Hacker News Reader

kabousengon Who cares about the Ivy League?

Wow! Not sure how to even start with a reply...

"It is not that being optimistic leads to success..."

How do you know the casual relationship?

kabousengon South Africa suspends rollout of Oxford-AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine

I have also had these same thoughts, and in some ways the USA is today where South Africa was in the late 80's. Time will tell how the USA handles its domestic crisis.

kabousengon McKinsey to pay $573M to settle claims over opioid crisis role: source

Absolutely agree. But to be fair, the problems started with the appointment of useless political cronies as heads of these organisation's, who then used the consultants to help themselves with paybacks, commissions and corrupt deals.

kabousengon Mahatma Gandhi's killer venerated as Hindu nationalism resurges in India

Really??? Which borders? What seperates Germany from France from Turkey? Why not throw all of them together.

Why not go all the way, and add Russia to the mix? Do you foresee this being practical in the real world?

Which takes us back to my original comment on the OP's post, whom decry'ed nationalism as evil. And me saying that statement as being too simplistic a take on reality.

kabousengon Mahatma Gandhi's killer venerated as Hindu nationalism resurges in India

Ok so please enlighten me on what basis nations should form?

The whole basis of a nation is the creation of an in group and an out group.

kabousengon Mahatma Gandhi's killer venerated as Hindu nationalism resurges in India

*Response to your edit

"That's not nationalism."

No, what follows is your definition of nationalism. From the Oxford dictionary:

Nationalism:

the desire by a group of people who share the same race, culture, language, etc. to form an independent country Scottish nationalism

(sometimes disapproving) a feeling of love for and pride in your country; a feeling that your country is better than any other.

"Nationalism is the belief that the group you're part of (usually tied to some national identity myth) is superior to others, and usually goes hand-in-hand with xenophobia, racism, bigotry, and fascism."

The rest of your argument is a straw man. Obviously anyone would denounce xenophobia, racism, bigotry, and fascism and all the other vile actions you mention.

And please don't edit your original comment to change the context, continue the conversation down stream in the comments section.

kabousengon Mahatma Gandhi's killer venerated as Hindu nationalism resurges in India

Well sure, but that is a bit of a simplistic take on the matter.

If you could trust in the goodness and decency of external actors, or if all of humanity was super-rational, then there would be no need for nationalism or perhaps even nation states.

But humanity is not super rational, politicians will use sentiments including nationalism to gain power, and just wishing it away will not make it so that all humans suddenly become trustworthy or super rational, thus the need for nationalism and nation states to bring about a hopefully stable balance of power.

kabousengon George Orwell’s 1984 through a neuroscience lens

And by writing the appendix, he re-enabled that time line since everyone was assured of the inevitable fall of English socialism...

kabousengon The Nobel Peace Prize 2020

For example someone like Obama...?

kabousengon Smart Cow Collars

Reminds me of a tale here in South Africa. An ostrich farmer contracted an electronics company to develop a product to determine which of his ostriches were sick. The company realised that a sick ostrich do not eat, and as such developed a neck band with a tilt sensor, to detect which ostriches were not eating. Great, problem solved. Except now you have to seperate the sick ostriches from the healthy ones. And the farmer said he will put food in a connected camp, and as the ostriches move between camps, he will seperate the sick ones from the healthy ones. Except the sick ones weren't interested in food, and thus automatically stayed behind in the camp, also negating the need for the original electronic neck band.

kabousengon Sid Meier: “I don’t think I could make Civilisation today”

The problen with Stellaris is the 101 add-on pack sold seperately. It feels like they are milking the customer and getting all add-ons can be very expensive.

kabousengon How two British orthodontists became celebrities to incels

Jerky easily gets stuck between the teeth, requiring flossing to get out. Children ain't great at daily flossing, leading to tooth cavities.

kabousengon Former Zoox employees sue, alleging rival offer was better than Amazon's

Don't compete on salary / money alone.

Make the company attractive by providing other advantages, such as an interesting problem to work on, interesting technology, being part of a great team, the excellent experience the engineer will receive (not just closing bug tickets), a closable door office for each engineer etc.

If you are going to compete on salary / options alone, you are also going to get candidates for whom that is also the only criteria evaluating a job.

kabousengon Blog Anonymously

James Damore certainly lost.

kabousengon Ask HN: What weird or hard problems are you trying to solve?

https://xkcd.com/927/

But in all seriousness, best of luck to you. I hope you create a truly revolutionary product.

kabousengon Finland to abandon school subjects in favour of phenomenon-based learning (2016)

Let me be the one risking your ire and criticize your and GP viewpoints...

Let me start off by asking if either yourself or GP have kids of your own, and just mention for a short moment, talking about how hypocritical parents are, while judging them while not having kids of your own, well...

The fact is, kids take up a lot of your time, and I mean really a lot. No you are not prepared for how much of your time kids take up. While you decided to have kids, you still have hopes and ambitions of your own, and would still like to be the master of how you spend your own time to some degree.

So in order for sanity to prevail, and for parents to be able to work a job and not have to look after their kids the whole time, society created the schooling system. This systems main purpose is to take care of the children while the parents can earn an income, and the secondary purpose is to provide an education while looking after the kids.

Can this system be optimised? Sure. But who has time? Certainly not the parents.

And the points I am making above, are being realised by a hell of a lot of parents trying to work from home while having to home school the kids at the same time...

kabousengon Chloroquine has shown apparent efficacy in treatment of Covid-19

I think you have a very Hollywood view of African societies...

kabousengon Czech Passive Radar Detecting B-2 at 150 miles (2015)

Well it's passive radar. So you don't have to outperform the stand-off range of the target, since you are invisible to the plane too.

kabousengon Ask HN: How do we stop the polarization/toxicicity filling the web?

>>In reply to child post by oneplane

Hey welcome to the culture war :D The trick is not to take it too seriously. Also South park is an amazing resource / commentary on it... :D

kabousengon Ask HN: How do we stop the polarization/toxicicity filling the web?

And then something like Trump or Brexit happens, and the left had no idea it was coming because a lot of people's viewpoints were silenced / deplatformed....

kabousengon Ask HN: How do we stop the polarization/toxicicity filling the web?

This might sound mean because it is text, but it isn't, it's just answering your question. But the word (actually term) you're looking for is social justice warrior.

kabousengon Ask HN: How do we stop the polarization/toxicicity filling the web?

Or... toxic might be someone who is oversensitive, unable to accept other people have different viewpoints, and retreats to their safe space whenever someone disagrees with their world view...

kabousengon New antiviral treatment made from sugar

Do humans / animals require viruses like we require bacteria to function?

kabousengon Video Gaming Will Take Over

Well to be fair, the same is true of films and tv. Story arc# 1234, character development #2, twist #3. I am not sure though if it is true of books though. Possibly because the information is much more in books than can be fitted into a 2 hour film / 40 hour game.

kabousengon I Was Google’s Head of International Relations. Here’s Why I Left

"Do you not think that the ordinary people in South Africa have a better life today as a result of those sanctions and the collapse of the apartheid regime?"

Yes their lives are much better, just like the Zimbabweans.

kabousengon About Bokeh

>>This actually matters a lot, because other than this, mirrors are superior to refractive glass lenses in almost every way

No. Reflective designs (mirrors) are usually of the casigrain type, and casigrain designs offer very narrow but limited zoom range field of views. This is at the cost of obscuration of the secondary mirror. Note that there are still refractive elements (lenses) in a casigrain design. This very narrow fov is why such designs are prefered in telescopes and other narrow fov application areas.

The majority of lens designs are refractive and this should give you an indication that a statement such as mirrors are superior to refractive designs simply is not true.

Edit - added application areas

kabousengon China gene-edited baby experiment 'may have created unintended mutations'

I understand that these tests require withdrawing amniotic fluid to analise, and / or getting genetic material from the fetus itself. And my understanding is also that to get the amniotic fluid carries fairly moderate risks of infection etc for the fetus so these screenings aren't necessarily done because of the risks not to mention the costs involved.

kabousengon A Siberian mammoth tusk gold rush

And copyright infringed.

kabousengon US steps up efforts to limit China’s control of critical minerals

A strategic cache is typically set up not to support normal economic activities or consumer manufacturing, but war time supplies of military equipment.