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barwhal's profile
barwhal

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following: 4
followed tags: 17
followed domains: 0
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hubskier for: 4109 days

recent comments, posts, and shares:
barwhal  ·  4102 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Who are you?

I will as soon as I get accepted somewhere!

barwhal  ·  4105 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Test, please excuse.

hubski tagging: actually an HIV test

barwhal  ·  4105 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Test, please excuse.

What were the results of the test? I MUST KNOW

barwhal  ·  4105 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Thoughts on Capitalism

I have absolutely no faith in the capitalist system. It puts great value on making money and every other selfish pursuit, and relying on individual human decency to check individual human greed will never work.

That said, I think that it is the only viable system, when put broadly. I believe in the concept of free trade as a useful tool for enhancing an economy, but it needs heavy regulation. I also think that public services should be nationalized, and I use a broad definition of public service. That is to say, pharmaceuticals, energy, telecommunications, etc. When a society puts a price on such things, good rarely comes of it.

barwhal  ·  4106 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: The Free Software Foundation Campaigning to Stop UEFI SecureBoot

Here's a good argument against. My friend recently bought a new laptop, which came preloaded with Windows 8. For reasons that will be obvious to some, he wanted to install windows 7 on it. The UEFI SecureBoot prevented him from even booting into the install DVD, until I disabled it in the BIOS. It's only one step for manufacturers to lock the BIOS setting, and suddenly the computer is usable with not only just windows, but only the original copy.

barwhal  ·  4106 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Baking habits of a house husband

Mmmm poptarts with less death

barwhal  ·  4106 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Sugar-Glazed Bacon (in a Microwave)

seconded

barwhal  ·  4107 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: You Can’t Say That on the Internet

This is really interesting; I hadn't thought about online discourse this way before.

barwhal  ·  4107 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Work, Knowledge, and Emotion

Personally, the knowledge of a task well completed contributes to the emotional feeling of success. If I merely find myself emotionally satisfied, or only logically satisfied, I usually have to reevaluate how important that task was.

barwhal  ·  4107 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: So, with NASA talking interplanetary missions... would you go to Mars?

That would be pretty hilarious.

barwhal  ·  4107 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Who are you?

Chemical engineering, with a likely minor in computer science.

barwhal  ·  4107 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: What are your top 5 books?

It really is a wonderful book, if a little dark.

barwhal  ·  4107 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: A better way to get to hashtags?

And therein lies the (perceived) problem: not that you want good parts of reddit to be implemented here, but that you say that they should translate over. hubski has become a replacement reddit for a good many people since the TheoryOfReddit post it would seem, including myself. However, it is not a copy, nor is it intended to function purely as such a replacement. Translate over implies that replacing reddit is hubski's only function, when it clearly is more than that.

Basically, I think that sometimes people overreact, but I can easily see where they're coming from, and it's not an unreasonable place.

barwhal  ·  4107 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Who are you?

Alright, I'm a student, applying to college. I live in the United States, which is having some difficult times right now in terms of politics. Most of what I do is study, or avoid studying through Kerbal Space Program.

barwhal  ·  4107 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Collapsing Comments: Pros? Cons?

On the other hand, the very fact of those long, thought out posts means that navigating to the next one after reading or leaving the page can be quite difficult without collapsibility.

barwhal  ·  4107 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: What are your top 5 books?

1. The Secret History by Donna Tartt. Really interesting situation, and the pacing and sequence of events is flawless.

2. The Monkey Wrench Gang by Edward Abbey. Funny if inappropriate book about ecoterrorism, written from the point of view of the ecoterrorists.

3. A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Leguin. This is just a lovely high fantasy book with a (mostly) great series accompanying.

4. Sabriel by Garth Nix. Honestly this was just really entertaining, with a well developed and nonstandard mechanic being central.

5. Foundation by Isaac Asimov, and the rest of the series. Predictions of the future, scifi, politics, group psychology, really good stuff.

barwhal  ·  4107 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Learning to Smoke

This is intriguing, but I'm not sure I could get past the whole coating your lungs in tar and inhaling formaldehyde bit.

barwhal  ·  4107 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: What's 'just right' for the young reader?

I have a hilarious mental image right now of someone running screaming out of a theater ripping their shirt off.