Troll_Whisperer

Joined 15 years ago

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83
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53
Member since
Jun 28
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Comment · 15 years ago
As Kurzweil pointed out, Allen hadn't even read his book. In it Kurzweil provides copious volumes of data to support his claim that the overall trend is still exponential. As one paradigm starts to run out of steam, there is greater and greater research pressure to find the next. Much as vacuum tubes improved exponentially until nearing their limit upon which transistors and then later ICs took over, the same has been happening with energy.

For the past 400 years human energy consumption per person has been growing at a relatively smooth exponential curve, despite changes from wood-burning to coal to whale oil to petroleum. Even a cursory unbiased study on the subject will show that. Interestingly, for nearly the entire time, malthusian doomsday prophets have enjoyed more popularity than more rigorous analysts.

Comment · 15 years ago
>What about energy?

>It's true that if you look at most areas of technology they are advancing rapidly. Except energy. Energy has stagnated since the 1950s.

This is demonstrably false. Solar power generation, for example, has been enjoyinging the same kind of Moore's Law exponential price/power over the past 15 years that computer processing power has. This is hardly surprising due to the fact that silicon wafer solar panels often use the same semi-conductor suppliers that computer hardware manufacturers do. Newer thin-film solar panels represent a jump in paradigm that promises even greater price performance.

I could have brought up similar points about the progress of wind-power, bio-fuel, or a number of other fields. Energy has anything but stagnated since the 1950s.

tldr: Stay off the peak oil scaremongering sites. They'll blind you.

Comment · 15 years ago
>Today, all games are for consoles, all mini-games are iphone games

Then I guess I've been living in some fantasy world with Starcraft II, Diablo 3 beta and new games every week at Kongregate. I like it though, so please don't wake me up. I can barely even imagine an RTS on a console and I don't think it would be worthy of even playing let alone watching e-sports casts of others play!

Comment · 15 years ago
>Everybody understands that there's a cost/benefit tradeoff here, so spelling it out all over again doesn't really move us forward.

You just asked the commenter to spell it out in your previous comment. Chastising him/her for doing so really, really doesn't move us forward. His comments about requiring sign-up (particularly on services that don't allow minors under 13) were an excellent explanation.

Comment · 15 years ago
A sentence. Requires. A verb.
Comment · 15 years ago
This is awesome. I really, really like interactive tutorials like this. I do have some programming experience, but being pretty weak in JS I found it educational. Thanks.
Comment · 15 years ago
Somebody with the power to do so, please flag this. It's only two and a half sentences. The rest is behind a paywall.
Comment · 15 years ago
Stealing and copying aren't the same thing. The fact that you use the words interchangeably is a testament to the lobbying power of the RIAA/MPAA. Interestingly enough it was those same organizations which brought the word "piracy" into common usage to describe copying a disc rather than raping and murdering and robbing seafaring travelers.
Comment · 15 years ago
The author of that also uses a great deal of selective evidence, flat out ignoring genetic research in relationship to music, for example. Specific genetic sequences have been linked both to perfect pitch and to success in classical music. If you can't find it via a quick google search, I'll be happy to provide citations.

Evidence for the role of genetics in running, swimming and a variety of other sports is equally overwhelming. In short, he (and others like him such as gladwell) sell a fantasy that millions, possibly billions would like to believe. It's an excellent strategy for selling books and developing a base of hard-core fans, but it's just not true.

Comment · 15 years ago
"Further, I believe that a response like mine is the only serious response that can be given to someone (kogir) who actually just suggested, "with a straight face", that a full 10% of the people using the App Store should be /banned from leaving reviews/ because he doesn't want to deal with /fonts being changed/. Are you telling me here that you actually agree with him?"

Considering that that "full 10%" of the people you speak of have broken their terms of service and are running a non-sanctioned OS, why should Apple be obligated to publish their reviews? I understand the anger at Apple bricking jail-broken phones, but I really don't see how they should be obligated to accommodate them.

Comment · 15 years ago
That was absolutely stunning. I can't even imagine someone pinning their entire hard-earned fortune on a wing and a prayer, but that's exactly what he did. Talk about balls.

Better still his start-ups are actually changing the world for the better. They're not just a bunch of smartphone apps. Today I toast the man who believed in solar power, space exploration and electric cars so much that he put he was willing to put his entire 8 figure fortune of 2 decades on the line! Elon, you're a tribute to the human spirit!

Comment · 15 years ago
What it does in practice is encourage keyword-stuffing.

I've been going through dozens of iOS and webdev resumes a week and about two in three have the right keywords. Their skills don't correlate strongly with those keywords. What has gotten dramatically better results for me has been this: put programmers through some automated programming tests (kind of like an in house version of interviewstreet.com), and filter any graphic artists / designer entirely based off of their portfolios.

That has quickly weeded out those who can't code (or design).

Comment · 15 years ago
I agree with you that the author had some really crazy preferences in his example. Penalizing a front end webdev who aren't on LinkedIn as harshly as you penalize those who don't know HTML is absolutely bonkers!

In his defense, I think it was just meant to be an arbitrary example. You could avoid this problem by dramatically lowering the point values assigned to college degrees and LinkedIn profiles and upping the credit assigned to having Javascript skills.

The real problem is that there's no distinction made between someone such as myself who knows a bit of Javascript and someone who is an expert in it. Some criteria are binary, others are not.

Comment · 15 years ago
My disagreement was with the claim that "the Flynn Effect is in full swing". The recent small downwards trend you acknowledge is incompatible with that claim. From everything I've read on the topic, the Flynn Effect ended in the US about 20 years ago. FWIW, I administer Raven's APM tests in the course of my work.

Please speak for yourself about trolling wikipedia. I simply responded to the lazy GP's need for a citation with a google search of a relevant phrase. That said, the very article from which you quoted a sub-section has this in the header:

"Recent research suggests that the Flynn effect may have ended in at least a few developed nations"

This claim carries a citation on wp.

Your link at the bottom about educational attainment is completely irrelevant to the discussion. Intelligence and formal schooling are two different things.

Comment · 15 years ago

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