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strawcomb

154 karma · joined July 8, 2017

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strawcomb··on Ask HN: Do I place the fan so that it blows air inwards or outwards?
Fans -> cool human via wind-chill [1]

Air conditioning -> cool human by cooling environment

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_chill

strawcomb··on GPUs Mine Astronomical Datasets for Golden Insight Nuggets
'How are your Golden Insight Nuggets today?'

'I've been collecting all these great Golden Insight Nuggets.'

God it's horrible.

Why not just: "GPUs Mine Astronomical Datasets for Golden Insights"

strawcomb··on The Cambridge Analytica scandal isn’t a scandal: this is how Facebook works
Some examples: they admit in interviews to lying to obtain votes. They propose entrapping their client's opponents by bringing girls to them, or by giving them an offer 'too good to be true'. They give the impression there isn't much they won't do.
strawcomb··on The Cambridge Analytica scandal isn’t a scandal: this is how Facebook works
Why is CA so evil? There's just been an expose:

https://www.channel4.com/news/cambridge-analytica-revealed-t...

strawcomb··on Show HN: Word2Bits – Quantized Word Vectors
What a great quantitative evaluation of bias you just carried out.
strawcomb··on American using Britain’s NHS (2015)
It's actually one of the best value health care systems.. Sadly it is being made inefficient by the current government.

If we are going by anecdotal evidence, the NHS has been absolutely brilliant for me.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/jul/14/nhs-holds-on...

strawcomb··on Why Do We Sleep Under Blankets, Even on the Hottest Nights? (2017)
> work for cats and dogs That could still be conditioning.

> deep pressure touch improves subjective relaxation That could still be conditioning.

I'm not saying it definitely is conditioning, but I don't see enough evidence to rule it out.

For example, these animals could associate the pressure with the warmth and comfort of being the in the womb. So in a way they've been conditioned by being in the womb. Maybe animals grown in a 'test tube' wouldn't give the same results.

strawcomb··on Why Do We Sleep Under Blankets, Even on the Hottest Nights? (2017)
> a weighted blanket can trigger an uptick in the brain’s production of serotonin

Surely that could be a result of conditioning.

strawcomb··on Preparing for Malicious Uses of AI
Going fully digital with info, verifying with blockchain is all well and good, until a malicious actor forbids/prevents people from using blockchain somehow. if you've gone fully digital at that stage, you're in trouble
strawcomb··on Preparing for Malicious Uses of AI
I would suggest that we shouldn't ever rely on digital archiving of important information. There should always be a copy of the information in analog, that can be dated & verified with analog methods.
strawcomb··on Why Are Some People More Creative Than Others?
> if a person tries and fails and I never try; at the end of the day we're both in the same place, no?

What a bizarre statement. This is a generalisation that can easily be shown to be false. If I try and win Gold at the olympics, but fail (only winning silver), I am in a completely different place from you who never tried. There's a million other counter examples.

strawcomb··on Using Artificial Intelligence to Augment Human Intelligence
So far the generative models I've seen (VAEs, GANs) really just seem to morph between images.
strawcomb··on Maintaining an Independent Browser Is Expensive
Do you want one already very large company to be the only browser provider? That company could start to make its implementation less user friendly/less friendly to competition; but users would have no alternative but to use it. e.g. "Let's track everyone's usage, and prevent adblockers".

Not sure that applies to language implementations. Imagine if C++ started trying to send user data to some organisation.

strawcomb··on Joplin – A note-taking and to-do app with builds for desktop, mobile, terminal
That is useful, thanks!
strawcomb··on Joplin – A note-taking and to-do app with builds for desktop, mobile, terminal
I also use Keep and agree it's not ideal. Would be nice to easily export all the notes to file. Would be even nicer if could store and make changes to notes on local filesystem and have them sync to cloud, google drive style.
strawcomb··on Google faces UK legal action for bypassing iPhone privacy settings to target ads
From the article:

> The complaint is that for several months in 2011 and 2012 Google placed ad-tracking cookies on the devices of Safari users which is set by default to block such cookies.

Seems they used cookies for tracking despite Safari supposedly disabling those kind of cookies.

strawcomb··on What if consciousness is not what drives the human mind?
> We suggest that our personal awareness does not create, cause or choose our beliefs, feelings or perceptions. Instead, the contents of consciousness are generated “behind the scenes” by fast, efficient, non-conscious systems in our brains.

My consciousness prefers to think that it is the one in control, and any suggestion to the contrary makes my consciousness uncomfortable.

strawcomb··on How Queen and Pink Floyd were judged before they were famous
I also thought the delivery was pretty good. But found the image quality too low to easily read the notes in the background (and would also have liked audio for the videos).
strawcomb··on Matrix Calculus
Matlab/octave
strawcomb··on Ask HN: How does one overcome the need for instant gratification?
Some things I'd recommend, off the top of my head:

- Do not grab phone/computer etc. and mindlessly browse first thing in the morning. (Or before bed. Or at any time really.) But doing it first thing really starts your day on the wrong foot.

- When seeking to relax, do not mindlessly browse the internet/social-media/tv. Read an enjoyable book. This is an order of magnitude more fulfilling and beneficial to you. And genuinely more relaxing: screens are stimulating, and might let you 'relax' in the sense that you can momentarily be completely absorbed in something 'other', and forget your day to day life; but they don't relax you in the sense of being calm and contemplative (in general, in my experience).

- Reduce instant gratification from as many areas as possible. Do things that are rewarding longer term. Like reading, cooking, growing plants, hiking, etc.

- Cut video games.

- Block facebook + reddit + sites you waste a lot of time on, from main computer. Maybe have a secondary device you use to access these sites, for a set period each day (I recommend this mainly because it can be quite difficult to maintain a social life without facebook, (which is a terrible state of affairs)). Have days where you don't go onto these sites at all.

- Spend as little time on screens as is possible -> if you can work on paper do so

- have a regular exercise regime. eg. swim/run. Doing first thing in the morning really helps set your day on the right track, you have already exerted a good amount of self discipline, and achieved something, and this makes it easier to continue being disciplined.

- I recommend reading 'The Power of Habit'.

strawcomb··on Photos of Mosul 2017
I'm sorry, but where is the whining? He simply said that no-one would buy his work, and that he felt he owed it to the people who kindly shared some of their lives with him to try and get their story out there. The headline 'no one would buy my photos...' is catchy, truthful, and has obviously been effective at drawing attention.