elpachuco

>Based on what you interpret as an implicit acceptance of slavery in comments on HN, which I guess you just sort of assume must be made by mostly white Americans?<<

Occam's razor says that it probably is white Americans.

I'm guessing here but maybe one of the reasons why white Americans gets so defensive and angry when this comes up could be that they feel they are being attacked and so they respond by trying to point to other instances where this happened. I grant you, that does not mean that people believe that slavery was OK but if so you should not try to excuse it.

Slavery existed in my own country, Mexico, and it was wrong. It was wrong then and it is wrong now. No excuses. To believe otherwise means that you should not object if other people try to enslave you or people you love. If I'm wrong then correct the error in my logic. I'm willing to learn.

I'm not sure if this is too simplistic or not but whenever you are unsure about whether something is OK or not simply imagine you are the one on the receiving end. If without lying to yourself you still think it is OK then maybe it is OK.

I seriously doubt anybody would make excuses for slavery with a straight face if they were the slaves, regardless of the era.

And now I feel like I'm being patronizing; sorry for that, not my intention.

You would think. But every time someone mentions here in HN about how USA slavery was bad there are always people coming out and saying that other countries used to do it too and imply that since others did it it was OK if the US did it. Horrible thinking of course but there you have it.

I have a nagging feeling that that represents the feelings of a sizable chunk of the white USA population. Hope I'm wrong.

It is really annoying to hear so many opinions here choosing to believe an alternate version simply because it sounds better to them rather than because of any actual evidence. (Are we still in Hacker News or is it a Sunday thing?) It feels like I'm reading opinions by creationists.

Even the us government agrees that the $ symbol is a peso sign. [1]

Here is the relevant piece:

>What is the origin of the $ sign? The origin of the "$" sign has been variously accounted for, however, the most widely accepted explanation is that the symbol is the result of evolution, independently in different places, of the Mexican or Spanish "P's" for pesos, or piastres, or pieces of eight. The theory, derived from a study of old manuscripts, is that the "S" gradually came to be written over the "P," developing a close equivalent of the "$" mark. It was widely used before the adoption of the United States dollar in 1785.<<

[1] http://www.moneyfactory.gov/faqlibrary.html

It would be better if you used evidence when choosing what you believe rather then rely on your personal preferences and biases.

Although it looks like the Peso sign I'm not sure it really is. Why would you put the Peso sign in a coin. It probably is something else and du to wear and tear now it looks like a Peso sign. Look at this other coin for example:

http://www.ancientresource.com/images/pirate-shipwreck-treas...

ps: The link to the image you are talking about is:

http://www.ancientresource.com/images/pirate-shipwreck-treas...

And its correct id is:#CS2073

>No idea why the pesos sign became the dollar sign, but I'd image it may have something to do with the Spaniards being around long before the English in the Americas

That is the whole point of this article . It tells you where the sign came from.

Until you take out your claws. Then who is meek and mild? I assure you, you are a danger to humanity!

>I've been following Jonathan Blow for a while now. He has a reputation for being condescending. If you follow him a Twitter then you might come to the same conclusion.

I think that's neither here nor there in the context of this article.

>In your scenario, what will happen to GPG? The world just loses this essential asset?

I say f*ck the world.

"Feo y sentido como los jarros de Oaxaca."

Just a useful saying in Mexican Spanish when you want to poke fun at someone that has a thin skin.

In english: Ugly and easy to break (thin skinned) like the mugs of Oaxaca.

100-500 LOC per day is normal.

It is not. You are not writing a novel here. Yes, most of the time is spent thinking. Some days there is no coding because it is spent on just trying to figure out what to do.

Not a counter argument at all. You've just shown that any more time on you will be wasted. There will always be types like you. Nothing to do but write you off.

Anti gravity engines. Warp engines. Replicators like those of Star Trek.

Godwin's law should be taken out the back and shot along with the person uttering it. Is a lazy form of attempting to neutralize any argument a person makes by simply mentioning Godwin's law.

Hyperbole Much? Left behind from where? Seriously, a couple of parlor tricks are not gonna leave anybody behind. Use a computer and devote your higher cognitive skills for more productive endeavors.

Once you know the basics of how to do something you do not need to continue to get better at it if your computer can do it better for you. Learn something else with the saved time.

Edit: Quick example: Is like marveling that you can do arithmetic in your head with 100 digit long numbers. Impressive? Yes. Useful? Nope. Is actually less than useful because all that time wasted you could have used it to learn something else.

Says you.

Exhibit A: Mexico. A country with vast potential being held back by their corrupt politicians.

Stress increases your blood pressure, releases adrenaline, and forces your body to go into overdrive. Chronic stress will wear down your body faster.

Simple analogy: Drinking acidic fluids will wear down your enamel. Do it for a long time and eventually all of your enamel will be gone. That will cause lots of other problems.

Feeling "bad" i.e. stress, is probably wearing something down inside your brain. Once that "something" is gone lots of problems occur. Schizophrenia may be the result of that "something" being worn out.

Given the track record the USA has with liberating people (Afghanistan, Iraq, Libia) I'd say thanks but no thanks.

From my point of view it doesn't really look that the USA is trying to liberate anybody. Just an empire looking out for its interests and masquerading it as something benevolent to fool its own population while at the same time totally screwing the people it is trying to liberate and leaving them worse off.

>Lest you think I’m taking sides already, let me stress that it’s not at all clear that AC is actually better than DC

No, it has been settled for almost a hundred years that AC, for long distance transmission, is the best. Too bad he included something like this. It diminishes his credibility and colors the entire article.

Edit: So I seem to be quite wrong. Well, at least now I know. I stand corrected.

I really don't understand what you are saying. Are you saying that he fired upon his own people and got a medal because of it?

Murphy's law: "If it can happen, it will happen"

Only to become yet another racket. And maybe even more harmful than the last one.

Didn't see this till now. Well, the twin towers are no more so that is out. I'm an engineer and also have a computer science degree. I "invent" plenty of software and I'm currently doing research on AI on my spare time so you could say I'm a scientist. So overall I think I'm doing OK.

Lost interest on the astronaut part but if I really wanted to I guess I could purchase a seat with Virgin.

So if I thought that at 20 religion was a farce and I still think that at 50, have I wasted my life. In the mean time I have learned and discovered lots about the universe. Have I still wasted my life. And also, I still dislike having kids the same as when I was 20 as I do now that I'm 50.

I guess I wan't to know what point are you exactly trying to make? People may never change their mind about having kids and yet still may grow and enjoy life immensely. Who are YOU to judge me?

When I was nine I wanted to be an astronaut, buy the twin towers, be part of a band, an inventor, a scientist.

>We are on the cusp of solving natural language understanding

Why do you think this? Is it just a feel or is there some company that is really close. As another user mentioned in this thread natural language understanding seems to be the same thing as solving strong AI. Solving strong AI is a huge deal. So big that the people in control of it will probably become the most powerful people in the world.

https://twitter.com/Arubin

Who knows if he still checks it though.

Well don't leave us hanging. Let us know your guesses. I'm really interested to know. Several other people in this thread seem to know and yet are not saying anything.

Edit: I found this quote from [1]. "Jessica Lessin at The Information tweeted that Rubin wanted more freedom for his robotics group. She said he wanted a structure like Calico, which is the anti-aging company Google has started.

Our guess is that Page views robotics as something he understands better, and considers it core to Google, and therefore would not want to give it the same independence. "

If so it seems rather short sighted for Page to let somebody like Andy Rubin leave. Rubin is self motivated,passionate,driven about what he does and he could have done great work with robotics.

[1] http://www.businessinsider.com/andy-rubin-out-of-google-2014...

2nd Edit: At least now I'm hopeful that Google will not own robotics.

>In 1984, Alley—along with Oleg Jakubowicz and William Wickes, both of whom had also been in the audience that day—finally got the experiment to run. It worked just as Wheeler had imagined: measurements made in the present can create the past.

I'm not a physicist so unfortunately I don't know whether this is true. However, of all the documentaries on Physics that I've seen they have never mentioned this.

Could anybody please chime in whether this is true.

>This is what completes genius.

Not it doesn't. People are different. Some more different than others. Frankly, it sounds like an autistic person is being described.