sevenfive

I recorded an agent of the court committing perjury.

When is perjury not transcribed anyway?

This "extremely small" argument falls flat, as is well known, pre-industrial levels were < 0.05 ug/dl. That said, I agree the result is suspiciously strong.

Source?

It's called being colloquial, jeez

At 76, I think it's fair to say he just died.

I actually had no idea he was that old. Maybe he looked younger than he was because he had no wrinkles.

What is technical analysis doing on HN?

Uhhh, are you sure about that? My ten dollar sleep mask from walgreen doesn't touch my eyes, I don't think it even touches my lashes. Meanwhile every mask I've tried buying online has fit terribly.

In retrospect, I've been leveraging this effect constantly since early high school. I suspect this explains many people's poor sleep habits. Anyone else?

No thanks.

Not my observations, observational studies.

Regardless of the exact reasons why plasticity declines with age, it's obvious that any fix is a long way off. I wouldn't take this news as positive, rather negative, actually, since it just means we have yet more work to do

Like, instead of saying "I always lamented the idea that as we grew older we generated less and less neurons" the GP can now say "I always lamented the idea that [other unknown mechanism behind declining plasticity]". Hardly good news.

I mean, we already know the differences between 20- and 30- year olds from simple observation. So it's not really positive or negative.

The difference is when you call something a "red herring" you also point out why. Or if you invoke "occam's razor" you simultaneously propose a simpler explanation. Whereas Hanlon's razor comments like the one above literally do nothing except say "Hanlon."

Anyway, I don't think me and GP are alone in being irrationally annoyed by this cliche.

I don't understand why people make these Hanlon's razor comments. This doesn't put forth any argument or new information, it just mentions the name Hanlon. As if the fact a pithy saying exists gives it authority in itself. Maybe we should start reminding people to consider Nolnah's razor as well.

But where do intrinsic merits come from? Prenatal nutrition, genetics, role models who taught you "critical thinking" and good character? It's not controversial so much as incoherent.

I still fear the potential censorship response to these russian bots a lot more than the bots themselves. After a few more years of these articles, who knows what people will sign off on?

This is why I hate Hanlon's razor. It's a totally generic catchphrase that people on HN just keep repeating. It's not an argument.

It's just a 100% empty comment. Literally every time something like this comes up, someone has to pipe up, "Hanlon's razor!" without any reference to actual details of the situation. Like, you are not smarter for knowing the phrase "Hanlon's razor," Hanlon's razor is not some deep piece of wisdom about the world, its literally just a catchphrase that takes 0 brainpower to repeat.

Sorry, kind of a pet peeve of mine.

OP forgets that Kary Mullis did most of his acid binging in the 70's and invented PCR in the 80's. So even if it did turn him into a crackpot, it didn't prevent him from doing useful work.

It's like Moody's. More political than educational. Downgrading the US may be fair, but the main purpose it serves is driving clicks. More to the point, the fact they downgraded the US shouldn't tell the average HN reader anything they don't already know. Contrast to say, S&P.

Edit: By the way, look at the way the top of the "Flawed Democracies" cluster under 8.00! I can totally believe some tweaking went on here.

Typical Economist analysis. Quite accurate and perceptive -- at predicting and evaluating things which have already happened.

Also, seems to be paywalled.

special vitamins during pregnancy to hypoallergenic formula

This is dangerous misinformation. Nutrition during pregnancy is quite important and worth getting right.

Curious, can you link the paper?

Any contiguous fluid surrounding a solid body will form a sphere around the system's center of gravity.

Did you just disprove tides?

Maybe.. radial lines with sharp angles? Whatever it is, it has to be a fairly simple combination of geometric primitives.

It's not hard to just guess. What is a spider? Radial lines that move.

Thanks for linking me to an article about Supply and Demand. I hadn't thought about that. You are still wrong.

The problem is that factory farmed animals usually eat grain which could be used to feed humans. Even if only 10% of their feed is suitable for human consumption, it's still a net loss of food, because meat is an extremely inefficient source of calories.

So what is the trolley problem? People who are starving don't buy meat.

I must live around weirdos. One person pays, and someone else always objects.

This is such a lame argument. Nobody is going to cure cancer or build a better tokamak because they attended a fancy wood-paneled lecture on God at Johns Hopkins.

Interesting to read all the responses in this thread observing incidental correlations between intellectual or practical accomplishments and philosophy. Famous scientists are sometimes interested in philosophy, philosophy majors score high on the GRE, etc.

It does not follow at all that studying philosophy helped cause those accomplishments.

The situation is similar to brain training games like Lumosity. They do not make you smarter in general, just better at that particular game. People who are already smart will do better.

Personally, my argument for philosophy is that I enjoy it.