guspe

I agree with you, artists should not starve and deserve our appreciation. Even with piracy, Beyoncé, Jay Z, Brad Pitt, Jennifer Lawrence, Steven Spielberg, Justin Bieber, R. R. Martin and many, many other artists and creators are pretty safe from starvation though. Actually, if "to not starve" means being as wealthy as them, I'd say more than 95% of the world is starving right now.

Copyright is making a very privileged portion of the world very, very rich. That's completely unecessary. Artists should earn their living, sure. But they don't need to be filthy rich. To be filthy rich isn't really a "need" for anyone, in any time.

There's no pure technological achievement. Politics permeate engineering all the time. I'd rather say I despise Apple's misguided approach to patents than say its techinical merit is "more important". Because given Apple's position, both its techinical merits and its stupid litigations have been shaping the industry.

Life is not a game. And that's because, unlike any game, life has no rules. By following this strategy guide, there's absolutely no guarantee you will succeed (btw, what exactly is it to succeed in life?).

People might get a sense of comfort in thinking that life has a recipe, that it has some sort of inherent quest you must conquer. But there's isn't. Religion, technology, culture and art are our way to deal with that.

Life is open for you to make whatever you want of it. And this is the beauty of it all. Do you want to make it a game? Go ahead, lay some rules, build a strategy, get your achievements. But I think there's more to life than following rules and managing your resources. I wouldn't be surprised if the rules changed without warning or if my resources were suddenly depleted without apparent reason. Because life doesn't care about the rationalizations you came up with.

Life is a unique experience that, fortunately, cannot be framed within a metaphor. There are many ways to live (life as a game, life as a movie, life as a story, life as a poem, life as a checklist, life as a tough math problem) and all of them are right. So maybe we shouldn't bother too much about living the right way and instead just enjoy the ride.

Aaron Swartz's dream come true?

Try the tutorials. Instead of entering Robotropolis sewer, just head down and start with "Robot Anatomy".

Yeah, this was more or less my reaction to this article too. Much before infinite scrolling in apps, there were libraries so overwhelming in sheer volume of content that lead Borges to conceive the universe in the form of "The Library of Babel".

Simply putting a stop to scrolling will not end the feeling of unsatisfaction, it will not end the fear of missing out. Infinite scrolling is the consequence, not the cause of our dissatisfaction.

We can't avoid applying human paradigms to animal behaviour. Cats strike us as introverted and cynical so they serve well the purpose of criticizing humanity; by playing the role of a cat, people can disclose about the pointlessness of life without sounding too bitter or too philosophical (much like dogs facilitate talking about how humans can be loyal, friendly and honorable).

Nonetheless, opinions about dogs and cats really are homogeneous. Maybe this means our ideas about those animals have been constructed over time. We wouldn't be so eager to call an eagle "loyal" or "smart". Our relationship with dogs and cats is so long that we've had enough time to carefully craft their images.

The NY Times has been running an automated haiku experiment for some time now. I think it has a lot to do with your comment. Check this: haiku.nytimes.com

I wouldn't be surprised if the same criticism could be applied to several institutions throughout the world. When I think about how U.S. is one of the countries where creationism thrives the most, it's clear to me that the problem Feynman is talking about affects everyone and every science. Also, this is not proof of politics masking actual competence.

Wait, careful with the strawman there. Yes, USP is funded by taxpayers but the students themselves don't have to pay anything. The reasoning behind this choice is that the cost of a student in that University can be shared by everyone because the value of the knowledge produced there is also shared by everyone. People who otherwise wouldn't be able to afford college-level education are given the chance to study.

It's a decision that is aligned to the principles of social democracy. You could argue against it, take a more neoliberal stance, but that's not the point. My point is that USP is trying to do something different.

I wish I knew more about how private universities in US are funded. I have a feeling that aside from the tuition students pay they still receive some sort of aid from the government.

True, everything has it price. But it's also true that free market is not really free.

And isn't that remarkable? I think it is.

With all its deficiencies, USP is a top university and produces valuable researches. That's no joke at all. Just look at the Lattes curriculum of both its faculty and graduates. MIT, Harvard, Princeton —those are awesome universities but they are expensive too, not a thing most people can afford. Studying at USP costs nothing. That's quite an achievement. I don't mean to be overlook the problems. I'm just pointing out an important difference.

>Politics contaminate our universities and research centers so deeply that it masks any selection for actual competence.

This is a serious claim backed by no evidence whatsoever. It's an idea that permeates brazilian academia, it's understandable to some extent, but fails to accomplish anything other than undermining ongoing researches.

>"It's sort of like a Soviet socialism of computing," he said, adding that the U.S. "free-for-all model works better."

This is interesting. If Internet did really follow a free-for-all model, NSA would've never happened. In the same way free market benefits U.S. but takes its toll on Rwanda, the "free-for-all" internet of today benefits the Silicon Valley at the expense of the privacy of non-american people. If the United States had already taken measures to inhibit NSA's surveillance instead of justifying its actions and chasing Snowden, Brazil wouldn't have to move in that direction. It's basically U.S. unwillingness to build a truly free Internet that pushes other countries towards "independence". We should also be aware that the source of the news is a San Francisco-based newspaper, which adds yet another layer of enconomic interests to the story.