Hacker News: gascan

New comment by gascan in "Millennials Are Causing the U.S. Divorce Rate to Plummet"

gascan — Tue, 25 Sep 2018 17:35:14 +0000

Fights about finances are known to be one of the top causes of divorce.

New comment by gascan in "Mosquitoes Genetically Modified to Crash Species That Spreads Malaria"

gascan — Mon, 24 Sep 2018 23:04:36 +0000

Immune mosquitoes would be good too, though certainly more challenging to engineer than "kill everything".

New comment by gascan in "Mosquitoes Genetically Modified to Crash Species That Spreads Malaria"

gascan — Mon, 24 Sep 2018 23:03:24 +0000

But really, when has that ever happened before?

New comment by gascan in "Mosquitoes Genetically Modified to Crash Species That Spreads Malaria"

gascan — Mon, 24 Sep 2018 23:01:30 +0000

Yes, here it is again, the nearly ten year old magazine article written by an intern. Nothing could be more definitive.

New comment by gascan in "Mosquitoes Genetically Modified to Crash Species That Spreads Malaria"

gascan — Mon, 24 Sep 2018 22:59:54 +0000

Trust us, pyrus calleryana- sorry, I mean anopheles gambiae- definitely won't crossbreed with anything.

New comment by gascan in "Mosquitoes Genetically Modified to Crash Species That Spreads Malaria"

gascan — Mon, 24 Sep 2018 22:57:48 +0000

The tiger mosquito your parent mentions, though, is invasive. Ecologists are usually more than happy to target invasive species.

New comment by gascan in "Android Studio 3.2"

gascan — Mon, 24 Sep 2018 21:47:26 +0000

Do they work offline?

New comment by gascan in "'We're moving to higher ground': America's era of climate mass migration is here"

gascan — Mon, 24 Sep 2018 15:59:07 +0000

And before you try to rationalize this with "per capita" arguments

This is moronic. After all, the other 49 states combined produce more greenhouse gas than California. Don't try to rationalize that with "per capita" or "per land area" arguments, the absolute numbers matter.

New comment by gascan in "'We're moving to higher ground': America's era of climate mass migration is here"

gascan — Mon, 24 Sep 2018 15:55:53 +0000

Things get pretty weird when you start contemplating doing things at this scale. My father likes to tell of how, supposedly, McDonalds was considering introducing a new menu item, let's say it was an eggplant burger (I forget). The first question they had to answer was does the entire world produce enough eggplant?

Also, critically, if due to catastrophe you abandon your $100k home and buy another $100k home in another place, your move cost $200k.

New comment by gascan in "After Five Years of Living in Trees, a Protest Community Is Being Evicted"

gascan — Fri, 21 Sep 2018 22:06:42 +0000

I have no problems with cutting second growth, especially timber that was planted by man. It's specifically timber companies interested in harvesting old growth that irks me, because there's hardly any left, especially in Europe.

Going a little further, given that second growth harvesting is widely performed & commercially viable these days, seeking to log old growth comes across as simply looking for "easy money"- old growth hardwood fetches high prices, and you skip the work of planting.

New comment by gascan in "After Five Years of Living in Trees, a Protest Community Is Being Evicted"

gascan — Fri, 21 Sep 2018 22:04:29 +0000

Environmentalists are not the driving force to mine this coal, but many campaign heavily against nuclear, and the effect of decommissioning nuclear in Germany has been increased coal activity.

I'm not placing the blame at the feet of environmentalists, so much as ruing unintended consequences.

New comment by gascan in "A Day in the Life of Americans"

gascan — Fri, 21 Sep 2018 22:02:38 +0000

From what I recall, the Hadza (hunter gatherers of Tanzania) work ~6 hours a day. Sure, 8 hours a day is more, but same ballpark.

New comment by gascan in "A Day in the Life of Americans"

gascan — Fri, 21 Sep 2018 21:31:30 +0000

Well, we spend a third of our lives sleeping by design (which, you should rest reassured, improves the quality of your waking hours).

As for the third spent working, for as long as we have liked eating & having a roof over our heads, that has required steady effort.

New comment by gascan in "After Five Years of Living in Trees, a Protest Community Is Being Evicted"

gascan — Fri, 21 Sep 2018 21:29:25 +0000

Sure makes decommissioning nuclear (and bringing coal back online to replace it) look better and better. Good job, environmentalists.

New comment by gascan in "After Five Years of Living in Trees, a Protest Community Is Being Evicted"

gascan — Fri, 21 Sep 2018 21:28:45 +0000

RWE has undertaken measures to mitigate the mining’s impact

Mitigate the impact of clearcutting an entire forest? What a laugh.

New comment by gascan in "Southern California just saw its longest streak of bad air in decades"

gascan — Fri, 21 Sep 2018 18:52:43 +0000

Masks help with particulate, which I think is Asia's core problem (from all the coal). But most bad-air US cities struggle with ozone, and I don't think masks help with that.

New comment by gascan in "Southern California just saw its longest streak of bad air in decades"

gascan — Fri, 21 Sep 2018 18:52:00 +0000

Dang, would be nice if Android had more AQI built in. The 3rd party apps are not exactly rock solid.

New comment by gascan in "Ranch Nation"

gascan — Wed, 19 Sep 2018 17:17:51 +0000

I looked it up, and I guess I have to say I'm impressed it's not been reformulated into a mix of corn & soy product.

New comment by gascan in "Facebook Is Letting Job Advertisers Target Only Men"

gascan — Wed, 19 Sep 2018 16:33:01 +0000

if I run a tech company and wanted to target "people you are into the Python programming language", that's a group that will likely skew male...

"Yeah, um, we want programmers and I thought targeting people into Python was reasonable." That does sound reasonable. It's not meant as a proxy for gender, but for an interest/skill that is closely related to the job

Ok, I'm not deeply informed on Disparate Impact, but as you just described it, as intent doesn't matter, if your "job listing targeting Python developers" skews male and doesn't pass the 80% test, you're still discriminating & liable right?

New comment by gascan in "Facebook Is Letting Job Advertisers Target Only Men"

gascan — Wed, 19 Sep 2018 16:22:26 +0000

Intent is nine tenths of the law.