alphaBetaGamma

9 ms·

31.
by alphaBetaGamma 12y ago
Would this be a good fit for a book with lots of pictures, where the design, placement of pictures, and flow of text around them is important? I just started writing a short book like that with Scribus.
32.
by alphaBetaGamma 12y ago
Not really. Very roughly: It's a group with a an infinite number of elements which is smooth, in the sense that there is a notion that elements can be close or far from each other, and locally around each element the group looks like
33.
by alphaBetaGamma 12y ago
I tend to think that the average fiction book is less interesting that the average non-fiction book, but that the best fiction books are much, much better than the best non-fiction ones (and teach you more, and deeper things). This one is u
34.
by alphaBetaGamma 12y ago
Stoner, by John Williams The story of an average, not very successful literary professor, told with great humanity and tenderness. This does not seem much of a story line, yet I believe this book is so good it will still be read in one hund
35.
by alphaBetaGamma 12y ago
Einstein, Albert. "On the electrodynamics of moving bodies." Annalen der Physik 17.891 (1905): 50. http://ganapathymani.com/On%20the%20electrodymics%20of%20mov... This paper establishes special relativity, and is
36.
by alphaBetaGamma 12y ago
Watson, James D., and Francis HC Crick. "Molecular structure of nucleic acids." Nature 171.4356 (1953): 737-738. http://www.nature.com/physics/looking-back/crick/index.html Partly because of the fun
37.
by alphaBetaGamma 12y ago
The reason why they get good and enticing but unactionable predictions, is that they assume that they can trade instantaneously at the quoted price. They are neglecting the time their order would get to the matching engine, by which time th
38.
by alphaBetaGamma 12y ago
It seems to me that a consequence of the second principle of thermodynamics is that your simulations are always going to be (much) smaller than your resources (I'm using the word loosely). So you can't go very far down the road of
39.
by alphaBetaGamma 12y ago
Then why is it better than just n which also doesn't give a prime for any n, but does generate them all.
40.
by alphaBetaGamma 12y ago
Life on other planets will be extremely different from us. Consider the following thought experiment. Imagine a planet like earth, where evolution follows exactly the same path, with the same species, the only difference being that it is
41.
by alphaBetaGamma 13y ago
I can't seem to be access the article, and so don't know if it focuses on waiting at the airport or the air speed of planes. Regarding the latter, for physics minded people, I recommend David McKay chapter on air travel[1] in his
42.
by alphaBetaGamma 13y ago
I think we don't understand anything about how to teach. Formal education started at least 4000 years ago (earliest writing is at least 4,000 year old, and I think you need a formal education to have scribes who can read and write). I
43.
by alphaBetaGamma 13y ago
You are saying that the rods' spectral curve response is collinear with the cones. That would do the trick, but I'm a bit surprised as I don't see any reason for evolution to push you in that direction. Do you have a referenc
44.
by alphaBetaGamma 13y ago
I never understood why we have three trichromatic vision and not tetrachomatic vision. We have rods and three types of cones, which look like four channels to me. In very low light the cones don't fire and we see in black and white. In
45.
by alphaBetaGamma 13y ago
We have exact solution to spinning black holes (discovered after Einstein's death) which settles that question. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerr_metric
46.
by alphaBetaGamma 13y ago
To add to your counterpoints: 6. While it is about sure that in the future they will be technology that is for indistinguishable from magic, this does not imply that every magical thing we can think of will be true at some point in the futu
47.
by alphaBetaGamma 13y ago
Of course we are in the midst of a mass extinction. This is not controversial. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaternary_extinction_event
48.
by alphaBetaGamma 13y ago
Have they never heard of the "Significant figures"? I doubt they estimate to 0.3%. In fact, I would not be surprised if the estimation error is bigger than 5%, so we don't know if they are selling at a loss or not.
49.
by alphaBetaGamma 13y ago
I believe that as a few years ago, Bloomberg had zero terminals in china. I may be wrong, and thing may have changed, but I don't think that china is a big source of revenue for Bloomberg. Of course, I'm not saying that it is not
50.
by alphaBetaGamma 13y ago
You should raise this issue to the guy doing this kickstarter project, and not only comment about it in HN. In fact, I will email him if you don't do it. I would rather you (or an other chemist) do it as you probably know much more abo
51.
by alphaBetaGamma 13y ago
Actual, a lot of economic activity comes from small businesses: about half the US GDP is generated from companies with less than 500 employees. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_business#Contribution_to_...
52.
by alphaBetaGamma 13y ago
Robert Brout would almost surely be sharing the prize if it could be awarded posthumously. I often saw him and Francois Anglert when doing my Ph.D. Robert Brout in particular struck me as the kindest man on earth, and was perhaps someone wh
53.
by alphaBetaGamma 13y ago
If they have protein in their samples and find amino acids of both chirality, then get exited. If they only find the chirality naturally occurring in earth based life: forgetaboutit My bet is on the latter.
54.
by alphaBetaGamma 13y ago
As a counterpoint, I can distinguish a very bad chess player from a good one without seeing a single game he/she has played. Just looking at his/her behavior and countenance in front of the board is enough. As an extreme example,
55.
by alphaBetaGamma 13y ago
What your suggesting is going to be tricky to implement. First you can only add delay, not subtract delay, so your specific example will not work: you can not "rebroadcast at the drone's antenna" before the original signal re
56.
by alphaBetaGamma 13y ago
> It's basically just random chance that some planes every year will crash because of pilot error. When you design a system where errors can cause a large number of deaths (airplanes, trains, nuclear reactors,...), your objective is
57.
by alphaBetaGamma 14y ago
Could you suggest a good board game that is playable turn by turn? We are a group of friends in very different time zone, and playing a turn based game, about one turn a day works nicely. We have played Tigris & Euphrates, and it works
58.
by alphaBetaGamma 14y ago
I was speaking of a model of how python does things, based on a C style implementation. Not an explanation of how C works.
59.
by alphaBetaGamma 14y ago
I have a C based mental model of what is happening. Can anyone comment on whether it is correct? In C terms, I think of all objects (including primitives such as numbers) as a struct with a void* pointer that holds the actual data, and anot
60.
by alphaBetaGamma 14y ago
Moreover, "three body problem" is generally meant to mean the three bodies with comparable mass, so they influence each others trajectory. But in this case, Mass_sun >> Mass_planet >> Mass_probe, which greatly simplifies the

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