Richard

Younger people vote less often in all elections, not just mid-terms. The Pew chart is interesting, but I'm not sure what the explanation is--age, cohort, historical moment, overall decline in mid-term participation, changes in eligibility rules--it …

It's hard to see why this wouldn't be considered performance enhancement, as that's what it would do. Dunno.

While there has been good progress using machine learning for certain problems, it seems pretty clear (to me, at least) that superintelligence is pure science fiction for now. It's not just a matter of neuron and transistor counts--elephant brains …

What reason do you have to think that this will come to pass rather than one of the many dystopian scenarios?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=heAw4z71lvo Excellent

I agree with Rodrigo that AI is overhyped, but that doesn't mean that it will have no impact on the job market. The truth is, we really don't know whether new sectors will emerge to absorb all the displaced workers. The past may or may not be a …

Yuval would be well-advised to read more science and less science fiction.

As written, it is a full employment act for copyright lawyers. It is simply awful for the Internet, and since each member country will be able to interpret it however they choose, it's probably unworkable. There is pretty good reason to think that …

I think it's just that cheap jokes about potheads are easy while actual financial analysis is hard.

I was in Cuba briefly in the late 80s. The Soviet Union hadn't collapsed yet, but it had stopped subsidizing Cuba, and the consequences were all too clear. Gasoline was scarce. People got into lines without knowing what was being sold. As a …

For me, it was Morocco, especially Marrakech. I was in my early twenties and had set out to see all of Europe in a year, idiot that I was. After traveling through England, Holland, France and Spain, we decided to take a quick side trip to Morocco. …

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatsune_Miku

Perfect. Thanks.

Cheers, Vilen. I'm glad to hear you're thinking about it. I agree that it is helpful to have a visual marker for threads that you have visited. I just don't care for the current implementation. There are other ways of accomplishing the same thing …

The landing page titles are hard on my aging eyes. I know that light gray text on an off-white background is all the rage among designers who are undoubtedly on the young side, but it really does make it hard on some older users. Providing the …

> I think that the only way I could get myself to do that is if I actually went to the place where they spoke the language I was trying to learn...I found language classes in high school to be unbelievably boring. That being said, it would be …

The aqueduct in Segovia, Spain was completed by the Romans around 98 AD. Like other Roman works, it used no mortar, just precisely cut stones, and is well preserved today despite all the tourist buses that have parked next to it.

I began college as an engineering major but realized quickly that the curriculum left me with too little time to pursue many of my other interests. It was the 60s, so I switched to political science (with a minor in recreational chemistry). Even at …

It's probably too soon to evaluate the historical impact of the Internet, but my sense is that it's easily as important as Gutenberg, and potentially more important. The net makes much of the world's knowledge available everywhere. About half the …

Is it reasonable to assume you can ever express any opinion without somebody thinking you're a jerk? You don't need permission, but if you notice that most people you respect think you're being a jerk, well, you might need to reconsider your …

> After they figure out the Grand Unified Theory, researchers could productively spend their remaining years understanding why I think I see an Ig Nobel Prize in the making here.

Off topic, but if it's a question of lust, how about this? I'm pretty sure this one will start even in rainy weather. https://www.engadget.com/2018/08/24/jaguar-all-electric-e-type-zero/ Most beautiful car ever.

I wonder if we're making too big a deal about fake news as a long term problem. Much of the complaining seems to be coming from from Donald Trump, who has very good reasons to want us to disbelieve the truth. How different is InfoWars from The …

Maybe next time there's a fire at a Verizon facility, the fire trucks should drive there at two miles an hour and the fire fighters be forced to take public transport. As others have said, this is simply outrageous corporate behavior, but I don't …

Anne Geddes never thought of this one. Remarkable image, but it does make me a little uncomfortable.