Donald Rumsfeld Unknown Unknowns !

What Hacker News said

Cites aero142 · 2015-03 · on “Choose Boring Technology”

He was ridiculed for talking about "unknown unknowns" because of the ridiculous phrasing. See [this video] Interestingly, this ridicule became so common that now people know more about known unknowns, and unknown unknows, which is perfectly sound logic, but just weirdly associated with Rumsfeld now.

Cites DanielBMarkham · 2016-11 · on “Alien life could be so advanced it becomes indistinguishable from physics”

Epistemological point: if from the modern world you dropped in on Christopher Columbus with all your gadgets and tried to explain them, it might sound like magic. If from the modern world you dropped in on a hominid 100k years ago in his cave with all your gadgets and tried to explain them? You'd be a god. Things that exist outside of our ability to have language to describe them are godlike. (There is an open question about whether the set of such things is irreducible or open to conquest at some point in time) If the caveman trapped you and tried to figure out what you were up to? Yes, to him it would be physics. However -- this is just another way of saying that he'd have no symbols to gr

Cites danso · 2017-01 · on “The Art of Pitching: How I Got Published in The Atlantic”

No, taking a quote of context is not the same as not running a quote with the source prior to publication. The former is unethical, the second is an optional practice. I dont't run quotes by sources when I know that I have recorded it correctly and when I feel certain of the speaker's intent and context. Most photojournalists don't let the subjects see the photos prior to publication. Not just in the past days of film, when it would have been logistically difficult, but even today with digital cameras. Most subjects have strong opinions about what photos capture them nicely. But photographers generally believe that photos capture truth, at least in a limited technical sense. edit: It's worth