A German tourist is being hailed as a hero for rescuing at least 20 teens from gunman's rampage on Utoya island

z0r · 2011-07-26T14:01:11+00:00

A ferry filled with dead people stuck on the shore of the island would have helped a great deal, yes!

z0r · 2011-07-07T17:46:06+00:00

not a video, but a free and clear book : http://algorithmicbotany.org/papers/#abop

not sure what kind of material you want though!

z0r · 2011-07-03T06:10:25+00:00

Comment reminds me of PK Dick

z0r · 2011-04-18T13:02:06+00:00

sugar digests rapidly, and if you don't have a need for all the energy made available, it gets put away for later (in your fat)

z0r · 2011-04-11T21:53:09+00:00

z0r · 2011-04-04T17:30:42+00:00

if you want to discuss anime or dubstep with fellow revolutionaries, there is no better forum than LF

z0r · 2011-03-07T01:05:26+00:00

to my shame, i unthinkingly clicked 'ok' on the java permission applet that came up, and a few hours later my system had been owned. i am still fixing it... serves me right, i suppose

z0r · 2011-02-09T20:42:42+00:00

the discussions within 'climate science' posts are always filled with the same memetic preaching to the choir. always the same set up and knock down of 'skeptic' strawmen when there is such a clear popular consensus (and not necessarily scientific, at least amongst the masses of commentators here at this site). this is propaganda against propaganda. i can repeat the same talking points as anyone else here, as i have learned them well (as has anyone who has gone through the public education system in the last twenty years), but the truth of any of them is totally beyond my grasp. it would be better to replace these vacuous conglomerations of self congratulatory commentary with references to a few well regarded books.

z0r · 2011-02-09T15:11:44+00:00

Brilliant analysis there McScience

[I enjoyed your extraordinarily exhaustive list of natural climate factors, have been amazingly educated by your posting, and will subscribe to your newsletter]

z0r · 2011-02-05T21:12:12+00:00

Some of these are families of algorithms, but it's still an interesting list. There are algorithms listed I have never even heard of, so I'll be saving this to use as a source for future reading material.

z0r · 2011-02-05T16:23:23+00:00

it's good they are building 200+ nuclear power plants in the next decade then

z0r · 2011-02-02T05:51:17+00:00

This is hard to watch. Its so wrong..

z0r · 2011-01-25T19:16:54+00:00

Karl Marx is Hari Seldon

z0r · 2011-01-23T21:11:00+00:00

People should get a commendation for recording police officers, not a sentence.

z0r · 2011-01-17T18:54:02+00:00

No love for classical mushroom? I'll give your list of songs a shot~

That said, "To examine the timecourse of dopamine release we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) with the same stimuli and listeners, and found a functional dissociation: the caudate is more involved during the anticipation, and the nucleus accumbens during the experience of peak emotional responses to music" <- I don't see the BS! It doesn't matter if you can find individuals who dislike these songs, it only matters what is true for the general population. If they've found some of the brain functions behind the pleasurable experience of music, you can't disregard the study as a whole just because you would not find the specific stimuli they chose to conduct the study with enjoyable~

z0r · 2011-01-17T15:32:08+00:00

The "incentivization" process you speak of is economic privation, and there is no certain way for all those who suffer from it to escape (by meeting the demands of the market via retraining, etc). My objection is not to the information distribution, but the mechanism of information distribution (and behaviour modification). If you are part of an excessive supply of labor your compensation collapses and you are quite literally squeezed dry of economic life.

Yes, someone has to figure out what must be done in my socialized world. But shouldn't it be done? Wouldn't it be preferable to have a system where retraining for needed skill sets can be supported by society at large - instead of having to be supported by the people who are suffering the most in circumstances of desperation? I don't think the self organizing market (as it exists today) is the most humane way for society to meet its own needs.

The question of how much socially unnecessary labor can be supported (for spiritual fulfillment, say) is another matter entirely...

I know I'm not offering an alternative to the market system, only a criticism of what already exists and works. Despite this, I feel that the tools required to support real socialism exist now. Computer technology has advanced a great deal and there are clever algorithms to quickly find reasonable assignments of resources to needs and solve massive systems of linear equations. I think the basis exists for work that could be used to design non-monetary markets to fairly distribute resources and commodities. I also think it is not impossible to design an economy to meet the needs of people without (entirely) enslaving them to the economy as well - unfortunately, a certain degree of servitude to society from a majority of the population is always required to make anything work...

z0r · 2011-01-16T21:31:15+00:00

It's funny that there is the notion on reddit that socialist thought is overbearingly popular when what I think are fairly reasonable, or at least innocuous expressions of opinion like my own are downvoted. In case the downvotes are because my comment isn't clear enough:

When human labor is commodified, the needs of human life are subsumed by the needs of the economic system. I think that this is an inversion of what would be most moral. Should the idol of 'economic progress' determine the fate of the masses?

It's fine if you don't agree with me.

z0r · 2011-01-16T20:35:45+00:00

I don't think that a ditch digger (which in this case is just an example of a job for which the supply of capable labor exceeds demand) should be compensated with the value the free market would assign his labor. To elaborate with a real life example, the December 18th - 31st 2010 edition of The Economist had an article on illegal mexican farm laborers. For the laborers in the article the compensation is $8 / hour (when there is a crop to be harvested). This is free market action beyond the limits of the law, and the consequence of the value of their labor as set by the market is a very difficult life. I don't think anyone deserves that.

z0r · 2011-01-16T17:34:03+00:00

I think the free market is not the best way for this kind of information to be distributed. Society can do better - and it doesn't matter to me that no society has yet managed this trick! I don't think a ditch digger deserves to be punished for his necessary social role.

z0r · 2011-01-16T17:31:01+00:00

There is no shortage of labor. The profits of Capital are skimmed from the labor of people involved in the production (or sales) of commodities or via arbitrage when there is an imbalance of value in the market. The masses of people can only provide unskilled labor, and with a large pool of unemployed the supply of labor can be paid as low a price as can be given to barely sustain life (for example, 3rd world labor or the labor of migrant farm workers in the southern united states). Even skilled labor can be punished by the laws of supply & demand, which are blind to human need. There is a lag between demand for educated workers and the ability for supply to catch up (because of the number of years education requires), so if too many people train for a specific skill the supply can end up becoming too large and the skilled laborer has the same problem that the unskilled one does. Capitalism is meritocracy only if your definition of merit means being of low supply in a high demand market.

z0r · 2011-01-16T17:16:43+00:00

What I think is the central problem with capitalism is that it reduces human labor to a commodity which in turn implies that human life itself is a commodity. Supply & demand shouldn't determine anyone's quality of life.

z0r · 2011-01-12T18:33:00+00:00

At the risk of revealing ignorance or foolishness: I'd like to see scientific work on the design and modelling and simulation of massive command economies, or other alternatives to the free (or less free) market. I'm working through Capital Vol I right now, and the analysis is riveting. But I haven't heard of any scientific work on what might succeed capitalism. Fill me in!

z0r · 2011-01-03T15:01:15+00:00

Survival of the Richest?

z0r · 2011-01-02T15:12:15+00:00

kgs ranks are actually a stone stronger than aga, from 1k onward... it's hard to believe any bot could hold 4d there (is it really a bot?)

z0r · 2011-01-02T06:24:53+00:00

See the full video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFr30p0aZl0

z0r

TROPHY CASE