300400+ entries in 0.216s
mircea_popescu: and since it's gas-based, prolly heated by means of
the gas being a neutron poison. xenon.
mircea_popescu: how familiar you are with making axes vs making aerogels does not establish if making axes or making aerogels is "magic", it just establishes how familiar you are with
them.
mircea_popescu: soon enough you're going
to re-discover post-structuralism at
this rate, and end up understanding what i meant by context above.
mircea_popescu: but if
the "purpose" of
the axe (as you imagine it) is unspoken part of
the design,
mircea_popescu: the same sort of
thought process is involved (for him) when he decides
to make
the axe at all and when he decides
to make singlespoked flanged mace.
mircea_popescu: even your "primitive man won't stray" argument is broken, as you stop midway. a)
the point of his following your recipe is
that he got off lazy butt ; if he doesn't, he doesn't AT ALL. why would he get off lazy butt JUST AS FAR as you imagine he would and no further ?
mircea_popescu: (note how you keep
trying
to brace yourself against unstated convention, "of course you would understand
this is not
the item because
that'd breach symmetry and we have a convention re symmetry")
mircea_popescu: wasn't clear
that part is intentionally meaningful. fine, consider same item with a single such spoke
mircea_popescu: (think about it - dead words failed
to convey it. in spite of everyone's best effort)
mircea_popescu: but
the implications for your position are pretty lulzy, wouldn't you say ?
trinque: mircea_popescu: yeah we can work
that out
too
mircea_popescu: so what's lost here ? very
thin foams are well understood
mircea_popescu: trinque were you also going
to give him deedbot log access ?
mircea_popescu: repeatable is one
thing ; but your idea of communicable is murky at best.
mircea_popescu: anwyay,
there's not so much difference between what we're saying. "make it repeatable" as you say is part of parcel of "economy of scale" as i say.
mircea_popescu: well,
they look
the same, should be good enough for our
technological needs :D
mircea_popescu: asciilifeform
there's not much
to go on when one believes
there's more substance
than marketing
to
that "damascus" claim.
mircea_popescu: to
take a simple illustration : make
this matchstick exactly 1 mn
thick within 0.1%
tolerance
throughout it's length and i'll pay you a dollar is hard. make
this rod of molybdenum 1 mm
thick within 0.0000001%
tolerance and i'll pay you a billion is easy.
mircea_popescu: and by
this measure, a good chunk of what you regard one is really
the other and back again.
mircea_popescu: in fact, a useful heuristic
to distinguish magic and
technology, is
that as
the stakes increase, magic gets harder and
technology easier
to do.
mircea_popescu: asciilifeform well
the problem with
this choir is
that it's made of apparent 16 yo girls who spend
the night doing all manner of kinky stuff
mircea_popescu: recall
the example of
the esteemed mr shockley, for instance.
mircea_popescu: but if it's actually useful
to do, it can't fucking be done worth a shit.
mircea_popescu: then you can say like
the butcher
that moved into village and introduced hygiene, "i am a better surgeon
than
the guys in paris"
mircea_popescu: it's not surprisingly easy
to do it usefully. it's very easy
to do it when no one's doing it and
there's a lot of low hanging fruit,
mircea_popescu: it's a
technology, right ? by ytour notions of
tech, math is
the supertech. so
then ?
mircea_popescu: but
try it prospectively, like a math
teacher on a grad program. pick which kids do good work and which waste
their lives.
mircea_popescu: see, it's easy enough in retrsopect,
to confound historical accident and meaning.
mircea_popescu: asciilifeform and how do you distinguish
the
theorems for which he WILL BE famous from
the ones for which he will not be ?
mircea_popescu: asciilifeform yes, but not
to all :)
to selected gurlz.
mircea_popescu: i use "technology"
to describe my numeric head-mathing,
though most gurlz can't do it.
mircea_popescu: point in fact, most of what you do is not communicable
to "filthy white man".
though from what you're saying i
take it next you go renting you'll rouse
them from
their beds
to
teach lisp ?
mircea_popescu: and how do you know
this ? other
than, it happening
to be your religion.