coffeecat

> I think the reason most people are suspicious of those who don't work for a living is fairness: we all benefit from the many goods and services that our society produces, so we all should contribute our fair share to producing them.

This implies that an employee of a firm like Renaissance Technologies should have the same social status as an unemployed welfare recipient; I do not believe this is the case in our society.

Assume that the reaction rate (shelf life) versus temperature relationship is described by the Arrhenius equation or some other model; perform experiments at elevated temperatures, and extrapolate to lower temperatures.

Frying (and cooking in general) is absolutely a type of processing. It generally degrades a food's micro-nutrient content to at least some extent (chemical breakdown of vitamins due to the high temperature, and leaching of nutrients in the case of boiling).

That's not to say we shouldn't cook our food (and in some cases cooking can make food more nutritious by destroying anti-nutrients like phytic acid), but we should be aware of how the cooking time, temperature, and method affect nutrient content. Boiled vegetables are generally going to be less nutritious than steamed vegetables, for example.

And of course, frying tends to use industrially produced oils which are highly processed. Oily foods like avocados that you find in nature are going to have some fiber and other nutrients; the process of removing all that to produce pure oil is a form of processing.

> Lard doesn't contain trans fats, which is what fast food is full of.

The FDA has banned partially hydrogenated oils (artificial trans-fat) in the US. The phase-out process won't be 100% complete until January 1 (certain specifically exempted products containing trace amounts can still be sold until then), but for the vast majority of PHO-containing foods, 2018 was the last year that they could be manufactured and 2019 was the last year that they could be sold (in the US).

> Do you have anything concrete to back that up?

No evidence is needed, as it's not a concrete claim. In modern US political parlance, the term "Russian asset" is a spooky-sounding but otherwise meaningless term. It's a cheap-but-effective rhetorical trick for discrediting someone.

It appears to me (based on the morningstar citation) that the SHE fund under-performs the index that it tracks, which is a gender-diversity index. So unless I'm missing something, this tells us nothing except that SHE's performance has been lousy relative to the SSGA gender-diversity index.

I object to the description of lesser-known artists as "wannabe". Mainstream commercial popularity results from a combination of luck, connections, and palatability for mainstream tastes. Vast numbers of talented, passionate artists will never achieve mainstream popularity because they don't strive for it or because the selection process is mostly arbitrary.

> The only thing left is bad user experience linux.

I occasionally have to use a Macbook for work. The last thing I want when I'm trying to get work done is: an unsolicited notification that OS updates are available, with no direct option to decline to update and dismiss the notification. I'd much rather update my system by issuing "pacman -Syu" on my own terms, and I consider Linux distros to offer a superior user experience in this regard.

The kind of cynicism that Russell discusses is also very explicit in the book of Ecclesiastes.

  The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.
  Is there any thing whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it hath been already of old time, which was before us.
  There is no remembrance of former things; neither shall there be any remembrance of things that are to come with those that shall come after.
  I the Preacher was king over Israel in Jerusalem.
  And I gave my heart to seek and search out by wisdom concerning all things that are done under heaven: this sore travail hath God given to the sons of man to be exercised therewith.
  I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and, behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit.

Excellent observation. I expect this is one problem among many which would be solved by a UBI or some other form of guaranteed economic security.

But isn't this abstract notion of improvement supposed to be the entire point of education? It feels to me like education's purpose is undermined by its role as a prerequisite for a middle-class career. "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure."

Yes, I've done Linux installations on UEFI hardware using dd'ed iso images. What are these modern prep tools, and what could they possibly be doing that dd can't do?

I partially disagree. Verbal communication requires people to do at least some degree of thinking if they want to respond to a view that they disagree with. Whereas social media allows people to "participate" in a discussion (in the sense that they produce feedback which influences the course of the discussion) using a mode of thought that can be summarized as "does this make me feel like pressing the upvote or the downvote button?"

I believe that this latter mode of participant-community interaction is especially conducive to echo chambers, because it reduces any kind of content to a one-dimensional axis: does the community like this, or does the community dislike this?

> About 90% to 98% of criminals take the plea.

Shouldn't that be 90 to 98% of charged suspects? The incentive to take the plea deal exists whether the suspect is actually guilty or not.

I disagree with the conclusion that qualified immunity is unimportant. It's one small facet of a system which encourages hostile policing. Others include the practice of exclusively hiring veterans, access to military gear, friendly relations between police and local officials, and the nature of their training and culture. To some extent, these things reinforce one another. I think the larger problem can only be addressed by tackling the smaller problems one-by-one.

One person did that (or possibly a small group; I'm not certain of the details). Are you suggesting that an entire nebulous, poorly-defined movement is responsible for one particular action by one particular person?

To take this meta-discussion a step further, I think this is the inevitable course of an argument where one group cares about X but not Y, and the other group cares about Y but not X. The two debaters won't have much to say to each other except "Let's talk about X", "No, let's talk about Y", etc. You can't have a structured debate unless both people care about the same thing and hold explicitly contrary views on it. But this is rarely the case in today's fragmented information landscape where different information sources emphasize different things.

Stating things nakedly, using the assumptions and perspective of the big guy, can be a powerful rhetorical style when advocating for the little guy. See any of Chomsky's political writing as an example.

It appears to me that the parent post was criticizing the ad-based business model - not endorsing it.

Wouldn't all previous releases be fork-able under the terms of the current GPL in that case?

I'd be interested to hear your story. I've never used psychedelic drugs, but I find their effects fascinating.

I've attempted to engage with people in ideological echo chambers not by citing any specific facts that contradict their beliefs, but by asking them to state their own beliefs using more specific and concrete language. "What exactly is your definition of communism?", "Has Bernie made any specific statements indicating that he supports that policy? If not, what leads you to infer that he does?", etc.

The results? No engagement at all.

I once had a disagreement with a colleague about a claim in a lab manual for undergraduates. About 10 seconds into the discussion, his instinctive reaction was "Does the internet say that's right?"

After speaking with the professor that teaches the class, his instinct was also to check that the internet says it's right before updating the lab manual. I had a simple argument based on a well-known formula, but ultimately it's the internet that decides whether it's right or not.

Yes, this announcement had me momentarily very excited until I realized that this is a proprietary offshoot and not a feature that had been added to PDF.js itself.

> Most people have never heard of GNU. Even most of the people who use the GNU system have never heard of GNU, since so many people and companies teach them to call it “Linux”. Indeed, GNU users often say they are “running Linux”, which is like saying you are “driving your carburetor” or “driving your transmission”.

Did Stallman really write this in 2006? Cars haven't had carburetors since the early 90s.

A gang of guys with weapons and a tank destroyed the home of a family who did nothing wrong, offering no compensation or apology afterward. And the shoplifter is the bad guy who society needs to be protected from?

It will lead to a new equilibrium for sure. Whether that equilibrium is more wealth than currently exists (due to the additional buying power in consumers' hands) or less wealth (due to increasing cost of labor), I don't claim to know. But in the latter case, this decrease in total wealth would be a result of a collective decision that we value our time more than unnecessary material shit. A leaner workforce would have the incentive of higher wages. So in either case (an increase or decrease in total wealth), I'd argue that we're better off for it.

Give people money, and most of it will get spent. That spending is income for someone, and that income is taxed. I don't understand this argument.

I think this is correct. The non-milk-drinkers had telomere lengths between those of the reduced-fat and the full-fat groups, which leads me to conclude that among milk-drinkers, those who go for the reduced-fat milk tend to live a healthier overall lifestyle. Those who go for the full-fat milk tend to live a less healthy lifestyle. The non-milk-drinker category is a mixed bag, since the preferred-fat-percent variable is lost.

I normally rinse my hair and scalp thoroughly with just water, working my hands around the scalp once or twice. I have a friend who uses baking soda as a shampoo substitute, but I've never felt the need to try it.