cvick

Safari on iphone I get this error when I load the page:

Could not enable WebMidi: navigator.requestMIDIAccess is not a function. (In 'navigator.requestMIDIAccess({sysex:t.sysex,software:t.software})', 'navigator.requestMIDIAccess' is undefined)

This book changed the way I think.

Yeah, I find that people use "Logical" wrong as well, or, more specifically, "Not Logical" or "Illogical". When asked to explain why something is or isn't logical...blank stares.

There is nothing in that method that accounts for the possibility that the test may be flawed in some way. I suppose that the assumption here is that the test is 'perfect' in that each question is worded in such a way that there is one and only one 'right' answer. But, as a taker of this kind of true/false test, if I am only allowed to provide my assessment of my own confidence in my answer without an explanation of "why" I assigned that value, then there's no way to answer in a way that I will not be penalized for a question that I don't feel that I can answer as asked.

Consider assigning an additional value of '1' to each question initially as a representation of the author's confidence that the question is not flawed in any way. Then, if a significant segment of the test taking population indicates that they believe that the question is flawed in some way, then, the "author's confidence" for that question would be reduced by an amount that wouldn't penalize me for identifying that flaw while still allowing for less 'partial credit' to those who answer incorrectly without being aware of the flaw, or more specifically, not giving as much credit to those who answered 'correctly' in spite of the flaw.

It's also possible that the question I think is a 'flaw' is really a 'trick' question and that in order to answer 'correctly' you must discover the trick -- this would still allow for a better result in that it more accurately assesses whether I really understand the question or not.

It also occurs to me that if the test administrator wants to give a test where they can assign some manner of partial credit to an answer, then they shouldn't give a true/false test in the first place.

The art of being wrong isn't about admitting it to others. The 'real' art to being wrong is being able to constantly challenge your own conclusions and not be afraid to ask yourself, "could I be wrong about this?"

In the author's case (and in so many other examples just like this one), it did not occur to him to question his own conclusion -- hey, his own personal experience told him that this was a good guy and that was good enough for him. So good, in fact, that he ignored the contradictory experience from his team members.

It didn't occur to him that he might be wrong until he actually sat down and tried to work with this guy. At that point he realized that everyone else was right and he was wrong, but it was almost too late because he was on his way to losing his reputation from his team members.

He concludes the piece with the following statement, "Sometimes, we have to admit weakness in front of the people who’s respect we depend on the most. Don’t worry about it– despite what you might like to believe, they already know you’re human."

Being wrong about something doesn't mean that you are weak. It just means that you were wrong.

Near the end of the piece, the author states that it takes strength to admit your mistakes and you will grow from that experience. Unfortunately, I think he really misses the mark here in that the more important lesson that we can learn from this is how to avoid this kind of scenario in the first place: we must constantly challenge conclusions that we draw from personal experience.

It is only by constantly asking ourselves if we might be wrong that we can know with any degree of certainty when we really are right.

I first read GEB when I was a teenager (and I've re-read it many many times since). It is one of the few books that made me re-think the way that I think, and it's one of my favorite books of all time. "The Emperor's New Mind" didn't thrill me the way GEB did, but I enjoyed it. I recently read "I Am A Strange Loop" and it got me thinking again :)

This is absolutely true. Critical Thinking does discourage ideas - namely, poorly thought out and stupid ones. There's absolutely nothing wrong with using creativity to solve problems, however, at some point, you have to think critically about those solutions if you ever have any hope of actually solving problems. But, Why stop there? If we're going to get rid of critical thinking, why not just throw out the whole of the scientific method as well? We'll all find ourselves in the middle of a new Dark Age at the wrong end of a dowsing rod .

Near the end of the article, there's this: "Because we elect our prosecutors, there is no chance of apology, and no admission of error."

Can anybody help me understand this? Does it really work this way?

Technically, you are correct: a single bank cannot do this, but the entire banking system can. With a 10% reserve requirement, a single $100 deposit at one bank becomes $1,000 of credit in the entire banking system.

However, the point that I am trying to make is that you cannot do that with bitcoin because you cannot lend out BTC that you do not have. If you start out with 100 BTC, you can never increase that amount by any kind of fractional reserve lending - there will only ever be 100 BTC.

The idea of "BTC credit" expressed as actual BTC makes no sense -- 1 BTC is 1 BTC it is the thing that is used for trade. If you want to create a new kind of currency that is backed by bitcoin and start a bank that uses that currency for fractional lending, then there is nothing to stop you, but you would have to operate in something other than actual BTC for credit - using actual BTC for that just won't work, as you'll quickly run out of any BTC that you had after only a few transactions/loans.

Actually, you can't. If I am in possession of 1 BTC and I give it to you, I am not in possession of it anymore -- there is nothing that I can do to get it back unless you give it back to me. There is absolutely no way to do fractional reserve lending with BTC because you can't 'lend' someone BTC -- it's either mine or it's yours. period.

Fractional reserve lending "backed" by BTC is possible, but then, you're not actually lending BTC - you're lending something that is "not BTC" - namely, a promise to pay BTC on demand, which is no different than fractional reserve lending that was backed by gold in the past (or, as it is today, lending that is backed by the value of the thing that is being lent - fiat currency).

The problem is that you can't think of BTC like a traditional currency because it isn't. Because it is digital in nature, it can act very much (almost exactly) like a modern currency, but when all is said and done, what you are left with is something that is much more like a commodity than actual currency.

Coinbase is free to do their internal accounting in any way that they wish as long as the numbers come out 'correct' on the balance sheet, but if I deposit BTC with them and then subsequently use that BTC to purchase goods and services, actual bitcoin will be transferred from me (via coinbase) to the merchant. The merchant receives actual bitcoin as a result of that transaction, not a promise to pay bitcoin at some point in the future. This is not fractional lending.

Banks are legally allowed to issue credit up to a specified multiple of their reserves, so, extending your analogy above, imagine an additional eight people behind you requesting to overdraft their account by $100. As a result of your $100 deposit, the bank is now legally authorized to approve each of those requests for a total of $900 in credit that was created out of nowhere. In point of fact, however, the bank can't just create money out of thin air. In order to extend this credit, they must have a reasonable expectation that the loan will be paid back - to act otherwise would have negative effects on the economy and the bank itself.

You just can't do that with BTC, and, in my opinion, that is not a limitation, but a very positive aspect of bitcoin - it doesn't fit into the current economic model.