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rotrux

231 karma · joined May 9, 2016

I do sales but don't hate me please. Communication is an important thing! I'm learning how to code, so don't make fun of me or I'll communicate you right in your face.
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rotrux··on Ask HN: Moving from a startup to a big co, what should I be aware of?
Patience and Compromise are your two new best friends.
rotrux··on Why we have so many problems with our teeth
A)Teeth are sorta like regular ol' bones 'cept they're on the outside of your body and their purpose is to grind things. B) You don't really need all of them to survive + evolution. C) Humans live a really long time now and we just expect our mashy-grinders to keep up? D) Enamel doesn't like sugar which is in everything.

Bam. Scientific American here I come.

rotrux··on What's so hard about PDF text extraction?
This piece is extremely readable. Kudos to the author.
rotrux··on Andreessen-Horowitz craps on “AI” startups from a great height
This is a terrific article. Two thumbs up.
rotrux··on Ask HN: How did you fix your narcissism?
To help develop your capacity for empathy (which is a skill you can work on) I suggest actively envisioning situations from other peoples' perspectives.

For example, say you have some delicate news you need to deliver to a coworker. Follow these steps: A) Close your eyes, B) construct the situation in your head, C) take the role of your coworker, and D) imagine delivering the news to yourself. It's impossible to do this 100% correctly because you are not your coworker but you'll get more than you'd think from exercise.

This is especially true if you practice step C).

rotrux··on AI thinks like a corporation (2018)
AI thinks like a corporation in the sense that neither really thinks. One is misleading buzzword for modern computer-driven pattern recognition & the other is a legal label for a group of people trying to make money together. This premise is kind of silly.
rotrux··on My Business Card Runs Linux
@paxys - Not sure what purpose you're referring to. Sure, purchasing them would defeat the purpose of making your own business card, but not the traditional purpose of having a business card that's cool & which doesn't immediately get tossed in the garbage after you give it out.

I imagine these aren't for sale, but I'm just throwing it out there that I would prly buy them if they were.

rotrux··on My Business Card Runs Linux
Hey @rcarmo - So you're gonna sell these right? Bc I'll take way more than I ever previously thought I would spend on business cards.
rotrux··on Why Nukemap Isn't on Google Maps Anymore
Google maps is only profitable on the basis of advertising syndication & data collection. If you're not pumping google information about how people are using your map service or directing people to the sites of google's ads customers, they are probably losing money by serving you.

The issue is similar to the one that ruined their custom search offering: it doesn't make them enough money to justify its existence as anything more than a public service. Unless charity is what Google had in mind when they launched the api, their behavior makes business sense.

rotrux··on Student Loans a Lot Like the Subprime Mortgage Debacle, Watchdog Says
People have been talking about this for at least a decade & I wonder when the shoe will actually drop.
rotrux··on If the universe is 13.8B years old, how can we see 46B light years away? (2018)
Right - It is not clear how we can see something more than 13.8B ly away since it would take more than 13.8B years for signals of its existence to reach us. From our frame of reference, that would mean the emission started before the big bang.
rotrux··on The world needs more search engines
The world needs more ways to navigate the internet is what it needs. An intuitive tool that helps me stay on track and/or helps me remember what the hell I did would be preferable.

The mystery-box-that-reads-my-mind-then-poops-out-links model feels increasingly clumsy as the years go by.

rotrux··on Adobe deactivates all Venezuelan accounts
I am confused. Executive Order 13884 concerns only the government of Venezuela & about 150 specific people/companies in Venezuela. Am I misreading this order or did Adobe?

PDF: https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/Programs/...

rotrux··on Don't Let Congress Hand Patent Abusers Their Ultimate Wishlist
> The fundamental problem which seems to be recurring is that the system is generally hostile towards consumer interests.

I think you're really close, but have specified the inverse of the fundamental problem. The system is generally dominated by seller interests. There is no consumer advocacy on the level of corporate advocacy.

rotrux··on Day Trading for a Living?
The subject of this post should be changed to remove "impossible."
rotrux··on US city rejects $5.3M ransom demand and restores encrypted files from backup
No dude youd end up arresting and trying people who do not deserve literally anything that was happening to them.
rotrux··on Katy Perry's Dark Horse Lawsuit Makes Waves in Music Industry
> "I wonder at what point similarities with past works becomes inevitable."

This question gets at the crux of the problem; its answer depends entirely on "what are the atomic constituents of a musical work?"

With consensus around a legal catalog of sounds, you could use reasonable assumptions to estimate a year by which all musicians have a 99.999% chance of being dirty-dirty infringing criminals.

rotrux··on Facebook's fake account problem
This is no longer news.
rotrux··on Attorney general: Americans should accept security risks of encryption backdoors
Right because that wouldn't become a massive problem at the worst possible time.
rotrux··on Possible link between sugary drinks and cancer
Possible link between aspartame and cancer. Possible link between non-sweet drinks and cancer.

Possible link between enjoying yourself ever and cancer.

rotrux··on The case against plant consciousness
By this definition my air conditioning system is conscious.
rotrux··on The case against plant consciousness
> "If plants have no consciousness, does that make them any less worthy of care?"

No it doesn't, but that's not what's at debate. The fact anyone needed to be told plants aren't conscious is kind of crazy.

There's an insinuation that level-of-consciousness is the measure by which we should judge the importance of organisms. This is an anthropocentric view of life, and a shallow one at that.

rotrux··on US military is a bigger polluter than as many as 140 countries
> "...our miliitary budget is just another cold war era echo..." - No, it's more complicated than that. You're ignoring all current geopolitics.

> "...the ignorant notion that our public officials are moral actors..." - Yes good point. Politicians are inherently evil. We should just let Walmart run the country.

> "We have to be brave and fight back or else..." - Gotta love militant pacifism.

rotrux··on White House weighs encryption crackdown
Agree. This is more of a 4th-ammendment "The right of the people to be secure...against unreasonable searches and seizures" issue.

It would be like federally outlawing clothes to make sure no one in America has a gun. Also, and aside from the whole premise being unconstitutional, shallow, & generally kind of silly, enforcement would be just about impossible.

rotrux··on Servo, the Parallel Browser Engine Project
Forgive my webdev nievete, but what exactly is a Browser Engine, and how is it different from a browser? Is this like selenium? What's the use-case? Why is parallelism important in this context?
rotrux··on How to parent more predictably (2018)
I think it's better to be unpredictable.

Once or twice a year I like to throw my kids into a pit-maze, which I've been digging for the past several months, and fill it with various kinds of dangerous creatures and turn on strobe lights.

Do they hate it? Sure the ones who make it out definitely do, but that's life. I'm preparing them for life.

rotrux··on Apple Is Listening
I can't figure out how to delete this. Pretend I didn't say it.
rotrux··on Apple Is Listening
Gotta love posts with more comments than votes.

Steve Jobbs was a visionary tyrant who miraculously knew all this shit. They better be listening.

rotrux··on Identity Is Dead
> "Also people want to be themselves - and want others to be themselves..."

No, but nice try. Maybe in some circumstances, maybe even several, but this isn't THE concern online. Anonymity is not always bad.

Anyhow my main issue with what you've said is how you've glossed over how you think the author is wrong. What are some reasons attributes are a poor substitution for identity as described?

rotrux··on Schools Are Deploying Digital Surveillance Systems
It's an anecdote. Overzealous policing has happened in lots of democracies for centuries.
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