. How long before we can expect to see our houses in mainstream cinema after having airbnb'd to some rando 3 years before?

So sick of the knee-jerk 'paying by data' argument for EVERY.DAMN.THING.

Google does not do whatever analysis you're claiming on education accounts, btw. Sure, they may be leveraging education accounts to get other 'paid' contracts, but they. are. not. monetizing. student. data. While I am myself a little bit of a cynic, sometimes it pays to tone down on the cynicism and see things in a slightly more positive light.

Pretty cool!

I'd also want to know what kinds of certain vegetables to get. For example, the difference between sweet tomatoes and sour tomatoes is the difference between a loved friend and a great cook, and an idiot who shouldn't have been let into the kitchen ; ). Same with the different kinds of onions, and so forth. While, as they are, the 'what to buy' list is moderately useful, it would be 100x more if we had greater details!

Edit: Want to add something else. Haha, it shows ginger ale and red pepper as one of the worst combinations. It feels that someone should experiment, and make something good out of that. It doesn't feel too wrong (as wrong as, say, soft cheese and yogurt).

1. Duude, I'm all along with you except your hate of the "PC crowd". Stop complaining, start working. Not helpful to the conversation.

2. I used to be uhh a foreign national in the U.S (as I still am), and assumed it was a known fact that Chinese nationals often buy their way through college. Somewhat related: Northeastern and their special- Chinese-student program that gives 4-year US degrees with 0 knowledge of English.

3. It is not necessarily something to complain about, as long as it doesn't COMPLETE dilute the value of the degrees concerned. AFAIK, Chinese students (NOT Chinese American, mind) are the only students who will often pay 100% of the feels, with no request for scholarships. So to look at it the other way, you're subsidizing smarter students by taking in slightly less smart students (tbh, most Chinese students are extremely competitive, so we shouldn't be generalizing.)

1. What study? Show 3 examples from reputable sources. 2. Soo... how do latina/white women magically end up in a lesser-paying profession? The counter to the 'but they like women's studies and teaching' is to remind you that women used to be a larger proportion in CS.

Most people who argue for wage-equality are arguing for a more fundamental change: how come women and minorities -- the traditionally oppressed groups -- just happen to have lower-paid fields? You attempt to dismiss it by arguing that since the type of work done is different, it's not an issue worth considering.

Naaahh, those OBJECTIVE TRUTHFUL REAL Vulcans have anecdotal evidence to accuse "bullshit PC research". I would like to challenge the GP to post THREE pieces of research published in a journal that you would otherwise consider prestigious, to prove your point.

TO GP: There may be /are persons who argue that, of course. Don't pretend to be an 'objective'/impartial judge yourself.

Are there any more popular twitter-like alternatives? I'm aware of Ello, but from what I'm told, too much of the uhh 'artistic community' for me to truly enjoy (my artist friends have unsuccessfully tried persuading me to join).

...my strategy on the other hand, is to drag one conversation over days/weeks, with several hours/days of (not intentional) gaps in between, and act as if it's a single ongoing unbroken conversation.

Not the optimal strategy, but I'm amazed that a ball of grains, dairy and fruits managed to get that for anyway, so everything is a win.

Hopefully all the child posts will see this too.

TO edit the hosts file, you need to have admin privileges. That means closing whatever editor you're using, reopening it with 'run as administrator', and then opening the hosts file. You need to do this even if you are an admin account.

Another way to do it is to open the hosts file under normal editing privileges, editing it, saving it somewhere else, and pasting it into the drivers folder. The system will ask you if you want to run as admin, and you need to say 'yes'.

Nothing could (or should, I guess) be changing the hosts file otherwise (AFAIK, my source being many, many SO posts and random forums) without it being given explicit admin privileges when it attempts to change the file.

Naah. As I mention in a comment elsewhere in the thread, this makes twitter into more of a popularity contest from a 'creator' point of view. Right now, you're pretty much guaranteed your friends will see your feed no matter what. Once they opt-in, (and don't remember/bother to opt in me into their 'real' feed) my voice is lost in the cacophony of other celebs. What this is essentially doing is fragmenting the core twitter experience that most users are currently in for, for a more fb-like feature. It matters to you even if you don't opt in, because that changes how your friends see your tweets.

As the resident Twitter fanboy, I'd like to point out something most people here (and elsewhere) who support the change seem to be missing out.

We (Twitter users) are not as much worried about our stream being polluted, as much as OUR tweets not being seen. Currently, as long as people are online, there's a certain guarantee that they will see it. You don't need to reach out for popularity, because they'll see it anyway. Once it becomes an algorithmically-defined popularity contest, it gets very similar to Facebook, something that most of die-hard twitter fans don't want this to be.

Yes, we think the 'algorithmic' feed is going to suck in terms of our streams, but also that our tweets will get lost in all the celebrity noise. Twitter reallllyyy doesn't seem to get that aspect of the complaints. This is more of a celeb-pandering move than to improve user experience.

So by giving my followers the option only see popularly selected tweets, you're already shutting them off me. Yeah, they may not always like my tweets, but they would like to see them once in a while (as I will want them to).

To summarize: We (existing twitter users) had a contract, an expectation-- that our timelines were going to be chronological, and we would see everything. Twitter is trying to change that, and changing our expectations WHILE we are using it. My guess is, it thinks the 'network effect' makes it too big to fail, and doing this will bring in more of the fb-crowd. By doing this, it is alienating us those who were here for precisely 'not-like-fb' features.

I am mad. Very mad. If this is made the default, this is going to be another 'google-killed-reader' rage.

Yeeshh. I should to see a therapist for _that_ if nothing else. All that meta-ness, which I guess might(?) arise from insecurity, often makes me stop saying things other people would say, because I'm too conscious about the 'meta-ness'. People sort of use the heuristic that the 'metaness' is a quick way to identify a weirdo, so I often present myself as a lovable unknowing buffoon instead. Or maybe none of it is true, and I just make these things up to make myself feel better about myself.. Hmmm...

See what I mean? ; )

As usual, the trick while reading these is to replace 'millennial' with 'people younger and more attractive than I am'. Also applies to people who begin sentences with 'I am technically a millennial but..'.

Wasn't it plato or Socrates who complained about those damn young people who are good for nothing, complain about everything, and can't even speak proper Greek?

To their credit though, the Greek civilization DID fall soon-ish, so maybe the YOUNGs are _really_ screwy idiots who are NOT on fleek.

EDIT: Apparently I'd misunderstood the meaning of 'on fleek' for a long time.

Nice! May I ask if you collected those manually? Perhaps they should be sorted/divided according to the genre they're from? Books/Movies/Tv-shows, etc?

This list made be realize a sort-of annoying (sometimes) tendency I seem to have developed. It appears that my first reaction to cool things is now not wonder but 'I need to engineer the shit out of fit'.My first thought after looking at the list was not 'wow, cool', but more of 'so if I use Named Entity Recognition, and a large corpus, I could have tens of thousands of such names in hours. Maybe I can catch up on computational linguistics literature on the issue, and even identify the relative importance of characters on the text. Should be a day-long project'. Need to learn to enjoy things for what they are, sigh.

Here's a question I've always wanted to ask someone about electric cars: Why don't the companies make cars with detachable batteries, and basically do a battery 'swap' in the charging stations, so that the charging time becomes very little, if people want to?

> 538 and other sites that just do stats can easily just have a giant number database that output correlations for click's sake.

Ahh, there you see the problem! you can also output all harry potter novels from digits of pi, but that doesn't get anyone anywhere. : ) The entire point of a good content producer is to understand what the customer needs, and put it out, NOW. So I'd imagine 538 will be automated about when computers start writing Harry Potter equivalents.

Chris Blattman quotes this really nice research that says that employment by itself does not explain inclusiveness.

Link: http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2015/11/ide...

Here's the money quote (posted elsewhere in the thread too):

>Here is Verwimp:

>Belgium has a very elaborate welfare state. All citizens have health coverage, schools and universities charge no or few fees, child benefits, unemployment benefits, pensions, are all in place. But this comes at a cost of a closed labour market, meaning a labour system that heavily protects those who are in, but makes entry for newcomers very difficult.

>It does not seem to be poverty, but exclusion. Philip wrote to me:

>One of my students from African origin, graduating from our MA program, told me (before the Paris attacks) « it is easier to get unemployment benefits in Belgium than to get a job ». He decided to move to Canada. That summarises it. Migrants and their families have full access to the allocations of the welfare state, but face daunting challenges when they want to get ahead in life.

>…I am not looking at individual factors to join IS, as young adults across European cities many share similar reasons, but for ‘structural’ factors that make the situation different in some countries compared to others.

I meant Chris Blattman, oops!

Money quote from the link: Here is Verwimp:

Belgium has a very elaborate welfare state. All citizens have health coverage, schools and universities charge no or few fees, child benefits, unemployment benefits, pensions, are all in place. But this comes at a cost of a closed labour market, meaning a labour system that heavily protects those who are in, but makes entry for newcomers very difficult.

It does not seem to be poverty, but exclusion. Philip wrote to me:

One of my students from African origin, graduating from our MA program, told me (before the Paris attacks) « it is easier to get unemployment benefits in Belgium than to get a job ». He decided to move to Canada. That summarises it. Migrants and their families have full access to the allocations of the welfare state, but face daunting challenges when they want to get ahead in life.

…I am not looking at individual factors to join IS, as young adults across European cities many share similar reasons, but for ‘structural’ factors that make the situation different in some countries compared to others.

Here's the link I saw the other day:

https://chrisblattman.com/2015/12/01/this-graph-says-the-wel...

Here's the link (I meant Chris Blattman, not Tyler Cowen. Sorry for misleading, people!):

https://chrisblattman.com/2015/12/01/this-graph-says-the-wel...

A really good example to look at is (apparently) the case of how Arab migrants feel 'included' in Belgium vs. in Canada.

Apparently, in Belgium, the welfare system is targeted towards providing financial incentives to less-fortunate people, awhile the Canadian welfare system is more directed towards 'fulfilling life'. Apparently a lot of immigrants to Belgium migrate to Canada even if they make more 'free' money in Belgium, because of this reason. Tyler Cowen's written a bit about it, and you might need to look it up, but I found it verrry interesting.

I wanted to post this as a child to @gist's comment, but since there are a lot of comments similar to yours, I'll put it as your child.

>"I've never encountered a problem big enough that would want me to do this and rather than start a company for the hell of it, I've just stayed put"

Fuck[1] those who make you feel bad that way. It is RIDICULOUS that working reasonable hours a week, doing a challenging (or not), but stable job, great benefits, and being rewarded for loyalty is now LOOKED DOWN UPON! Your entire life is not a challenge to see who can push the hardest, 'solve' the most problems, start many companies, etcetera. You should do what makes you happy. Honestly. And if that means starting a company, go for it. If you're not so inclined, don't fret over it.

I have realized that the problems will come to you if you look for them. Like, random ideas. For example, you will see in my comment history that I often suggest ridiculous business ideas as solutions to my problems/something I want. If you want something/aren't satisfied with some kind of stuff, maybe you should work on a solution, and try to sell it to people with problems you faced? You may not make a lot of money, or any profit, but might make yeah happy, and give you the satisfaction of having started something.

In a related note, in one of my previous comments I mention JuJu Dhau, this awesome/incredible yogurt from Bhaktapur, Nepal. If you/anyone wants to start a yogurt business to make that (I'm assuming U.S), I'd be a sleeping/reasonably active partner for a little bit of money. Just throwing ideas out there... : )

1. Does HN have a swearing policy? In either case, I mean in the figurative sense anyway.

Ohh man, this is too good!

While I vehemently disagree with you (without much emotional connection though. Don't mind losing this one), this is STRAIGHT out of 19th century Russian novels. In particular, I'm thinking Turgenev's 'Fathers And Sons'[1]. In it, the university-educated, 'modern' characters, the nihilistic scientific men present very similar views. 'Science can explain away everything, that is what reality is', they proclaim, dismissing any sort of philosophical arguments (rather arrogantly, IMHO, but we can argue over that). It's kind of longwinded (aren't they all, with the exception of Chekov?), but HIGHLY recommended. You get the same sense of change and revolution, and 'waiting for great things to happen' in the novel as I often see in futurists these days.

I don't want to cheapen the experience, but this high-school-level summary sums it up reasonably well[2]:

>The main character of Fathers and Sons, Bazarov, does not want to occupy a philosophical position. Yet nihilism, whether he likes it or not, is a philosophy, a philosophy of destruction and renunciation. Bazarov is such an intellectual character that throughout the novel we see him struggle to understand each new situation in which he is put. Yet, from his intellectual point of view, he renounces romance and many other human values that make life worth living. Part of the drama of the novel is watching how Bazarov can go on living with his philosophy.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fathers_and_Sons_(novel)

2. http://www.shmoop.com/fathers-and-sons/philosophical-viewpoi...