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anthonyrubin

anthonyrubin on Hacker News

Re:Thriving Norway provides an Economics Lesson on Thursday May 14, 2009 @03:21PM (#609421)
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/...
Re:Peter Thiel on the future of Libertarianism, politics, and technology on Thursday April 30, 2009 @05:56PM (#587634)
I think the optimal solution would be a world where there are many smaller countries with different forms of government to choose from and moving from one country to another is much simpler than it is now. A United States with less centralized power would achieve many of the same benefits.
Re:Ask HN: I'm in 10th grade and I hate school. Any suggestions? on Tuesday April 28, 2009 @12:20PM (#583426)
Programming is hardly the most important activity in life.
Re:Custom compiler for Linux kernel? It could happen on Monday April 27, 2009 @07:44PM (#582335)
http://wiki.freebsd.org/BuildingFreeBSDWithClang
Re:A Modest Proposal for the Copy and Paste School of Code Reuse on Wednesday April 22, 2009 @12:27PM (#574112)
That is what Jeff does. I really don't understand how every one of his inane posts makes the front page of HN.
Re:Spam 'produces 17m tons of CO2' on Thursday April 16, 2009 @02:16PM (#565567)
What about physical junk mail?
Re:YouPorn is hiring. Apparently it's powered by Perl/Catalyst on Thursday April 16, 2009 @11:14AM (#565263)
In what way is it desperate? Most of us aren't working on very noble projects.
Re:Congressman: there should be a law against Internet caps on Tuesday April 14, 2009 @11:35AM (#561635)
So the solution to these supposed monopolies created by government intervention is a monopoly created by the government?
Re:Congressman: there should be a law against Internet caps on Tuesday April 14, 2009 @11:34AM (#561633)
Ridiculous. Should providers be able to advertise unlimited access and then limit access? No. Should limited access be illegal? No.
Re:Ask HN: What reading material would you provide to a visiting alien... on Monday April 13, 2009 @12:52PM (#560004)
Without proper historical context I believe the Bible would be somewhat confusing.
Re:Ask HN: What reading material would you provide to a visiting alien... on Monday April 13, 2009 @12:51PM (#560003)
I would start with world history -- first a book that covers the last few millennia, then specific books on significant events. Next would be a few of Karen Armstrong's books on religion; books such as the New Testament might prove difficult to understand without proper background.

The Princeton Companion to Mathematics would probably be a good starting point for math. I'm not aware of any great texts that provide the same level of broad introduction to science.

Ask HN: What reading material would you provide to a visiting alien being?

Posted by anthonyrubin on Monday April 13, 2009 @12:22PM
from the ask-hn dept.

This submission is inspired by a quote from my previous submission.Suppose a group of alien beings were to learn our language and randomly selected you as a source of further human knowledge. They send one of their kind to your home and the being informs you that it will be crashing at your place for a few weeks to learn whatever it can.I realize this scenario is rather contrived, but what...

( Read More... | 26 comments | 7 points | on HN )
Re:Better on Monday April 13, 2009 @12:13PM (#559944)
Does Merlin take his own message very seriously? Take a look at his personal blog:

http://www.kungfugrippe.com/

Re:The Defeat of the Schools (1939) on Sunday April 12, 2009 @10:23PM (#559283)
A follow up article:

http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/95dec/chilearn/muref.htm

Re:The Defeat of the Schools (1939) on Sunday April 12, 2009 @09:34PM (#559236)
I find this article to be incredibly insightful, even at 70 years old. It also contains many choice quotes.

"If we wanted to give our convenient inquiring friend, the Man from Mars, an idea of the best in human culture, we would hardly hand him a set of school texts and syllabi. Why should we do it with Johnnie and Susie?"

Re:PawPawMail - Email for the Elderly on Thursday April 09, 2009 @04:45PM (#555126)
One of these projects might help:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Site-specific_browser#Software

Re:Steve Yegge: Have you ever legalized marijuana? on Thursday April 09, 2009 @04:36PM (#555104)
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/03/14/portugal/

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=10080

Re:Stephen Wolfram Speaks About His New Question Answering Engine on Wednesday April 08, 2009 @09:14PM (#553722)
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=549398
Re:Engine Yard Hiring to help build the cloud on Tuesday April 07, 2009 @07:46PM (#551969)
Have things suddenly turned around?

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/01/07/engine-yard-cuts-15-of-...

Re:The Eight Levels of Programmers on Friday April 03, 2009 @11:50AM (#545039)
Only one of his examples of dead programmers is actually dead.
Re:Fire the AIG management on Wednesday March 18, 2009 @05:45PM (#522414)
"This shows a worrisome lack of basic business knowledge."

"The manager of your local McDonald’s is smarter than the AIG executives."

These types of remarks seem common when discussing this and similar situations related to the current economic situation. Perhaps the intentions of these executives was not to save the company, but to take care of themselves. I don't see this as stupidity. Greedy and unethical? Most definitely. These people are not stupid.

Re:An open letter to Steve Jobs about approving the amber alert applic... on Tuesday March 10, 2009 @12:11PM (#510099)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMBER_Alert#Controversy_about_s...

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