Hacker News: seanflyon

New comment by seanflyon in "Text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership"

seanflyon — Thu, 05 Nov 2015 23:07:26 +0000

http://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations

New comment by seanflyon in "Hydrogen Cars Take to Britain's Roads"

seanflyon — Thu, 05 Nov 2015 22:16:34 +0000

Nit pick: Electrolysis is more like 70% efficient, but once you add the losses from compression and turning that hydrogen back into electricity, your 30% figure sounds about right.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrolysis_of_water#Efficien...

New comment by seanflyon in "Why nuclear energy is our best option at the moment"

seanflyon — Tue, 03 Nov 2015 21:56:28 +0000

I'm not arguing in favor of our current regulation, I'm saying that it is hard to fix and you can't throw it out altogether.

New comment by seanflyon in "Why nuclear energy is our best option at the moment"

seanflyon — Tue, 03 Nov 2015 21:46:04 +0000

I don't think unregulated nuclear is a good idea. Safer reactors would require less regulation and you could argue that even for current reactors our regulation is excessive. The bottom line is that efficient regulation is a hard problem and to use nuclear power we need to either solve that problem or endure inefficient regulation.

New comment by seanflyon in "The Fukushima accident was preventable"

seanflyon — Mon, 26 Oct 2015 20:31:02 +0000

> the tsunami it experienced was accepted by the best engineering data at the time to be impossible.

I find that hard to believe. It was the 4th largest earthquake in the last century and doesn't make the Wikipedia list of "Megatsunamis". It was more a question of how long between such extreme events than if such an extreme event could occur.

New comment by seanflyon in "Government officials in Amherst, VA can now require employers to fire ex-cons"

seanflyon — Tue, 01 Sep 2015 00:44:21 +0000

> not actually convicted of doing what is alleged

Do you mean "not actually guilty even though they were found guilty" or do we put people on sex offender registries without due process?

New comment by seanflyon in "Government officials in Amherst, VA can now require employers to fire ex-cons"

seanflyon — Mon, 31 Aug 2015 22:46:49 +0000

> as part of an issued sentence or punishment for an original crime.

I think this is the key point. You have a fundamental right to work for anyone who wants to hire you. The government can take away that right (and other fundamental rights) as punishment for a crime when you are convicted. I don't see how they can take away rights that are not a part of that sentence. That would be like calling you back for another year of prison after your sentence was completed.

New comment by seanflyon in "Let Students Sell Equity in Their Higher-Education to Finance It"

seanflyon — Tue, 25 Aug 2015 02:01:21 +0000

> Many countries already do this.

I don't think I could name a 1st world county that doesn't do that.

New comment by seanflyon in "Finland considers basic income to reform welfare system"

seanflyon — Fri, 21 Aug 2015 00:18:21 +0000

Minimum wage guarantees you will make a minimum of $0 + all eligible welfare benefits.

New comment by seanflyon in "Finland considers basic income to reform welfare system"

seanflyon — Thu, 20 Aug 2015 22:19:43 +0000

With BI, You will never be in a situation where you will be poorer for earning a dollar you just won't be an entire dollar richer.

New comment by seanflyon in "Project Sunroof"

seanflyon — Tue, 18 Aug 2015 01:10:59 +0000

Any electric heater will be approximately 100% efficient, but electricity is generally much more expensive per unit energy than than natural gas or oil. If you have decided that electricity is your best option, you should compare convenience, installation cost, and whether you want to heat specific areas or the entire house.

New comment by seanflyon in "A superconducting shield for astronauts"

seanflyon — Fri, 07 Aug 2015 21:43:11 +0000

Though on Earth it's our atmosphere that stops the high energy particles.

New comment by seanflyon in "Tesla unveils new car-charging robo-snake"

seanflyon — Fri, 07 Aug 2015 21:36:34 +0000

This enables a self driving car to charge. Your car can drop you off and go park.

New comment by seanflyon in "Tesla unveils new car-charging robo-snake"

seanflyon — Fri, 07 Aug 2015 01:40:52 +0000

Which is not a fair comparison because gas stations must meet 100% of the refueling demands of gasoline cars and charging stations only need to meet a tiny percentage because most charging takes place at home or at work.

New comment by seanflyon in "Why Are There Still So Many Jobs? The History and Future of Workplace Automation [pdf]"

seanflyon — Mon, 03 Aug 2015 22:18:18 +0000

I think that would still fit pretty well with "those providing 'real' value are so productive that they support all that dead weight and yet still continue to grow".

New comment by seanflyon in "Google to France: We Won't Forget It for You Wholesale"

seanflyon — Mon, 03 Aug 2015 21:08:49 +0000

> it's not related to censorsphip at all.

Censorship: the practice of officially examining books, movies, etc., and suppressing unacceptable parts.

Isn't the suppression of "unacceptable" information the stated goal of the right to be forgotten?

New comment by seanflyon in "GitHub Raises $250M at $2B Valuation"

seanflyon — Wed, 29 Jul 2015 23:24:59 +0000

Could you explicitly state what it is you are referring to? I'm not familiar with github's content restrictions.

New comment by seanflyon in "Raising Floor for Minimum Wage Pushes Economy into the Unknown"

seanflyon — Tue, 28 Jul 2015 01:10:42 +0000

> Marginal cost generally increases after a while

That is possible, but I would generally expect the opposite with economies of scale.

New comment by seanflyon in "Raising Floor for Minimum Wage Pushes Economy into the Unknown"

seanflyon — Tue, 28 Jul 2015 00:59:18 +0000

Define "regressive" because when I google it I get "(of a tax) taking a proportionally greater amount from those on lower incomes". Are you talking about the wealthy having greater ability to find tax loopholes or do define "regressive" as everyone paying the same proportion of their income?

New comment by seanflyon in "Raising Floor for Minimum Wage Pushes Economy into the Unknown"

seanflyon — Tue, 28 Jul 2015 00:51:19 +0000

> You assume we are already paying everyone fairly for the value they create.

No, they are assuming that some employees are generate less than $15 of value per hour. They could be 'worth' $14 and currently paid $9.