gmaslov

9 ms·

31.
by gmaslov 14y ago
See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experimental_mathematics
32.
by gmaslov 14y ago
Next up on http://what-if.xkcd.com/18/ : How many Nerf darts would it take to stop a meteor?
33.
by gmaslov 14y ago
This article reads like some kind of sad science fiction scenario. A team of scientists today reported the first results from their analysis of the "F-1 Engine", an artefact from the First Empire which was serendipitously discovered last ye
34.
by gmaslov 14y ago
Burn the heretic. Kill the mutant. Purge the unclean.
35.
by gmaslov 14y ago
Why on earth is this framed as a "war against machines"? That's just plain wrong. The machines serve people. If there's a war, it's between people and other people.
36.
by gmaslov 14y ago
Completely agree. It's time for the developed nations to start thinking about instituting a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income guarantee. Unfortunately this doesn't seem to be anywhere even near anyone's radar at this time. As for
37.
by gmaslov 14y ago
I was disappointed to read that they gave up the principled modeling approach (the 80-year old German paper mentioned early on in the article) and instead collected 100 data points that "looked good" and interpolated somehow. The article sa
38.
by gmaslov 14y ago
There we are, now uplift isn't as hard as it appeared: just introduce agriculture to a population and wait 10,000 years ;)
39.
by gmaslov 14y ago
Well, an obvious way to address this would be to become emotionally invested in acting rationally. It's a pity that so many people aren't.
40.
by gmaslov 14y ago
Not likely. I believe the record holder for longest free fall duration is Valeri Polyakov, at 14 months aboard MIR ;-)
41.
by gmaslov 14y ago
I hope you keep a backup of it yourself.
42.
by gmaslov 14y ago
A TCP connection costs nothing if it's merely open and waiting. OK, it costs a few bytes of space in some tables somewhere, but no actual bandwidth.
43.
by gmaslov 14y ago
I think for just about any activity you can name besides checking email, most people aren't going to do it. Yet I'm sure that almost everyone with an MBP does something besides email with it. You can't design for the average use case when a
44.
by gmaslov 14y ago
Well you can , but it's not very polite.
45.
by gmaslov 14y ago
Reminds me of a proposal I read about once for a time capsule -- the kind intended to survive the fall of civilization and to help reboot it. It would be plain human-readable text and diagrams engraved into a hard disc of some stable materi
46.
by gmaslov 14y ago
Why, they would write each other...
47.
by gmaslov 14y ago
Even a theory without any experimentally derived values is still an experimentally derived theory.
48.
by gmaslov 14y ago
Well, I believe this line of thinking leads to the inescapable conclusion that consciousness is only an illusion.
49.
Xkcd: "Kickstarter"(xkcd.com)
70 points by gmaslov 14y ago|7 comments
50.
by gmaslov 14y ago
I love that quote. In a way, this article is talking about the "unknown knowns" -- the things that are so obvious now that you don't even remember learning them, or can't imagine not knowing them. These are the lurking biases and preconcept
51.
by gmaslov 14y ago
It might be worth having someone up there to fix the equipment when something goes wrong... unless by that time we've developed teleoperated robots with the flexibility and dexterity and sensitivity needed to make arbitrary on-site repairs.
52.
by gmaslov 15y ago
Why? When I see "considered harmful" in a title, I know pretty much what kind of article to expect. I think it's a useful shorthand, and that its origins, and the whimsical attitude associated with it, are irrelevant. What alternative title
53.
by gmaslov 15y ago
Normally, Minecraft logic requires some time in-game to execute, but last year (IIRC) someone was able to invent "instant" logic gates and transmission wires, by exploiting some unusual interaction between pistons and the block-update rules
54.
by gmaslov 15y ago
Maybe, maybe... But then we'd have to arrange things so that the rate of inflation decreases every year in such a way that the value of the note converges to pi dollars.
55.
by gmaslov 15y ago
Of course, in "hot" data centers today the environment is no more dangerous than a nice sauna, but this development makes me imagine what it might progress to in 10 or 20 years. This is the first small step across that threshold between "co
56.
by gmaslov 15y ago
Heh. Never underestimate the power of a station wagon full of flywheels hurtling down the highway?
57.
by gmaslov 15y ago
Very good point. Thank you.
58.
by gmaslov 15y ago
I've been thinking about this problem with law a bit lately. It seems like our laywers & politicians want every legal question to be completely decidable, and this attitude leaks into popular culture too (or is it the other way around?)
59.
by gmaslov 15y ago
I think in these metaphors it's important to draw a line somewhere between "to use" and "to program". That line isn't always clear -- the usual example being an Excel spreadsheet. Using an application is like programming in its language of
60.
by gmaslov 15y ago
What? They disabled Pinterest on ALL images which are not in the public domain? Sheesh, might as well drop the feature altogether if you're going to disable it on 99.9% of content. Oh, you mean they allowed copyright owners to disable Pinte

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