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escherba

Re:When You Fall in Love, This Is What Facebook Sees on Sunday February 16, 2014 @10:41PM (#7250517)
> You would rather be manipulated better?

There is another way to look at it. "Manipulation" is sometimes necessitated by poor targeting.

That seemed like a well-intentioned article, but his story strikes me as paradigmatic though:

* Year 1969. Writes the Anarchist Cookbook.

* Years 1973-75. Becomes a teacher.

Interpret at will.

Re:The History of Apple Mice in Pure CSS on Saturday October 19, 2013 @05:04AM (#6575842)
Typing with this keyboard right now: http://matias.ca/laptoppro/mac/ Much better keyboard than Apple's own wireless thingy.
Re:The Indian and his insatiable appetite for the college degree on Monday September 30, 2013 @04:00AM (#6468320)
I have been pondering about this for a while and have developed a hypothesis as to why Indian parents (and those from similar nations) tend to overvalue college degrees.

It is mostly due to the parents having low self-esteem. It comes down to the following two facts:

(1) While there are plenty of exceptionally capable young individuals like OP who have been proving everyone wrong, it usually takes a lot of parental skill and know-how to produce a wunderkind with social skills necessary to navigate the adult world in a foreign country.

(2) Parents who are recent immigrants (especially from poorer nations or from nations with significant cultural differences from the host nation) do not see themselves as capable of providing that know-how. Note that I did not say they can't provide it -- just that they do not see themselves as capable to (it turns out that more often than not they underestimate themselves).

Therefore, if you are a parent in a similar situation, it (often wrongly) appears to you that the only way your children stand a fighting chance is if you they spend as much time in school as possible. Then, of course, is the social pressure from family friends.

Re:Don't date a girl who reads on Tuesday September 17, 2013 @10:46AM (#6399582)
Don't read prose written for the sake of sounding meaningful.
Re:Lockheed Martin pays $10M for D-Wave's Quantum Computer on Sunday April 07, 2013 @06:33AM (#5506732)
I'm not an expert on Comp Chem, but you might want to rephrase your question. If the simulation is "chemically accurate", of course it will match the real-world, by definition of "accurate"...
Re:Douglas Hofstadter has a new book on Wednesday April 03, 2013 @04:48PM (#5488971)
Haha, sounds like you've met a Lacanian (Lacan was famous for saying, among other things, that "the unconscious is structured like a language"). Such reductionist intellectualizations (aka "man, everything is a pineapple!") are neat to meditate on, but they alone won't give you tangible results or something you can use to forecast events and test hypotheses.
Re:Powerful Thoughts From Paul Graham on Tuesday April 02, 2013 @02:38AM (#5477995)
The point pg is trying to make is that seeking relative material wealth with respect to others is akin to seeking pure status/power without having to do the work required to get it. It is all too easy to move to Costa Rica or wherever and live like a king for $10 a day.
Re:A robotic dragonfly with a wingspan of 63 cm on Friday March 29, 2013 @08:24AM (#5460368)
Looks like the park of the Permian period will be robotic.
Re:What's Actually Wrong with Yahoo's Purchase of Summly on Tuesday March 26, 2013 @04:49PM (#5445986)
What surprises me is that the same people who complain about patents and intellectual property are often the first to bring up the discussion of how market tends to undervalue fundamental research. You can't have your cake and eat it too.