prev <-> next
[2011-02-15 12:27:53] - a: maybe just grepping for href, =" and </ or a few other simple regular expressions, and then having some kind of override, "no i really meant to post that" for edge cases - aaron
[2011-02-15 12:26:54] - a: i'd just write some "unit tests" and use, as input, miguel's bad links and a couple of my bad links from the past. and after you write your algorithm, just make sure those tests report "bad links" and that other message board posts don't return false positives. i don't think it needs to be airtight; just needs to work for practical scenarios. - aaron
[2011-02-15 12:20:47] - here's how the buzzing works, everybody is given a question, and then after a delay, a buzzer light turns on (or in watson's case, a virtual buzzer light) and they're allowed to buzz in - aaron
[2011-02-15 12:19:00] - he beat ken/brad to the buzzer like 80% of the time and it just seems like at that point the victory isn't really "i can think faster than you" but it's devolved to "i can respond to a fluctiation in an analog signal faster than you" - aaron
[2011-02-15 12:18:30] - aaron: assuming he only buzzes in once he knows an answer I'm ok with. The intereseting part is that it was able to come up with the answer fast enough. -Daniel
[2011-02-15 12:17:11] - if watson beat ken and brad, but he only won because of his buzzing speed (obviously, in <1 ms is beyond all hopes for human reaction time) would you still find the results meaningful? - aaron
[2011-02-15 11:38:46] - http://jessicainjeopardy.blogspot.com/2011/02/well-todays-day-watson-is-not-mobile.html here's a really impossible-to-read but comprehensive recap of watson on jeopardy. did anybody else catch it? - aaron
[2011-02-15 10:07:33] - paul: I would imagine through trial and error. - mig
[2011-02-15 09:33:28] - a: how'd you figure that out? does your wall have good tech support - aaron
[2011-02-15 09:16:26] - a: So your wall connection was throttling you? -Paul
[2011-02-15 01:59:32] - aaron/miguel/paul: it wasn't comcast's fault (probably not anyways). there was a faulty connection inside my wall. i'm on another coax wall connection and now pandora doesn't suck anymore. ~a
[2011-02-14 22:51:01] - a: yteah that's what i mean, don't fix them; just detect like, "oh, you posted a message that had href in it, but it wasn't a link." and maybe spit back an error message or a warning message; maybe just redirect to a page that says "bad html detected: " and barfs out the original message for copy/paste purposes - aaron
[2011-02-14 22:50:11] - http://i.imgur.com/dNVEU.jpg ahh web browsers are so cute - aaron
[2011-02-14 18:55:15] - right, so what should i do with the following examples: <a href="http://example.com/">test test test</b>, if 3<a => 2<a, <sarcasm>you are cool</sarcasm>. ~a
[2011-02-14 18:33:14] - aaron: ok, sounds good. what exactly do you want me to do, though? remove the tags completely? reject the post? also, how do i even know what constitutes a malformed post? for example, how do i know when somebody is just using a "<" character and when they were trying to create a link? in this specific case, it is trivial, but in general it's difficult. ~a
[2011-02-14 17:30:47] - mig: I should be good for some playing tonight. What time were you thinking? -Paul
[2011-02-14 17:28:32] - Vinnie: Haha, yeah. I completely agree with that. I think as somebody who has read the book, those over-the-top dramatic scenes don't seem quite as silly to me because I associate them with the (relatively) dramatic parts of the book. -Paul
[2011-02-14 16:38:53] - <href a= "why the <code/< long face aaron >/a? </odce>> its just some </mthl> <tags/> </wiki>
[2011-02-14 16:13:34] - a: hey, any chance that you could write a little code to detect malformed hyperlink/wikilink tags, and do something smart? it wouldn't have to like - fix them - but maybe if there's some trivial action to take... i'd settle for anything that wouldn't result in the butchered mboard post - aaron
[2011-02-14 16:09:47] - doh, wrong article. <a href="www.gosugamers.net/starcraft2/news/14507-new-ladder-maps-on-ptr-1-2-1">here's the right one</a>. - mig
[2011-02-14 16:07:38] - http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/64920 there's new ladder maps incoming to the next sc2 patch. - mig
[2011-02-14 15:15:20] - *** atlas shrugs
[2011-02-14 15:14:44] - xpovos: yeah i think for "battle APM", it's kind of the opposite trend; imho zerg players have less to do than any other race. terrans have to worry about stuff like stim and siege mode, protoss have to worry about force fields and blink. zerg pretty much just attack/retreat and try to get a good surround, that's about it. i guess that's the balance. - aaron
[2011-02-14 15:13:00] - but honestly, how do you sell a story like Atlas Shrugged as a movie? if the book is not dramatic, that trailer might have been the best they could do - vinnie
[2011-02-14 15:10:28] - I kept expecting a train to run off the the rails, or someone to point a gun at someone else, given the music and the high-action way it was edited. the most action-y shot they had was the protagonist splashing water in someone's face. it kind of reminded me of those fake trailers people put together to make a comedy movie look like a suspense movie - vinnie
[2011-02-14 15:07:11] - paul: I actually don't mind trailer cliches much, and that wasn't my problem with that trailer. I thought what they showed in that trailer didn't match the level of drama they were trying to convey via the cliches? for example, they've got this music that signifies suspense or action movie, but all the talk is about taxes, or shots of trains running... normally - vinnie
[2011-02-14 14:57:33] - speaking of the sc2, does anyone want to play sometime tonight? Tuesday and Thursday involve WoW raiding obligations for me, but any other day of the week usually is fine... - mig
[2011-02-14 14:50:55] - xpovos: it does not help that the wording on the tooltip for it is very confusing. - mig
[2011-02-14 14:49:46] - Spawn larvae wasn't easy to use because I didn't have a clue what I was doing with it at first. I cast it, it seemed to have no effect. So I cast it again and got an error message. WTF? Oh... there are egg sacs on my hatchery now. I see. Wait. Wait. Wait. Hatch... now I have larvae. -- Xpovos
[2011-02-14 14:46:19] - aaron: By the time I was really looking at APM it was battle sequences. I think part of it was my APM being bolstered by converting zerglings to banelings, but even then his APM was clearly low. Mine was lower than I'd like for now but I understand it, and there were flurries where it spiked enormously. -- Xpovos
[2011-02-14 14:45:30] - at least that would allow it to work similiarly to warp gates where you can put your queens in a control group and just hit spawn larvae a couple times and be done with it. - mig
[2011-02-14 14:43:42] - paul: yeah one improvement they could definitely make is either making spawn larvae auto-cast (though might be unworkable when taking into account people who double hatch), or having spawn larvae just cast work on the nearest hatcheries. - mig
[2011-02-14 14:40:32] - Aaron: Yeah, I don't think zerg is "harder" to play, although I do think they are missing some shortcuts that other races have (warp gate hot key, chronoboost and calldown mule is easier to use than spawn larvae) and have other apm sinks (spread creep tumors, moving overlords). -Paul
[2011-02-14 14:35:12] - aaron: Just that Post article! I think we'll see similar situations play out in many autocratic countries in the Middle East, but I'm not sure if any will be as successful as Egypt was. - Stephen
[2011-02-14 14:32:55] - sorry, i mistyped. i mean, "i don't think zerg are harder or you have to do more..." with regards to the APM thing - aaron
[2011-02-14 14:32:25] - xpovos: and for the record zerg need more APM because they're "harder" or "you have to do more", it's just trivial stuff. building a bunker as terran requires two actions, but building an overlord requires three (select hatchery; select larvae; build overlord) and, you're moving your overlords around all the time which adds APM also - aaron
[2011-02-14 14:27:18] - http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/14/AR2011021400848.html i'd heard about similar protests in (i think) algeria, but has anybody else heard about the protests in iran? - aaron
[2011-02-14 14:17:44] - Vinnie: Interesting. I actually thought the trailer looked really good for a book which really doesn't have any dramatic elements. I think that's because I'm a lot more tolerant of cliches than you are.
-Paul[2011-02-14 13:43:12] - daniel: augh! best two out of three - aaron
[2011-02-14 13:42:54] - daniel: scooped - aaron
[2011-02-14 13:42:32] - aaron beat me to it apparently by 10 seconds or so
-Daniel[2011-02-14 13:42:20] - xpovos: yeah, as zerg i found my APM was always like two-three times higher than my opponents, even when i lost. zerg require more APM (at least at low level play.) - aaron
[2011-02-14 13:41:35] - lol
[2011-02-14 13:41:30] - Watson on Jeopardy tonight for those who are interested. I'm going to watch it. -Daniel
[2011-02-14 13:40:56] - http://www-943.ibm.com/innovation/us/watson/ watson is on jeopardy tonite! - aaron
[2011-02-14 13:25:29] - My inexperience just meant I was fumbling in the process of decapitating him. Instead of it being a graceful victory, it was ugly. My APM was about 3 times higher than his too. It was watching that replay that I even saw the metric being tracked. Those replays are invaluable. -- Xpovos
[2011-02-14 13:24:12] - Yeah. He had boatloads of marines supplemented by some banshees and a few vikings. About 20 banelings killed about 150 tight packed non-bunkered marines. But really, it was the resource starving that did it. I killed every base he tried to expand because I had sight (Overlords) and he never brought enough protection. -- Xpovos
[2011-02-14 13:01:38] - i think he might have been underestimating platinum leaguers just a bit. but i guess the point stands that yeah if your opponent has ten marines, and you have 1500 supply worth of zerg units - it doesn't matter what kinds of units they are, unless of course it's something silly like corruptors - aaron
[2011-02-14 13:00:21] - xpovos: if your opponent is that bad it usually doesn't matter what kind of unit you're making; just that you're making more than he is. supposedly, until you get to diamond league you can make your way up the ranks just by getting good at churning out one or two kinds of units, as long as your macro is good. at least that's what i understood from day9's rants - aaron
[2011-02-14 12:02:23] - Next attack his marines were all dead and I'd successfully resource starved him at his expansions and he quit. Sounds good, right? Except I was still a good ten minutes away from being able to kill him. Not a great day for the Overmind. -- Xpovos
[2011-02-14 12:01:29] - I felt really good until I watched the replay and saw why I won. Suffice to say I played better than him, but that wasn't hard. The killing blow came after my second wave failed to have much success against his non-bunkered marine legion so I figured out how to roll up some banelings. [...]
[2011-02-14 11:59:49] - a: I've done a few more against humans, but I'm still mostly playing against the computer. I know it's not a good test of the skillset, but it is breaking me into the units better. That said, I played as Zerg for the first time and utterly crushed my opponent as I fumbled my way though the tech tree blindly. -- Xpovos
[2011-02-14 11:43:06] - xpovos: have you been playing against people? or just the computer? i suggest playing against people
~a[2011-02-14 11:08:10] - [...] Atlas Shrugged is more unfilmable than Lord of the Rings was. But, LoTR turned out OK, so, I'll be patient I guess, but I'm not expecting miracles. -- Xpovos
[2011-02-14 11:07:17] - vinnie: Given the meandering plot and the fact that a lot of the tension is financial, that may be a fair criticism. I understand the need for two movies to make the plot work, but I doubt there is enough movie style drama to make two movies work. So maybe the first will be bunk and the second will be dramatic, (or vice versa) or they could make two mediocre movies.
[2011-02-14 11:01:35] - haha, from another message board: "I'M TIRED OF THESE MOTHERFUCKING TAXES ON THIS MOTHERFUCKING TRAIN!" - vinnie
[2011-02-14 10:46:55] - paul: that trailer was really... not good. haven't read the book but I know the story. that trailer used a lot of the cliche drama movie trailer elements, except the movie doesn't look nearly dramatic enough to warrant them. the trailer makes it feel like it was a struggle just to find dynamic moments in the movie - vinnie
[2011-02-14 10:38:50] - xpovos: let me know if you end up setting a date and maybe i'll jump in too. i'm worse than everybody by a lot so i don't enjoy playing. - aaron
[2011-02-14 10:25:54] - I need another dose of MP SC2. I'm still not going to be as good as the rest of you, but I should be better by far than I was last time. I've had a chance to practice some new things and get a better feel for some of the units. -- Xpovos
[2011-02-14 02:46:20] - a: Playing Starcraft with you? -Paul
[2011-02-13 13:39:10] - wow, paul, what were you doing up so late last night?
~a[2011-02-13 04:08:48] - http://reason.com/blog/2011/02/11/the-trailer-for-the-atlas-shru Wow, will an Atlas Shrugged movie actually come out? -Paul
[2011-02-12 05:24:35] - See also: Ubisoft. They probably thought they were being clever naming the software company wheresoft. Also unique because most "Question" words (Who, What, When, etc.) in Latin are Q's. Quo, Quid, Quid. It helps that the mnemonic appeals to the juvenile mind. -- Xpovos
[2011-02-12 05:22:08] - a: It shouldn't be too confusing. It's a silly childhood mneumonic used by many of us who learned Latin in our youth. Semper = always, e.g. semper fideles (Marine Corps) Sub = under (like submarine = underwater, subway = way underground) and then finally the tricky one since we don't have phonetic help in English words: ubi = where -- Xpovos
[2011-02-11 21:25:28] - ok. (confused) ~a
[2011-02-11 16:43:24] - a: nah it was supposed to help us remember common latin words... Semper Ubi Sub Ubi... Its "where" ~gurkie
[2011-02-11 16:37:31] - gurkie: always where under where! that almost makes sense!
i'm guessing you meant "wear" (times two). ~a[2011-02-11 16:33:04] - I just had a password rejected for being too similar to commonly used passwords... Always Where Under Where in Latin is apparently common... Who knew! ~Gurkie
[2011-02-11 15:41:47] - I love lamp!
[2011-02-11 13:35:46] - http://www.pcworld.com/article/215030/husbands_email_snooping_may_lead_to_five_years_in_prison.html?tk=out wowzers ~gurkie
[2011-02-11 12:51:10] - Stephen: I just assumed the military had a talk with him afterwards and "suggested" that he step down.
-Paul[2011-02-11 12:39:57] - also, i was wrong about the patriot act. the house was voting on whether to allow a vote on the patriot act extension. the extension won't be voted on until probably next week. but i can't imagine we'll see a different result. - aaron
[2011-02-11 12:39:53] - aaron: Yeah, I guess yesterday was a trick? And we all fell for it? I'm really curious about what'll happen in Egypt. I'd like to say that I'm hopeful, but... - Stephen
[2011-02-11 12:36:45] - damn we'll have to see how things settle out of this, it'll be tough to tell for a couple years but hopefully this was a very very good thing - aaron
[2011-02-11 12:35:03] - stephen: i thought he was refusing to step down!!! he stepped down? - aaron
[2011-02-11 11:57:16] - paul: I do have the non-hacked version... I think I only downloaded it for my dad... unless of course it was preinstalled which it might have been. ~gurkie
[2011-02-11 11:55:05] - Aaron: Ah, gotcha. Agreed. I just figured Gurkie probably had the official app and not the hacked version. -Paul
[2011-02-11 11:24:02] - http://ismubarakstillpresident.com/ answer = no! - Stephen
[2011-02-11 10:44:41] - paul: this is all i'm really saying, that unlike the iphone, you can install whatever apps you want on your droid, so if you want an unofficial skype app which supports unrestricted 3G calling, verizon can't control it - aaron
[2011-02-11 10:28:56] - http://phones.verizonwireless.com/skypemobile/ -Paul
[2011-02-11 10:28:10] - Aaron: I thought it was more of an "official" skype app, though, which Verizon would have some say over. -Paul
[2011-02-11 10:27:11] - Aaron: Isn't that what the table on top says? -Paul
[2011-02-11 10:26:48] - paul: verizon doesn't control what apps are on my phone though; they just control what's in the app store. it would be a skype restriction, if anything. - aaron
[2011-02-11 10:26:17] - Aaron: Looks like my representative voted against it, so I guess he isn't all bad. -Paul
[2011-02-11 10:26:09] - if my XML-fu is strong, the score is Dems: 15 for, 172 against, 6 not voting. Repubs: 233 for, 4 against, 3 not voting - aaron
[2011-02-11 10:24:41] - Aaron: Did you hear that it originally didn't pass because they tried to fast pass it and it didn't get the required (for a fast pass) 2/3rds majority? Progress. -Paul
[2011-02-11 10:23:38] - Aaron: This is a half guess, but I think it might be a Verizon restriction. -Paul
[2011-02-11 10:23:10] - http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2011/roll029.xml patriot act passed the house. hey cool, raw XML! i'm going to parse it, i'm kind of curious how democrats/republicans split on this bill. ron paul voted against it, good for him - aaron
[2011-02-11 09:59:13] - gurkie: do you have an iphone or a droid? i'd be surprised if skype had those kinds of restrictions on droid, although maybe.... - aaron
[2011-02-11 09:41:00] - paul: my dad used skype on my phone... I think you can only call international or skype-to-skype on it... ~gurkie
[2011-02-11 09:30:14] - Anybody here use google voice or skype on their smartphones? -Paul
[2011-02-11 08:31:29] - a: How was there bait and switch in the Leonard case? It's not like Pepsi tried to get him to buy a more expensive jet. - Stephen
[2011-02-10 18:13:27] - stephen: bait-and-switch is illegal even if there isn't a contract. ~a
[2011-02-10 15:28:37] - Gurkie: Even if it was an offer, there wasn't a contract. If you see an ad for something on sale, and then you go to the store and it turns out that they are sold out of the item, you can't sue the store. In the Wiki link, I think the Judge's 2nd and 3rd arguments are stronger than her 1st one. - Stephen
[2011-02-10 15:27:47] - vinnie: i loved that bit - aaron
[2011-02-10 15:02:53] - urm not so sure if I really believe my last statement,,, but if it was shown as being in the magazine then yea totally... ~gurkie
[2011-02-10 15:01:32] - stephen: what did your class think of the idea of it being an offer? cause I think if they say it in the commercial its reasonable to expect... ~gurkie
[2011-02-10 14:54:03] - aaron: and here I thought you were sending me a sign that a purple elephant was flying over the building singing poker face... my bad ~gurkie
[2011-02-10 14:53:33] - "Leonard claimed that a federal judge was incapable of deciding on the matter, and that instead the decision had to be made by a jury consisting of members of "the Pepsi generation", to whom the advertisement would allegedly constitute an offer" lol - vinnie
[2011-02-10 14:39:37] - gurkie: where did you get all those letters from!!! terrorist - aaron
[2011-02-10 14:39:15] - gurkie: it's a sign i don't check my personal email very much, when i'm at work! but i got back to you - aaron
[2011-02-10 14:31:14] - aaron: you didnt reply to my email to you... its a sign isnt it? ~gurkie
[2011-02-10 14:30:32] - aaron: United States of America??? That is a lot of letters... then again so is Peoples Republic of China... ~gurkie
[2011-02-10 14:29:12] - stephen: i'll have to remember "equatorial guinea", that's great! i love when countries/companies/whatever have the same initials as commonly used expressions, e.g equatorial guinea - aaron
[2011-02-10 14:17:07] - aaron: Haha, we read that case in Contracts class. One of my few positive memories of that class, in fact. - Stephen
[2011-02-10 14:12:47] - Aaron: I want to know where this guy got $700k to buy all those Pepsi points, if he got his money back after losing the case, and what he intended to do with a Harrier Jet anyway.
-Paul[2011-02-10 13:50:35] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_v._Pepsico,_Inc. leonard v pepsico inc is a contracts case in which the plaintiff, john leonard, sued pepsico, inc. in an effort to enforce an offer to redeem 7,000,000 Pepsi Points for a AV-8 Harrier II jump jet - aaron
[2011-02-10 13:35:03] - aaron: Beware Equatorial Guinea! - Stephen
[2011-02-10 13:33:39] - I didn't overestimate Venezuela's population, but I also did geography bee as a kid, so it wasn't a good example of the anchoring effect for me. Article was still interesting, though! - Stephen
[2011-02-10 13:29:18] - i, like paul, overestimated venezuela's population - aaron
[2011-02-10 13:28:16] - gurkie: i learned when i was pretty young that the population of the US was 300,000,000, while china/india were about 1,000,000,000. a good rule of thumb, is 200 million people for each letter in the country's name - aaron
[2011-02-10 12:55:56] - paul: so do I get to receive hugs from 3 random guys? ~gurkie
[2011-02-10 12:27:01] - Paul: I thought of me too with the jacket/purse examples... Heck Deal of the Day sites rely on that... ~gurkie
[2011-02-10 12:26:01] - Unfortunately I have no context of how many people live where... Like population of the US? No clue.. I know that Caracas is insanely crowded but I went with under anyway... I think my guess of 40m was based partially on what they said but I think its cause I was aware I had no clue. ~gurkie
[2011-02-10 11:44:36] - Daniel: Same. I understood what they were trying to do (anchor too high or low), but didn't know which direction. I finally just went with what seemed right, around 80-100 million. I suck at guessing games.
-Paul[2011-02-10 11:33:19] - I didn't know how many people lived in Venezuela but from the context I was pretty sure it was no where near 65 million but I had no idea if it was less or more. Based on its size I might have gone with less but I didn't really have any clue. -Daniel
[2011-02-10 11:31:52] - aaron: counter with a raise of 150% -Daniel
[2011-02-10 11:24:01] - daniel: that's not nice!!! how would you like it if your employer did that. "sorry daniel, we've decided to cut your pay by 50% this year" - aaron
[2011-02-10 11:13:01] - Xpovos: I don't know how much of it was the anchoring effect, but I was way off with my guess. I thought it was something like 80-100 million people. I thought Venezuela had a pretty high population, but I guess not. -Paul
[2011-02-10 11:08:40] - Thats why you have to ask for silly high numbers for salaries when getting a new job / talking about raises with your boss. Thats what I've taken away. -Daniel
[2011-02-10 10:44:36] - In reading the comments, other people who knew what it was had similar results, although frequently further off. I'll just say I got lucky with my guess. -- Xpovos
[2011-02-10 10:42:36] - Gurkie: I was thinking of you when it was talking about the first example with the jacket that was on sale for 60% off.
-Paul[2011-02-10 10:40:31] - I'll agree there is definitely anchoring effects, and we all fall prey to it frequently. But in some cases, just being aware of it's existence helps you to overcome it. I knew what it was going in, and so I wasn't fooled by the example. I guessed 26M, which is actually less than the true number. So, I'm a bit of an outlier there for sure. -- Xpovos
[2011-02-10 10:11:49] - aaron: I agree the anchoring effect is interesting... ~gurkie
[2011-02-10 10:11:10] - aaron: very interesting article. I think I had gleaned some of that effect from real life, like how liberals criticized obama's negotiations with republicans for starting too close to the middle - vinnie
[2011-02-10 10:02:40] - a: situational irony? ~gurkie
[2011-02-10 10:00:49] - aaron: I think it changed the meaning of my post... which isnt good... ~gurkie
[2011-02-10 10:00:04] - アーロン: That is a great idea! I think I was looking at my translation of the document, plus I love the results. ~ gurkie
[2011-02-10 09:44:44] - Aaron: Pretty interesting. I'm not surprised at all, I definitely think I am guilty of that many times. -Paul
[2011-02-10 09:40:21] - Xpovos: I'm sure they won't, since they don't want to cannibalize sales from each other. -Paul
[2011-02-10 09:22:21] - http://youarenotsosmart.com/2010/07/27/anchoring-effect/ the anchoring effect and its effect in negotiation. i thought this was pretty cool, they never covered this in my college psych class - aaron
[2011-02-10 09:16:49] - Paul: As the article says, not unexpected. But I hope they don't try to release D3 And HoS too close to each other. I'm a poor man, now, and I can't keep up with those kinds of demands on my resources. (We require more minerals). -- Xpovos
[2011-02-10 09:09:21] - http://pc.ign.com/articles/114/1148703p1.html No blizzard games in 2011?
-Paul[2011-02-09 16:46:12] - gurkie: read simple wikipedia for some examples. ~a
[2011-02-09 16:45:28] - aaronsan:
-- Xpovos[2011-02-09 16:13:57] - gurkiekun: I have a personal written communication in English to those who were non-native speakers. Last, in order to ensure that it is as simple as that, I have to go back to English, translated into Japanese text on Google I ran, it was still reading when I went. I was not sending e-mail. u_u - aaronsan
[2011-02-09 16:12:44] - gurkie: i've written personal communications to people who were non-native english speakers. last time, to make sure it was simple enough, i ran my text through google translate to japanese and back to english, to make sure it was still readable when i was done. i ended up not sending the e-mail.
- aaron[2011-02-09 15:54:47] - Stephen: I relate better with Millennials and probably identify more with Gen-Xers, while totally acknowledging that I split the difference on a lot of things. I don't have any siblings, but my parents are older than most of my peer's parents. -- Xpovos
[2011-02-09 15:53:20] - gurkie: Lots. Though it depends, obviously. The non-English stuff I have to do generally is going to people where it frankly doesn't matter the language I use, since they're functionally illiterate in any language. -- Xpovos
[2011-02-09 15:08:57] - aaron: the department which grants people access to the building... ironically i cant get into the building to get to their office even if I wanted to at 6 am... Have to wait until other people show up. That being said for all I know they do show up at 6 am, I just dont
~gurkie[2011-02-09 15:07:12] - has anyone ever written documents where the target audience is primarily non native english speakers? I am wondering to what degree I have to de-pierce-ify my English... ~gurkie
[2011-02-09 14:44:44] - gurkie: which department? the "we get first dibs on free donuts" department? the "playing quake 3 arena before our boss get in" department? these hours could make a lot of sense depending on what department this is - aaron
[2011-02-09 14:38:54] - soo a department at work apparently is open Wednesday, 6:00am – 10:00am only. SERIOUSLY???? WHY OPEN AT 6 AM? ~gurkie
[2011-02-09 13:48:29] - a: the title of the post sounds like it could be prostitution related.. ~gurkie
[2011-02-09 13:44:42] - Vinnie: I agree that we have attributes of both. I get more irritated by millennials than gen xers, but I'm not sure I like them less. - Stephen
[2011-02-09 13:11:49] - mig: why? ~a
[2011-02-09 13:01:12] - gurkie: i do anything. i wonder why it got removed? borderline prostitution?
~a[2011-02-09 12:55:40] - my sister and I are separated by 2 years. Though I think she's more of a gen x-er than i am. - mig
[2011-02-09 12:52:20] - generational definitions kind of remind me of how ska really popped up for a few years in the 90's. I don't think there was necessarily an increase in the number of ska bands during those years (except for new ones formed as a RESULT of ska becoming popular), but just that record labels were more willing to promote the ska bands that had always been around - vinnie
[2011-02-09 12:52:18] - stephen: I dont know the difference... but I have younger and older siblings.. ~gurkie
[2011-02-09 12:51:18] - aaron: your craigs list post wasnt visible to me... Flagged for removal. ~gurkie
[2011-02-09 12:50:08] - stephen: our years are hard to classify. reading the wikipedia articles, I feel like the people I know in this year range have attributes of both generations, which makes sense. but then again, I'm not sure how much I believe in generational definitions - vinnie
[2011-02-09 12:08:38] - stephen: i don't really know anything about "gen X" sorry. i guess you're asking whether we relate better with people 5-10 years older than us, or 5-10 years younger than us? - aaron
[2011-02-09 11:55:32] - I'm asking because 1980-1982 seem to be the "nobody is really sure about these people" birth years. - Stephen
[2011-02-09 11:55:04] - Do you think that we have more in common with Gen X, or with Millennials? Regardless of your answer, do you think whether you had older or younger siblings affects which generation we are in? - Stephen
[2011-02-09 00:10:09] - i also like the idea of him yelling my name every time I wake up for the rest of my life. although i guess his girlfriend would probably hate me after that - aaron
[2011-02-09 00:09:27] - i wonder if i could get him to rename someone else's children for $1,000. i think that would be worth it, you know, a good prank - aaron
[2011-02-08 23:51:30] - i want travis to stare at me for five minutes. where does he live? georgia? that's too far i think. ~a
[2011-02-08 20:03:37] - http://atlanta.craigslist.org/atl/crs/2202170274.html my name is travis broyles and I will do whatever* you want me to do for less money than whoever you are paying to do it now - aaron
[2011-02-08 14:09:42] - aaron: yeah! I guess that might be a little hard to get working, huh. as for security, we would trust one another not to think about the information we're passing along too much, like you have to think about something else at the same time. I'm a proponent of "dumb people" - vinnie
[2011-02-08 14:03:06] - vinnie: you mean like a mesh network?? espnet? i think those have issues with performance and scalability. plus all of your neighbors would know what you're doing on the espnet - aaron
[2011-02-08 14:00:04] - "so... you have a clearance?"
- aaron[2011-02-08 13:59:48] - "there were over 22 remote viewers providing data... when the project closed in 1995 it was down to three." man, what do you do after getting laid off a project like that? "so what did you do at your last position?" "i worked for the US government, using psychic powers to predict submarine launch dates and attacks on american warships" - aaron
[2011-02-08 13:55:55] - in fact, with a little cooperation from everyone, we could get an "internet" working using ESP - vinnie
[2011-02-08 13:54:48] - how come those darpa eggheads couldn't get ESP working? that's much cooler than the Internet - vinnie
[2011-02-08 13:53:46] - the stargate project was a project established by the us gov't to investigate claims of psychic phenomena with potential military and domestic applications, particularly "remote viewing": the purported ability to psychically "see" events, sites, or information from a great distance - aaron
[2011-02-08 13:08:12] - i think that kind of sums up US military projects in a nutshell
- aaron[2011-02-08 13:07:59] - i read somewhere that shortly after creating what would eventually develop into "the internet", DARPA dropped the project to try and figure out whether people with latent ESP could be trained to detect enemy spies - aaron
[2011-02-08 13:07:15] - paul: i guess all i'm saying is even everyday companies throw lots of money away at failures. you win some and lose some. the US government has picked some pretty good projects to work on, they're all valuable to the US government even if they're not valuable to everyday consumers. - aaron
[2011-02-08 13:04:36] - paul: but yes, a lot of R+D just ends up being a dead end. sometimes you get satellite phones, sometimes you get a pillow. i don't think that's the government's fault. what if we had found millions of space dollars on the moon! - aaron
[2011-02-08 13:03:40] - paul: it seems like mobile phone development was innovated naturally from the car phone; i guess there was actually a more natural path to economic viability than i suspected. my bad - aaron
[2011-02-08 13:01:45] - paul: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_phone#History i might be wrong. i can't remember where i heard it, i just heard that someone had access to one of these old ass military cell phones, that were kept in backpacks or vehicles. it sounds like motorola and the US military are kind of closely tied to mobile phone development, sometime in the 1940s - aaron
[2011-02-08 12:39:51] - Aaron: I wasn't aware the government played a role in the development of the cell phone. As for your other point, I guess I can see situations where the government might have sped up innovation in certain areas, but I still have to wonder at what cost. Did we need to spend almost a trillion dollars so Daniel could have a nice pillow? -Paul
[2011-02-08 12:25:54] - it's just like - not economically viable. but thanks to the US government, and maybe the US military and (arguably) government dick measuring contests we got cell phones and we probably got them decades sooner than a pure decentralized capitalist government would have gotten the same invention - aaron
[2011-02-08 12:24:25] - paul: things like cell phones - sure in the 80s i bet some scientists (outside the government) might have come up with the idea, and been like - okay, so i can make you a a phone - and you can talk to anybody anywhere, as long as you're within a 30 mile radius of this tower... and as long as you carry this 25 pound battery with you - aaron
[2011-02-08 12:22:03] - paul: sure, but we got those innovations sooner because of government involvement. that's all my point is - some of these cool inventions reach the stage of being a "cool thing" before they reach the stage of being worth it in a monetary sense. and the government is able to facilitate innovation in those cases - aaron
[2011-02-08 12:16:13] - Aaron: Satellites and GPS definitely have improved our quality of life, and I believe that those are two things that we definitely would've had even with no NASA because they are things people are willing to pay for. Landing on the moon? Probably not. -Paul
[2011-02-08 12:14:52] - Daniel: Sorry, I meant to say "access to preventative care". -Paul
[2011-02-08 12:14:12] - paul: although, to defend the moon landing. i suspect was it was important for military reasons, probably something to do with the cold war - aaron
[2011-02-08 12:12:15] - paul: i haven't defended the moon landing. but i have defended space travel. things like satellites and GPS and hubble improve our life, partially because they increase our understanding of the universe and partially because they lead to practical innovations - aaron
[2011-02-08 12:09:22] - Paul: I have a better pillow that I've been told was innovated at NASA and I'm pretty sure they wouldnt' lie or exxagerate to me. -Daniel
[2011-02-08 12:08:17] - Paul: I'm not sure that "regulating the market to require all Americans to have preventative care" is anything that anybody is arguing for. Universal coverage should give people the option for preventative care. I don't know if that makes a difference on how you feel it would affect innovation though. -Daniel
[2011-02-08 12:07:42] - aaron: it improves quality of life as long as its funded. - mig
[2011-02-08 12:07:33] - Aaron: And the thing with NASA is that while it was impressive to land on the moon, did it really improve anybody's life? I feel like high speed trains and NASA are very similar in that both are impressive achievements that are generally only undertaken by strong governments, but they ultimately aren't that useful. -Paul
[2011-02-08 12:06:12] - paul: yes, but they improve quality of life - aaron
[2011-02-08 12:05:22] - mig: no, i'm merely suggesting that Sputnik was a slightly more newsworthy innovation than the Sirius-XM satellite - aaron
[2011-02-08 12:05:02] - Aaron: I agree about how something like high-speed trains are usually the type of project pulled off by strong central governments. I think the reason for that, though, is that they generally don't make money. -Paul
[2011-02-08 12:03:10] - Aaron: Actually, I'm not sure I agree. Throwing money at scientists given a specific goal of decreasing the costs of preventative care might help innovation in that sector, but I believe that regulating the market to require all Americans to have preventative care is actually likely to decrease innovation because it's likely to remove a lot of the profit motive. -Paul
[2011-02-08 12:02:49] - aaron: it's really done now? You mean we can't possibly make any improvements to it, make it cheaper or more efficient than they are now? That's it? - mig
[2011-02-08 12:01:49] - paul: and it wasn't just like "oh here's a cool proof of concept" it was like - now you can get from this city to this other city 100 miles away in 10 minutes. it was really practical and impressive and it seemed like the kind of project that only a government could pull off - aaron
[2011-02-08 12:00:38] - paul: yes, that might be a bad example. i saw a video of a maglev train reaching ~300 mph in china and a lot of people were pointing out that having a strong central government allowed china to take on cool projects like that which traditional democracies would have trouble with - aaron
[2011-02-08 11:59:46] - paul: yes, now. but that doesn't count as innovation; the real innovation was done by the russians understanding things like geocentric orbits and the amount of force necessary to yadda yadda. i guess what i'm saying is that the innovation of satellites is done now - aaron
[2011-02-08 11:59:40] - Aaron: I don't know of how money is made off the hubble telescope or military drones. I don't know much about mag-lev trains, but I wasn't aware they were a government invention. -Paul
[2011-02-08 11:58:52] - paul: sure, depending on what you mean by regulation. but assuming we're talking about making preventative care accessible to americans - i think it's a no-brainer that this will will increase innovation/cost-effectiveness of preventative care - aaron
[2011-02-08 11:58:04] - Aaron: I'm not sure I understand your point now. I believe companies like Sirius-XM launch their own satellites fairly routinely. Not sure about GPS, but it appears to be a government service provided for free (or cheap enough), which kills the incentive for any private company to launch their own satellites. -Paul
[2011-02-08 11:53:58] - Aaron: "government involvement... in health care... harms innovation". I was mostly referring to regulation there. I suppose if government decided to throw billions of dollars at making a better mammogram machine, then it might help innovation in that specific area (at the cost of innovation elsewhere). -Paul
[2011-02-08 11:53:34] - maybe it's possible that like - in the absence of strong central governments, InfoCom would have launched Sputnik in 1920. Maybe EuroTeleCom would have invented the Internet in 1950. maybe the government impeded those inventions by several years with all their governing, but that seems kind of conspiracy theory material - aaron
[2011-02-08 11:53:33] - Thats something I had not considered before. -Daniel
[2011-02-08 11:53:23] - http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/104xx/doc10492/08-07-Prevention.pdf was linked off one of those links earlier and it raised a good point. Preventative care (and increased medical coverage too) increase longevity which increases the time that people would incur medical expenses (and social security payouts) which can have a big effect on $ the gov pays out. -Daniel
[2011-02-08 11:51:09] - Daniel: In short, the argument against universal health care is 'the tragedy of the commons'. It's got a lot of moral issues that complicate it further, but I think that's the root. -- Xpovos
[2011-02-08 11:50:34] - paul: like i mean, i think things like satellites, GPS, hubble, military drones, the internet, maglev trains, these are things private companies would have LOVED to think of, but they were all facilitated by US/russian/chinese government projects instead. people are too stupid to make money with ideas like this, even if they hold obvious value - aaron
[2011-02-08 11:50:19] - Aaron: Sure, NASA definitely gave us space shuttles and landing on the moon, and there's a good chance we wouldn't have had that kind of innovation without NASA. -Paul
[2011-02-08 11:47:55] - paul: and just for the record the only thing i'm arguing against is "government involvement... in health care... harms innovation". i just think you can't really demonstrate that either way. there are a lot of fields the government has been involved in which has heavily encouraged innovation - aaron
[2011-02-08 11:47:05] - Aaron: That's close to my argument, although I think I misspoke some. NASA did help innovation in space travel. What I meant to say is that it's questionable whether it innovated better (especially for the cost) than a comparable private company might've done had NASA not existed. -Paul
[2011-02-08 11:44:35] - Paul: as a side question - are you actually arguing against universal healthcare or just wanting to point out that you think it might be more expensive than people are estimating? -Daniel
[2011-02-08 11:42:20] - in at least that case may not be cost effective. -Paul
[2011-02-08 11:41:56] - Daniel: That's only assuming that the costs of preventative care make up for the reduced number of heart attacks that people are having. It's obviously another thing which is impossible to prove either way, but considering there is still debate as to whether statin drugs reduce the chances of a heart attack AT ALL, I think there's a chance preventative care... -Paul
[2011-02-08 11:41:09] - paul: if those are your arguments, then my response is 1: no and 2: yes - aaron
[2011-02-08 11:40:48] - paul: let me make sure i understand your two arguments. 1: NASA may not have helped innovation in space travel. 2: the money we invested in NASA could have been used for things other than NASA - aaron
[2011-02-08 11:39:47] - paul: i feel like you need to concede this one. maybe i don't know as much about nasa as you do. i think a lot of people think that nasa helped innovation in that particular field - aaron
[2011-02-08 11:38:55] - Aaron: on NASA over the decades, could that money have been put to better use somewhere else? I see it as the broken window fallacy, where it's easy to see the benefits because they exist, whereas the things we might have lost (a cure for cancer, 100mpg cars, space elevator) don't exist. -Paul
[2011-02-08 11:38:50] - paul: it's hard-to-impossible to demonstrate that NASA encouraged innovation in space travel? are you sure? - aaron
[2011-02-08 11:37:29] - mig: i also don't like articles that talk about "obamaworld" and "obamacare", it seems like that article's deliberately trying to polarize people. he might have a valid point i just don't know if he expressed it very well - aaron
[2011-02-08 11:36:39] - Aaron: Obviously it's hard-to-impossible to prove either way, but I think the best thing you could say about government involvement in things like space travel and avionics is that it MAY have helped innovation in those two fields, but at what cost? It's easy to see the benefits (space shuttles!), but if we hadn't had to spend hundreds of billions of dollars... -Paul
[2011-02-08 11:35:58] - mig: i don't like articles that talk about cancer and heart attacks, for preventative care. i'm thinking about more practical things like immunizations, allergy treatments, asthma, diabetes, things that we have known treatments for but which some people can't afford - aaron
[2011-02-08 11:34:40] - could lower the number across the whole population. -Daniel
[2011-02-08 11:34:36] - paul: i think you're right about emergency care being an inevitability, i just made up a statistic that the average person makes 90% of their medical expenditures in the last 6 months of their life - aaron
[2011-02-08 11:34:29] - Paul: I think your argument with your heart attack isn't quite valid. You are saying maybe an individual still has a heart attack, sure thats true. However the idea is with a large population if you increase preventative care to that whole population then the number of heart attacks goes down. I'm sure some individuals still have them regardless but I think you...
[2011-02-08 11:34:27] - some people are not convinced that increasing preventive care incentives will decrease overall health care costs. - mig
[2011-02-08 11:33:27] - Daniel: (3) http://reason.com/blog/2010/03/30/mitt-romney-vs-obamacare The health care reform is based off the Massachusetts model, which according to the state treasurer (and former Democrat), "has been a fiscal train wreck" and "The only reason MassCare has survived is that we have been repeatedly bailed out by the federal government". -Paul
[2011-02-08 11:33:00] - paul: i could see it happening where like - now that the government encourages/subsidizes mammograms; mammograms become more common, and leads to an increase in cancer research. cuoldn't government involvement in healthcare encourage innovation? - aaron
[2011-02-08 11:32:59] - Paul: So you don't see increasing the size or insured people as a thing that would lower costs? You don't see increased preventative care as something that lowers overall medical expenditures? Those are why I think it would lower costs so I'm trying to see where we disagree. -Daniel
[2011-02-08 11:32:10] - paul: "the more regulations/government involvement you see in health care, the more you harm innovation". is that true? what about "the more government involvement you see in space travel, the more you harm innovation." "the more government involvement you see in avionics, the more you harm innovation." is that usually true? i'm not sure - aaron
[2011-02-08 11:31:23] - Daniel: (2) I can't think of any area where getting the government involved has made anything more cost efficient. -Paul
[2011-02-08 11:28:18] - Daniel: Three things: (1) Short of technical advances which makes things cheaper (which the current legislation doesn't seem to address), I generally don't see how you can promise to give more people better care for less money. I don't know of very many areas where that logic holds true. -Paul
[2011-02-08 11:24:29] - Daniel: Sure, I probably might, but lots of other people won't. My point is that even in an absolutely ideal world, all I can do is reduce the chance of a heart attack. If I spend $1000 during my entire life on medication and eat right and exercise, maybe I avoid those emergency care costs, but maybe I don't. -Paul
[2011-02-08 11:21:33] - Paul: What in your head is making it more expensive? -Daniel
[2011-02-08 11:20:06] - Daniel: It depends on what kind of universal health care we are talking about. Referencing our previous conversation, I can't imagine how universal health care isn't going to either be more expensive or would highly ration care. -Paul
[2011-02-08 11:18:26] - Paul: But if you get checkups every so often adn the doctor tells you year after year that your cholesterol is going up you don't think you would ever start exercising more or eating different? You would just continue on? I don't think the point of universal preventative care is to stop all emergency care but I think you can reduce it. -Daniel
[2011-02-08 11:17:41] - Aaron: I also think that the more regulations and government involvement you see in health care, the more you harm innovation. And I think that innovation is the best method we have for increasing care while reducing costs. -Paul
[2011-02-08 11:14:33] - aaron: I agree that preventative care can be a lot cheaper than emergency care, but preventative care doesn't always prevent emergency care. I can take all the cholesterol medication in the world and yet there is still some question as to how much it prevents heart attacks (if at all). -Paul
[2011-02-08 11:05:53] - I'm interested in what the arguments against universal health care are. Is the idea somehow that its going to be more expensive? If everyone is paying into the same insurance pool and getting preventative care I see that as making things cheaper. Is that not how others see it? Or are there other factors that people see being expensive / creating problems. -Daniel
[2011-02-08 10:57:41] - aaron: No, the 'why isn't there a situation where the libertarian-ideal insurance exists' question. Pretty much the same reason why the libertarian-ideal government doesn't exist either. People don't allow it. It's sufficiently unpalatable to a sufficiently large portion of people. -- Xpovos
[2011-02-08 10:25:59] - xpovos: which question - you're talking about the "health insurance in developing countries" question? i'm surprised governmental regulation of insurance would apply there - aaron
[2011-02-08 10:24:55] - aaron: Part of the response to that question lies in the existing governmental regulation of insurance. It's hardly an open, free and fair market. That said, a lot of it has to do with American expectations more than anything else, I think. We developed first-dollar health care plans as a way around wage restrictions and it became a cultural thing. -- Xpovos
[2011-02-08 10:22:22] - should work way faster than some big heavy government, in these kinds of developing countries right? i'm surprised we don't see some kind of working capitalist health care sysetm in developing countries (or maybe i'm just oblivious to it; that wouldn't surprise me at all
) - aaron[2011-02-08 10:21:48] - which currently have like, no health care at all - if there's money to be made selling them insurance, and insuring their health or whatever, it seems like it should be done somewhere right? it seems like there should be some developing countries with this kind of a model, and people would be like "yeah this is working for us it's a good system". private companies - aaron
[2011-02-08 10:20:56] - and i mean, i guess here's what i perceive as the biggest fallacy of a pure economic approach to health care. market forces, and insurance companies - they aren't stupid, they've predicted things like global warming and the likelihood of recalls and maintenance costs of electric cars and stuff like that. if it's economical to offer health insurance to countries - aaron
[2011-02-08 10:16:50] - reading through the threads it seems like the UK and Canada have a better health care experience, and that (i think?) they spend less than america on health care as %GDP. is there another country that has a similar success story, with a less government-driven system? something like india i guess, it sounds like they've had success with an insurance-driven approach? - aaron
[2011-02-08 10:13:50] - do you disagree with that? - aaron
[2011-02-08 10:12:03] - a: Also on how much insurance. Indian farmers are buying cooperative (mildly subsidized) insurance for $0.03 per month. Trick is that it only covers illnesses that require heart surgery. So, for not much money, you get: very limited insurance. -- Xpovos
[2011-02-08 10:11:09] - paul: so i think that's the theory; nobody's saying (i think) that universal health care is "cheap" but some people think that it's cheaper than hospitals providing mandatory emergency care - aaron
[2011-02-08 10:09:30] - paul: well, preventative care is less costly than emergency care. i don't know if there's a study on it but it seems trivial. like, a lifetime's worth of asthma inhalers is something like $300-$400, which is less than one emergency room visit. i don't know enough about diabetes but i think stuff like insulin shots is a much cheaper procedure than dialysis. - aaron
[2011-02-08 08:58:24] - aaron: poor people can still buy insurance in libertarian land . . . depending on exactly how poor. ~a
[2011-02-08 08:26:56] - and higher taxes on individuals or businesses are probably not going to help out at all. -Paul
[2011-02-08 08:25:01] - aaron: Reading some of the posts in that thread, though, I think people are underestimating the costs of universal healthcare. There is a lot of talk of how helpful it would be to business since it would remove the cost of healthcare for them, but they seem to be ignoring the fact that the government is going to have to get the money to pay for it somewhere... -Paul
[2011-02-08 08:21:28] - aaron: Although I do pretty strongly feel like the "libertarian ideal" wouldn't be as bad for the poor as many people think. Plenty of doctors do charity work now, and there are ways people can find to get medical procedures done that they might not be able to afford. It's not like those avenues are going to completely disappear. -Paul
[2011-02-08 08:16:43] - aaron: It sounds like something I would agree with, although I'm not sure if the middle ground we are in is necessarily worse than 100% universal converage would be. In my mind, they all have pros and cons. -Paul
prev <-> next