abcde

Re:Death on Thursday August 21, 2008 @01:51AM (#282379)

Well, I'm a transhumanist so I don't believe that I will necessarily die. I would guess the best bet for a compsci major is to try to invent a AI or something that enhances cognition so that scientific research is sped up enough to find a cure for death before you die.

Re:China's children buckling under the pressure of their parents' defe... on Thursday August 14, 2008 @05:37PM (#276507)

It seems to me that what China needs is more entrepreneurial spirit, not more rote memorization.

Re:China's children buckling under the pressure of their parents' defe... on Thursday August 14, 2008 @05:29PM (#276502)

"These kids have the same dreams as all middle-class kids: to go to college, to get white-collar jobs, to own their own home, to have Nikes and name brands,"

Wanting white-collar jobs and their own homes, I understand, but name brands? Well, that's the problem. The whole purpose of name brands are to create artificial scarcity. if the goal is to have a good life, that is definitely achievable, but if the goal is to be better than everyone else, only some will meet that goal.

Re:Not being stupid on Friday August 08, 2008 @12:44PM (#270703)

Um, spending a couple of years just to get self-confidence is a pretty stupid deal.

Re:Free niche search engine idea on Wednesday August 06, 2008 @05:34PM (#269030)

Well, I was thinking that if you wanted to find the connection between say, any connection between Ash trees and the portrayal of warfare in ancient mythology, such a search engine could be helpful.

Free niche search engine idea

Posted by abcde on Wednesday August 06, 2008 @05:09PM
from the self-post dept.

There has been some discussions regarding how to create a niche search engine that can nibble at google's market share. Here is my (free) idea: create a search engine for connections. Instead of searching for a single thing, let the user enter several "things" and try to find the connection between them.

( Read More... | 3 comments | 3 points | on HN )

Re:The curse of the upvote on Wednesday August 06, 2008 @05:05PM (#268979)

But that's how the stock market works. :) Trying to do better than that is futile.

Rainbow's End -- a novel by Vernor Vinge that shows what is possible. Now go build it.

Posted by abcde on Monday July 28, 2008 @12:59AM
from the vrinimi.org dept.

http://vrinimi.org/rainbowsend.html

( Read More... | 5 comments | 6 points | on HN )

Efficent Market Hypothesis: irrational to compare prices?

Posted by abcde on Saturday July 26, 2008 @11:31PM
from the self-post dept.

Is it irrational to compare prices / read reviews for highly commodity things like desktop computers and monitors given the efficient market hypothesis? Does it make sense to spend time reading reviews at all?

( Read More... | 3 comments | on HN )

Re:How the Man finally brought e-gold down on Tuesday July 22, 2008 @09:13PM (#253885)

I wouldn't agree with "debt based currencies are backed by the ingenuity of the people". Debt based currencies are backed by the trustworthiness of the debt issuing entity. It doesn't matter how ingenious Americans are as long as the Fed prints money to fund the welfare and warfare state.