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User: Khashishi

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Comments · 3,289

  1. Re:ipso fatso on Why People Dislike Really Smart Leaders (scientificamerican.com) · · Score: 1

    Did he get the test back with a smiley on it?

  2. Re:Maybe it's the smart leaders who dislike the pe on Why People Dislike Really Smart Leaders (scientificamerican.com) · · Score: 1

    You are assuming that IQ scales linearly with intelligence.

  3. Re: They talk funny on Why People Dislike Really Smart Leaders (scientificamerican.com) · · Score: 1

    There were other candidates in the 2008 democratic primaries. None of them had the qualities that Barack Obama had. Listen to him. He inspires people. Did any of the other candidates inspire people? He didn't win because he was black.

  4. You could soon be raided by DEA on You Could Soon Be Manufacturing Your Own Drugs -- Thanks To 3D Printing (sciencemag.org) · · Score: 1

    Expect this technology to become illegal.

  5. Re:Reports of reboots from patch vastly overstated on Intel Says Newer Chips Also Hit by Unwanted Reboots After Patch (zdnet.com) · · Score: 1

    Only old people add NO CARRIER to their jokes.

  6. Re:Normally I'm quite against biofuels on Turning Soybeans Into Diesel Fuel Is Costing Us Billions (npr.org) · · Score: 2

    What do you mean by the "correct adjustment"? People are selfish wasteful bastards and the free market reflects that. Government exists because people realize that they need something to keep themselves in check.

  7. Re:Talk about a captive audience on GM Will Make an Autonomous Car Without Steering Wheel or Pedals By 2019 (theverge.com) · · Score: 1

    Better renew your AAA service.

  8. Re:Adding or reviving languages should be illegal on The Invented Language That Found a Second Life Online (bbc.com) · · Score: 1

    While I believe we are all better off speaking one language, I don't think we should sacrifice our history to do it. Already, we have lost a lot of history due to the fact that nobody speaks the language any more.

  9. Re:Esperanto was and is a failure on The Invented Language That Found a Second Life Online (bbc.com) · · Score: 1

    Thousands of the world's real languages have fewer speakers than that.

    They're all failures too.

  10. Re: Not black and white on FBI Calls Apple 'Jerks' and 'Evil Geniuses' For Making iPhone Cracks Difficult (itwire.com) · · Score: 1

    I guess you have to go by the majority view of the people. But it's not so easy to obtain that in places where free speech is stifled and elections are corrupt. I suppose having some people on the ground, polling random people and finding out what they think. This should be done before we invade any country, unless they attacked us (or our allies) first.

    I'm not saying that if the majority of people want regime change, we should go in and give it to them. But if the majority of people don't want regime change, that's a pretty damned good reason to stay the hell out. Unless they attack us, of course. And if they harbor groups that attack us? Well, that's where it gets hairy. Do we invade Saudi Arabia? But they are a good business partner (oil for weapons).

  11. Re: Not black and white on FBI Calls Apple 'Jerks' and 'Evil Geniuses' For Making iPhone Cracks Difficult (itwire.com) · · Score: 1

    They might not be your family or your friends, but I can guarantee you that there are US citizens with family in any given country and I have friends from many countries. America is a melting pot, despite the desires of the nationalists out there.

  12. If a government bans or demands backdoors in them; they are good.

    Or, it's smoke and mirrors and the government already has backdoors in them. And even if the messenging app is secure, the OS, or the keyboard app, or the hardware drivers, or the hardware itself could have a backdoor.

  13. Re:That's a common fallacy on Jack In the Box CEO Says 'It Just Makes Sense' To Replace Workers With Robots (grubstreet.com) · · Score: 1

    The rich do need the poor. Who is going to clean their hotel room, pick up golf balls from the driving range, shake their drinks, dry clean their suits? Sure, automation can potentially do that, but the rich won't feel rich unless they can watch a servant squirm for a tip.

  14. Re:You know what else makes sense? on Jack In the Box CEO Says 'It Just Makes Sense' To Replace Workers With Robots (grubstreet.com) · · Score: 1

    It's also probably LESS healthy that fast food.

  15. Re:Even assuming that were true on Windows 10's Edge vs Chrome: We're Faster and Win in Battery Face-off, Says Microsoft (zdnet.com) · · Score: 1

    Maybe what she finds objectionable is not the UI but using a browser made by a company whose business is to track your every move for advertising purposes. But you know your wife more than me.

  16. Re:Even assuming that were true on Windows 10's Edge vs Chrome: We're Faster and Win in Battery Face-off, Says Microsoft (zdnet.com) · · Score: 1

    Why not use Firefox?

  17. Re:Stop Taxing Profits! on Google's 'Dutch Sandwich' Shielded 16 Billion Euros From Tax (bloomberg.com) · · Score: 1

    I prefer an ecotax. A corporation should be paying taxes where they are polluting or extracting natural resources. They should also pay a georgist tax based on land usage (with a premium for access to public infrastructure).

  18. Re:How is this not fraud? on Google's 'Dutch Sandwich' Shielded 16 Billion Euros From Tax (bloomberg.com) · · Score: 1

    Yes, Google and any other multinational keeps track of the money generated in Netherlands. The problem is that they can shift the profit from one place to another by creating a shell company that buys and sells "services" from another division that does the actual work.

  19. Re:State Department on Google's 'Dutch Sandwich' Shielded 16 Billion Euros From Tax (bloomberg.com) · · Score: 1

    It's not too early to fix the mistakes of ones forefathers.

  20. Re:How is this not fraud? on Google's 'Dutch Sandwich' Shielded 16 Billion Euros From Tax (bloomberg.com) · · Score: 1

    How are they dumb? They are profiting by the arrangement. Sure, their profit is less than the tax that was avoided, but that tax would've gone to some other country like the USA.

  21. Re:The real injustice here on Google's 'Dutch Sandwich' Shielded 16 Billion Euros From Tax (bloomberg.com) · · Score: 1

    How does flat tax apply to multinational corporations?

  22. Re:No taxes to avoid on Google's 'Dutch Sandwich' Shielded 16 Billion Euros From Tax (bloomberg.com) · · Score: 1

    The specific assignment of who is paying the tax isn't important. Only the overall flow of money. You could argue that renters don't pay tax on their rent. But the landlord supposed to pay tax on their property and on their rental income. If you reduced the tax on the landlord and increased the tax on the peasa-- renter, then logically, the rent would reduce by the amount of the tax and the flow of money would stay the same. But of course, human behavior is not logical, but that's another debate.

    Don't say that the poor aren't paying their taxes since, by and large, poor people work for rich people. By taxing the employer rather than the employee, it's basically the same flow of money. Of course, the situation will differ on a case by case basis, but on a broad scale, everybody who works pays taxes.

    As for the poor who don't work, you can't squeeze blood from a stone.

  23. Re:riddle me this on Google's 'Dutch Sandwich' Shielded 16 Billion Euros From Tax (bloomberg.com) · · Score: 2

    Perhaps, but then you should also ban corporate spending on campaign contributions. After all, if the shareholders want to bribe some politicians, they can do it personally.

  24. Re:What if the algorithm is provably right? on New York City Moves To Create Accountability For Algorithms (propublica.org) · · Score: 1

    I think that racism, sexism, other-ism... needs to be understood as a social compromise. Life isn't fair, but artificial institutions should be as close to fair as practical to promote happiness. It's undeniable that men are on average stronger and faster than women. So, it makes sense to have separate categories for women in sporting events. This isn't to say that we need to give everyone a chance to feel special, but the fact is that women are a huge class of people with unique powers. With that being said, being a women shouldn't disqualify someone from competing in a men's sport (although men are disqualified from a women's sport). Why is that? Because the whole point of the women's category is to give them a lower competitive level. The men's sport is therefore more glorified. So, if a woman is good enough to compete in a men's category, she should be allowed to. To say that this woman cannot compete because the average woman is not competitive is discrimatory. It should be based on her individual ability.

    It is discriminatory to use a demographic category as a proxy for a correlated quantity, EVEN IF there is causality. If black people are on average poorer than white people, it is discriminatory to deny a loan to every black person (or even reduce the score for every black person) because a particular black person could be wealthy. Basically, it is laziness (and bigotry) to use the person's race as a shortcut for the particular financial indicators rather than the indicators themselves, just like it is laziness to use a person's sex as a shortcut for their athletic ability.

    For artificial intelligence, there's a certain number of input parameters and output parameters. It's easier to train a system with just a small number of input parameters (such as race and sex) but you'll just get these broad generalizations which are highly discriminatory. Given enough work, it should be possible to use statistics and linear algebra to pull out the actual factors that determine the outcome. And at that point, we can look at why these factors may be correlated with the broad demographic groups such as race. Likely, there is a way to address this.

  25. Re:More idiocy on New York City Moves To Create Accountability For Algorithms (propublica.org) · · Score: 2

    Well, in US labor law there's something called disparate impact. There is a grey area here and the ultimate answer will come from a social compromise, not from philosophy.