benl

9 ms·

31.
by benl 9y ago
That's really good idea. As Richard mentions in another thread, search is not actually the primary discovery mechanism on Academia. The social features (the news feed, bookmarks, sharing, recommendations) are the primary discovery mech
32.
by benl 9y ago
Yes, we don't want that to happen. That's one reason (but not the only reason) that we haven't paywalled any of the existing free features.
33.
by benl 9y ago
That's a good idea. It's already possible to search for author names separately and then find the papers on their profile (if they have one), and it's also possible to search for a research interest tag and find the papers ta
34.
by benl 9y ago
Hi, I'm Ben, CTO of Academia. Everyone who works at Academia would love it if we were able to make advanced search free. When we first decided to build a premium account, we also made the decision to not take anything out of the free a
35.
Watch this multi-billion-dollar industry evaporate overnight(venturebeat.com)
9 points by benl 12y ago|1 comments
36.
by benl 13y ago
Academia.edu (San Francisco, CA) - Software Engineers, Designers, Data Scientists At Academia.edu, we're trying to accelerate the scientific process by changing the way scientific research is shared. Right now publication is slow, un-i
37.
by benl 13y ago
Are they really more efficient, for real world uses? The way I understand it, the argument goes something like this. To reach orbit you need to accelerate to very high speeds (Mach 25). To avoid crazy drag losses you therefore want to get o
38.
"Inspiration Mars" plan announced by Dennis Tito for Mars flyby mission(inspirationmars.org)
5 points by benl 14y ago|1 comments
39.
by benl 14y ago
Papers uploaded to Academia definitely do get indexed by Google. And we show the full text of the paper inline on the page too, so the text is right there after a user clicks through from the search result.
40.
by benl 14y ago
The download option is shown to logged out users too, so you should see it. But you do have to be registered in order to compete the download. With regard to your other point, we think that the conversion of the PDF to HTML 5 and a couple o
41.
by benl 14y ago
Just want to point out that #3 is incorrect. Where users have uploaded PDFs to their profile, we show the full text of the paper as an HTML 5 conversion to all visitors, and offer the PDF as a download to registered users.
42.
by benl 14y ago
The HTML 5 conversion is shown to all visitors, but you have to be a registered user to download the file. You're being redirected to a login page here.
43.
by benl 14y ago
No, that is incorrect. If the user has uploaded a copy of the PDF, we both show it on the page as an HTML 5 conversion and offer the PDF file as a download.
44.
by benl 14y ago
"Hopefully not on impact"
45.
by benl 15y ago
The full-length interview this story is based on is on this page: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-17439490 Just skip the stories and listen to the audio, it's much more informative.
46.
by benl 15y ago
This is my favourite proposed solution to the Fermi Paradox. I first came across it in Steven Baxter's novel Space -- he explores a few proposed solutions and the speed-of-light-limit-to-growth explanation is the most intriguing.
47.
by benl 15y ago
I fully agree. These are things that _can_ help you prevent yourself from suffering damage, but do not guarantee it.
48.
by benl 15y ago
Just as broken bones are a danger inherent in riding a motorbike, depression is one of the dangers inherent in trying to start a company. Understanding this leads to two helpful realizations: 1. It's nothing to be ashamed of and should not
49.
by benl 15y ago
I actually started building ROC before redis-objects was released. But I stuck with using and developing ROC for a couple of reasons: 1. TransientStore is really useful for testing and for re-using redis code in scenarios that don't requir
50.
by benl 15y ago
"plus with a solar sail, how do you get back?" This is actually really simple and not a problem at all -- you just have to understand orbital mechanics a bit. Basically, you angle the solar sail so that its force is directed against your d
51.
by benl 15y ago
Does anyone know any details of the thrust and delta-v capabilities of the proposed combined launch abort / retro landing system? Is it going to be just a bunch more Draco thrusters, or something else?
52.
by benl 15y ago
The reason it is dismissed is that group selection has been proposed and investigated many times in the history of evolutionary theory and found wanting, ironically because the mathematics don't hold up in realistic natural scenarios. This
53.
by benl 16y ago
Of course, I fully agree. Please don't read any implication about space tourism into a simple FYI calculation. But a 6x cost reduction is a big deal, and this figure illustrates that very well. See the follow up comment I'd already posted
54.
by benl 16y ago
Yes, indeed. And even disregarding the mass of the destination and of the ferrying craft, the mass of life support systems and consumables for each individual on the way up and down are likely at least double this anyway. But, longer term,
55.
by benl 16y ago
The table here doesn't give cost comparisons for the other launch vehicles, but in the press conference Elon Musk said that the Delta IV Heavy costs roughly 3x the Falcon Heavy, meaning that the FH is approximately 6x cheaper in $/lb to low
56.
by benl 16y ago
Discovering F.lux (via a previous HN thread) has had a dramatically beneficial effect on my life. Before discovering it I would have difficulty falling asleep 3 or 4 nights a week. Now that hardly ever happens -- perhaps once every two wee
57.
by benl 16y ago
For anyone who is using Beanstalk as their message queue, I have an incomplete-but-functional node client and worker on github: http://github.com/benlund/node-beanstalk-client http://github.com/benlund/node-beanstalk-worker
58.
by benl 16y ago
And we're hiring: http://www.academia.edu/jobs We're based in downtown SF and we're looking for engineers to help us build a great product for researchers.
59.
by benl 17y ago
Here's another genuine way of asking the same question. Why do people continue to believe that European social democracies have the highest quality of life, when people vote with their feet in the other direction?
60.
by benl 17y ago
I think approaching your work from the standpoint of "Learn from success, not failure" is a sure path to succumbing to confirmation bias and becoming a one-trick pony. The 37s guys have done some wonderful work. But to me they are pretty mu

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