comicjk

35 ms·

391.
by comicjk 9y ago
Reinforcing this, the quantum state required for topological quantum computing (non-abelian anyons) has...never been proved to exist.
392.
by comicjk 9y ago
I'm not in favor of single payer healthcare, but to say there's no evidence that it works is inaccurate. Healthcare in Canada provides the same health outcomes as ours for half the price. If that doesn't interest you because
393.
by comicjk 9y ago
Are there examples of such a system working anywhere? It sounds plausible, but the fact that it didn't arise pre-Obamacare gives me pause. It seems like the demand for it might not be prevalent enough, or the savings too small. I'
394.
by comicjk 9y ago
Almonds are a particular problem because they're mostly (80% of global supply) grown in Southern California where water is scarce. I'm a vegetarian for environmental reasons, so I've switched from almonds to peanuts.
395.
by comicjk 9y ago
Facebook is certainly in trouble. But as for other entities, it's too early to say they were all foreign. I would not be surprised if a few Americans knew about this. Let them sweat and maybe turn each other in.
396.
by comicjk 9y ago
I want Mueller to know, and I want to know in a year, but I don't want Facebook to release the info now. Better to let the guilty parties remain uncertain about how much is known so that they make mistakes.
397.
by comicjk 9y ago
Even in "still" air, the individual molecules have random velocities due to temperature - on the order of 100 m/s. Combined with the fact that there are more mixed configurations than unmixed configurations (entropy of mixing
398.
by comicjk 9y ago
According to this site [1], GE spent $393 million on advertising in 2014. So I would say billions on any one product line over 5 years is improbable. Maybe half a billion is believable. [1] http://adage.com/article/adve
399.
by comicjk 9y ago
I'll second your Gergel recommendation. Gergel's book is not quite as good as "Ignition" because he brags a little more and gets specific a little less, but it's still good. The place it's better than "Ign
400.
by comicjk 9y ago
The most efficient things you can do are 1) vote, 2) contact your elected representatives 3) donate money, say 3% of your income. These steps will have minimal impact on your personal quality of life compared to their impact on the world. P
401.
by comicjk 9y ago
Sure, but only 10% of the US population are over 6' tall.
402.
by comicjk 9y ago
Also, it would be nice if we could make a self-contained ecosystem work on Earth before sending one into space. People seem to think this is a solved problem, but actually all attempts so far have lost their equilibrium pretty quickly, most
403.
by comicjk 9y ago
Legally no - a nonprofit has its stated goals apart from whomever runs it, and if the managers aren't following those goals, they can be prosecuted. In practice, small charities can get away with misusing their funds as long as no one
404.
by comicjk 9y ago
> people only remember the few predictions that have come true, and forget everything else, such as "Florida will be underwater" from the 00s or "we're all gonna freeze to death" from the 70s. I deny your premise
405.
by comicjk 9y ago
Getting rid of combustion in urban areas is one of the biggest public health wins available, on the same scale as famous past examples like banning leaded gasoline. The only reason we haven't already done it is lack of alternatives.
406.
by comicjk 9y ago
I am proud of that as a New Yorker, but I would much rather replace it with buses at night if that would make it actually work during the day.
407.
by comicjk 9y ago
He might be able to get out of it by arguing that he didn't know about any particular crime they would commit, or that he thought they had good faith reasons to buy the software despite being criminals in general. I think this hinges o
408.
by comicjk 9y ago
Yes, the seller would legally be an accessory to the murder, having had knowledge that the crime would be committed and having helped the murderer commit it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessory_(legal_term)
409.
by comicjk 9y ago
Using lithium-ion batteries for stationary storage is interesting because their original advantage was all about light weight (lithium is the lightest metal element). Now, it seems the development effort devoted to lithium-ion has paid off
410.
by comicjk 9y ago
Terawatt-hours are a direct measurement of what we want from an energy source, namely, energy. The equivalent for transportation would be deaths/mile, which is indeed a commonly used metric of transportation safety. Deaths/TWh is
411.
by comicjk 9y ago
Your original comment is totally correct, but I thought it might mislead beginners - that's why I said "to clarify." I think there is a common confusion about whether a qubit can have probabilities besides 50:50. The Hadamard
412.
by comicjk 9y ago
> when the qubit is measured (read queried) it will return a value of 0 or 1 with equal probability To clarify, qubits don't necessarily have equal probabilities of |0> and |1>. If the probabilities were always equal, we would
413.
by comicjk 9y ago
I do physics simulations and I generally use -ffast-math. For most simulation types, proper algorithms are stable with respect to small floating-point errors (this has been a subject of research for decades). The extra speed provided by imp
414.
by comicjk 9y ago
All due respect to the Zen master, but taking fewer flights, driving less, and living in a smaller and better insulated house, or having fewer kids, will all be more effective than vegetarianism for the average American. A single transatlan
415.
by comicjk 9y ago
Newton's law is for convection of heat into the air. The cooling of the earth happens by radiation into vacuum, so it's actually much MORE temperature-sensitive: the heat radiated is proportional to the fourth power of the tempera
416.
by comicjk 9y ago
70% of the US federal government budget is 15% of GDP. Not such a big deal, especially considering that we're going to be paying for pensions and healthcare somehow, whether as a government program or otherwise. Rubicon? I don't r
417.
by comicjk 9y ago
You're asking people with broken legs to walk it off. Clinical anxiety is not easy to treat, and minimum-wage workers don't generally have the time or resources to go about it. In non-psychological issues, the risk of going an ext
418.
by comicjk 9y ago
> It's impossible This was actually my point. Wages have a large random component (negotiation might help the randomness but doesn't fix it). We need a decent lower limit, or else the lower tail of the random distribution leave
419.
by comicjk 9y ago
> The market didn't think so. "The market" is not a helpful model for this interaction. My boss paid me the lowest legal wage, and I didn't ask for any more. Imagine a driver pointing to a bridge on a map when in real
420.
by comicjk 9y ago
This supposes a level of knowledge and efficiency which labor markets don't have. Even the boss in most cases doesn't know what the employees are worth per hour, let alone what the employees know. Millions of people, including me,

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