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Tor3 commented on Learning from context is harder than we thought   hy.tencent.com/research/1... · Posted by u/limoce
cluckindan · 3 days ago
”Because we don't experience reality through language but direct sensory perception”

That statement is patently false. We know that language influences our senses to a degree where we are unable to perceive things if our language doesn’t have a word for it, and will see different things as being equal if our language uses the same word for both.

There are examples of tribal humans not being able to perceive a green square among blue squares, because their language does not have a word for the green color.

Similarly, some use the same word for blue and white, and are unable to perceive them as different colors.

Tor3 · 3 days ago
"There are examples of tribal humans not being able to perceive a green square among blue squares, because their language does not have a word for the green color.

Similarly, some use the same word for blue and white, and are unable to perceive them as different colors."

Both of the above is false. There are a ton of different colors that I happen to call "red", that does not mean that I can't perceive them as different. That I don't call them "different colors" is completely irrelevant. And unable to perceive blue and white as different colors? (Maybe that was a joke?) Even a hypothetical language which only used a single word for non-black items, say, "color", for everything else, would be able to perceive the difference with zero problems.

Japanese use "aoi" for a set of colors which in English would be separated into "blue" and "green". I can assure you (from personal experience) that every Japanese speaker with a fully functioning visual system is perfectly able to perceive the difference between, in this case, blue and green as we would call them.

Tor3 commented on Why more companies are recognizing the benefits of keeping older employees   longevity.stanford.edu/wh... · Posted by u/andsoitis
rr808 · 5 days ago
I'm now in my 50s. I tried management but prefer working as an IC. I think I'm good but I know most companies would never hire me. One thing I do now is try to look after all the youngest grads and new joiners. Its so cutthroat now it seems no one has time to help anyone else, so I like helping people get up and running and encouraging them to enjoy their work while being productive and getting their skills up. No one else seems to care.
Tor3 · 4 days ago
Two or three years I was at a conferance arranged by the "mother" company, a very large (relatively speaking) company with lots of sub-companies. One of the guys I met there was a 64 year old engineer, newly hired. As an engineer.
Tor3 commented on Pretty soon, heat pumps will be able to store and distribute heat as needed   sintef.no/en/latest-news/... · Posted by u/PaulHoule
manmal · 7 days ago
> Those who installed oil heaters many decades ago regretted it quickly.

That really depends on the oil heater, no? You can't compare a heater from the 70s with a modern one. That's like saying I don't drive modern cars because cars in the 70s were unsafe and stank.

Tor3 · 7 days ago
Needing an oil tank, smell, expensive (oil price typically increased drastically compared to the beginning), pollution, and, as I said, made illegal in cities for various reasons, pollution and expenses related to dig up and get rid of the oil thank, and more.
Tor3 commented on Pretty soon, heat pumps will be able to store and distribute heat as needed   sintef.no/en/latest-news/... · Posted by u/PaulHoule
darkteflon · 7 days ago
I’m in Japan too. Could you name the model you ended up going with? My heating bill in the winter is insane.
Tor3 · 7 days ago
The model is not yet decided, we're in the finalizing stage with the building company. What we have been focusing on is a well insulated house, unlike the old one which has no insulation at all.. if we tried to heat that it would not only be extremely expensive, it's impossible to even heat the small bathroom with an electric heater. So instead you kind of get used to it. Took me a year to stop feeling like I was freezing, at 4C in the bathroom on February mornings. We have been using a gas heater (plug in the floor) in certain places on the ground floor, but we limited that as well. So, with an insulated, small house, we believe we will be able to keep the costs down, using heat pumps and heat exchangers, plus solar and battery (using the car battery).
Tor3 commented on Pretty soon, heat pumps will be able to store and distribute heat as needed   sintef.no/en/latest-news/... · Posted by u/PaulHoule
hippo22 · 7 days ago
It really depends on how well your home is insulated. Heat pumps don’t work well on old, poorly insulated houses in cold climates. If they can keep up, which is a big if, the price of electricity generally dwarfs natural gas, even if the heat pump is running at 250-300% efficiency.
Tor3 · 7 days ago
It's not really correct to say that heat pumps don't work well on old, poorly insulated houses in cold climates. That it's a heat pump is not the issue, that it's cold is not the issue, the problem is only that with poor or no insulation in a cold climate you'll need a huge heater (say, 10-15kW just for the living room). And domestic heat pumps are not designed for that range. If you could get one that big then it would work very well indeed.

If you have a poorly insulated house then the fix is to insulate it, which is what a lot of people are doing around here, with very hold houses. My house is less than 60 years old and very well insulated for the time, and it holds up even today - it's always warm, with the heat pump not even close to its max power.

Tor3 commented on Pretty soon, heat pumps will be able to store and distribute heat as needed   sintef.no/en/latest-news/... · Posted by u/PaulHoule
manmal · 7 days ago
Certainly not gas or oil, which are still cheaper to heat with than heat pumps.
Tor3 · 7 days ago
Hm? Around here oil was never been in the same (low) order of magnitude. Those who installed oil heaters many decades ago regretted it quickly. And it's been illegal to use them for a couple of decades as well now. Gas has never been an option in my region, there's no infrastructure for that. We have used gas in Japan until now, but even that we'll be phasing out (I live in two places)
Tor3 commented on Pretty soon, heat pumps will be able to store and distribute heat as needed   sintef.no/en/latest-news/... · Posted by u/PaulHoule
stuaxo · 7 days ago
What did you heat with before?
Tor3 · 7 days ago
Electric resistive heating, which is the main power source here (all hydro, until recently). Plus a wood stove in case of power cuts. We used that one quite a bit during cold spells before the heatpump came along. Now not much at all.
Tor3 commented on Pretty soon, heat pumps will be able to store and distribute heat as needed   sintef.no/en/latest-news/... · Posted by u/PaulHoule
jandrese · 7 days ago
I've been keeping an eye on heat pump water heaters for awhile, but right now they mostly make sense in warm climates. The big problem is they're still specialty products and marked up like crazy, but also they tend to use cheap components which makes them loud and prone to failure. If you run A/C for the majority of the year then they pay themselves back reasonably quick, barring early failure, but in colder climates they make your house work that much harder to keep the space warm.

The most optimistic hope is that the government mandate will force enough demand that manufacturers can enjoy some economies of scale and actually try to compete on price. I don't think this will happen anytime soon.

Tor3 · 7 days ago
I had a heat pump installed in 2010. In a cold climate. Only used for heating. It paid for itself extremely quickly - less than three years. It's still going strong, in 2026. It's important to maintain it regularly, i.e. deep cleaning every two years or so. The first time I got a company to do it for me, and the technician taught me how to do it all by myself, so that's what I do. In any case having a professional doing it wasn't expensive either. And I clean the dust filters (very easy) every second week or so.
Tor3 commented on Show HN: Adboost – A browser extension that adds ads to every webpage   github.com/surprisetalk/A... · Posted by u/surprisetalk
gruez · 8 days ago
>The intent isn’t to defraud. The intent is to curb their uninvited data collection and anti-utility influence on the internet.

How's this any different than going around and filling out fake credit applications to stop "uninvited data collection" by banks/credit bureaus or whatever?

>The intent is convenience and privacy, not fraud.

You're still harming the business, so my guess would be something like tortious interference.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tortious_interference

Tor3 · 7 days ago
>How's this any different than going around and filling out fake credit applications to stop "uninvited data collection" by banks/credit bureaus or whatever?

It's so different that it can't even be compared. There's nothing similar there.

>>The intent is convenience and privacy, not fraud.

> You're still harming the business, so my guess would be something like tortious interference.

No, you're not harming the business. You're simply not following the business idea of the "business". Anyone can have a business idea of some type. Not a single person on earth has any obligation to fulfill that business idea. But somehow some people believe the opposite.

Tor3 commented on Show HN: Adboost – A browser extension that adds ads to every webpage   github.com/surprisetalk/A... · Posted by u/surprisetalk
y-curious · 8 days ago
Telling me this is illegal has made me want to download it more. “IT IS ILLEGAL TO ATTACK THIS NONCONSENSUAL SPAM SIR”
Tor3 · 7 days ago
Some years ago I was by chance listening to a radio program about advertising. They interviewed a marketing guy and he insisted that it was illegal for you to visit the bathroom or the kitchen while the ad was running (on TV or on the radio). Completely nuts.

u/Tor3

KarmaCake day2799August 31, 2018View Original