Hacker News: jckt

New comment by jckt in "The Dark Night of Mathematics"

jckt — Sat, 25 Jul 2026 17:48:26 +0000

Disregarding the competing definitions of “science”, a significant value in mathematical work is “the journey”. The truth or falsehood of individual results are rarely as important as the machinery developed to deliver it. If all the genie did was tell you something was true or false, the only learning you gain is to backtrack and develop the machinery yourself. To a certain extent this is true of the other sciences too.

New comment by jckt in "FDA links raw cheese to outbreak; Makers "100% disagree," refuse recall"

jckt — Wed, 18 Mar 2026 16:08:59 +0000

There aren’t mass deaths in the US either (no deaths reported per the article). But there are definitely cases of listeriosis due to raw cheese in France. A recent outbreak was in 2025 and led to 2 deaths.

https://www.rfi.fr/en/france/20250813-deadly-listeria-outbre...

New comment by jckt in "Chinese military entering Shenzen, just across the border with Hong Kong"

jckt — Tue, 13 Aug 2019 11:14:37 +0000

I actually thought that the whole "mainland infiltrates HK police" conspiracy was just PRC-phobia (which is a real problem in HK when it becomes xenophobic, sadly) but there's actually been evidence of it (albeit not much). If you're interested you can find videos of a riot policeman saying 「退後一點」 to protesters (and other weird sentences), which is extremely awkward in Cantonese (instead Cantonese would be 「褪後啲」 or something, sounds totally different), especially if you're in an intense situation.

New comment by jckt in "Robert Mercer: the big data billionaire waging war on mainstream media"

jckt — Sun, 26 Feb 2017 14:58:32 +0000

Wasn't the Obama campaign tech effort more about coordinating organisers/canvassers/etc in a "data-driven" way, rather than the Cambridge Analytica "propaganda network" type?

Clinton did indeed have a programme similar to Obama's, which has since (perhaps uselessly overdue?) been panned heavily in the MSM[1].

This isn't to say that Obama/Clinton wouldn't have relied on a Cambridge Analytica type service for moral reasons (in fact IIRC Clinton's campaign did do something similar, but at a much smaller scale), though, but more that they underestimated its potency...

[1]:https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/11...

New comment by jckt in "Welcome, ACLU"

jckt — Tue, 31 Jan 2017 18:44:53 +0000

Doesn't make him not a bad guy.

What do unsolvable math problems and Mount Everest have in common?

jckt — Thu, 02 Jun 2016 00:16:43 +0000

Article URL: http://www.believermag.com/issues/200311/?read=article_ellenberg

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11819418

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

100 or so Books that shaped a Century of Science

jckt — Sun, 09 Aug 2015 17:35:01 +0000

Article URL: http://www.americanscientist.org/bookshelf/pub/100-or-so-books-that-shaped-a-century-of-science

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10030790

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

New comment by jckt in "What China Has Been Building in the South China Sea"

jckt — Fri, 31 Jul 2015 17:53:31 +0000

Would that not be against the interests of the US neoliberal elite, who in turn have enormous influence on the USG?

New comment by jckt in "What happens when you stop relying on resumes"

jckt — Fri, 26 Jun 2015 04:32:04 +0000

Would that completely backfire once everyone knows the selection process is random?

New comment by jckt in "How to pay $400 instead of $70,000 in Delaware franchise tax"

jckt — Fri, 03 Apr 2015 05:59:59 +0000

Surely someone else would have done it for them, and paid the $400? After all, you don't get wealthy by having your loved ones paying $71k when $400 would suffice.

New comment by jckt in "The Mercedes Robo-Car That Made Me Want to Stop Driving"

jckt — Mon, 30 Mar 2015 07:35:28 +0000

I think a lot of that is just to advertise the car ("this the future, people!!"). For example, the article notes how large parts of the F 015 is made of "plastic that changes shape in hot weather", which Mercedes (or any other self-respecting auto brand, for that matter) is never going to put in their actual cars that they sell.

So I don't think we can take the cosmetic aspects too literally as to what Mercedes' design team will actually go for with the final product.

New comment by jckt in "Ellen Pao Loses Silicon Valley Bias Case Against Kleiner Perkins"

jckt — Fri, 27 Mar 2015 22:34:18 +0000

That's a really weird reading of michaelochurch's comment. Note the past tense -- he "wanted to find KP guilty". I'm pretty sure he was simply illustrating his initial reaction to the case, that he feels KP isn't completely innocent, but (more irrationally, perhaps) also that SV clearly has some problems with sexism.

But the case is about whether or not Pao was mistreated by KP on the basis of her gender, and to that, as the jury has (likely?) decided, michaelochurch's opinion is "probably not".

New comment by jckt in "Ellen Pao Loses Silicon Valley Bias Case Against Kleiner Perkins"

jckt — Fri, 27 Mar 2015 22:01:29 +0000

I think he was downvoted because some people can't see further than his Michael Brown analogy.

New comment by jckt in "Ellen Pao Loses Silicon Valley Bias Case Against Kleiner Perkins"

jckt — Fri, 27 Mar 2015 21:37:46 +0000

Sorry, I was just quoting the last sentence in the article.

New comment by jckt in "Ellen Pao Loses Silicon Valley Bias Case Against Kleiner Perkins"

jckt — Fri, 27 Mar 2015 21:27:39 +0000

Indeed, the last sentence

> One of the stranger points brought up in testimony was how Ms. Pao, before she was married, had dated a colleague for six months without ever realizing he was still living with his wife.

sounds like the article wasn't even finished.

New comment by jckt in "In College and Hiding from Scary Ideas"

jckt — Sun, 22 Mar 2015 08:48:18 +0000

I think the Internet as it was originally designed would have had the opposite effect. I mostly browse the "old" Internet -- i.e. static pages and the like. And all I really see is a diversity of opinion. It's honestly difficult to find someone I completely agree on any given day.

But the rise in "recommendation engines" (Facebook, Tumblr, etc) and even "news aggregators" (yes, the irony) may indeed impart the provincial-ising effect you mentioned. As people are automatically fed information that they have been measured to prefer, they end up grossly overestimating how widely-held their views really are.

In College and Hiding from Scary Ideas

jckt — Sun, 22 Mar 2015 06:33:55 +0000

Article URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/22/opinion/sunday/judith-shulevitz-hiding-from-scary-ideas.html

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9245862

Points: 222

# Comments: 147

New comment by jckt in "Who are the Japanese? (2008)"

jckt — Tue, 17 Mar 2015 22:43:58 +0000

Is there any reason why the submission title has "2008" in it? The article in question says it's from the June 1998 issue

New comment by jckt in "Time travel in Braid"

jckt — Tue, 10 Mar 2015 03:44:22 +0000

Barely related, but I just thought I'd point out that the author writes, in my opinion, quite nice sci-fi too [1], ranging from short stories to a web serial.

[1] http://qntm.org/fiction

New comment by jckt in "The Puzzling Galaxy at the Edge of Time and Space"

jckt — Tue, 03 Mar 2015 04:05:04 +0000

If you're referring to what Einstein referred to as the "finite, unbounded" universe, i.e. a spherical topology of the universe, measurements from the last decade and a half have shown that to be most probably (if not completely) wrong[1], and that our universe is in fact "flat".

[1] http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/universe/uni_shape.html