kalid

15 ms·

1. 241.▲
   by kalid 14y ago

   It's not that it's dangerous, or not, but "something must be done" when someone, somewhere, at some point, mis-used a liquid. It's not really meant to make sense.
2. 242.▲
   by kalid 14y ago

   Had to chime in on this. MSFT has had a lot of experience but not at the quality level of Apple. Look at the $1B XBOX charges. Something like 1/3 of all xboxes got a red ring of death (I know people who went through 3-4). More like Wal-Mart
3. 243.▲
   by kalid 14y ago

   I might be different, but 355/113 is very easy to remember and is not 7 unique segments of information. I just think "double the odds" 113355 We know we want a fraction, not a single number, so split down the middle: 113/355 And we know pi
4. 244.▲
   by kalid 14y ago

   Looks very useful, but they need to update their landing page text. "Tag" is way too overloaded. As a user of Google analytics, etc. I didn't realize what this was. Something like: "Tags are the snippets of code you've had to manually inclu
5. 245.▲
   by kalid 14y ago

   I really don't get the "Maps are great for me" apologists either. It reads like "Typhoon in Japan? Looked outside, weather is great here." I'm sure TomTom and Apple cleaned up the data for areas where their programmers and bosses live. Even
6. 246.▲
   by kalid 14y ago

   (Author of the above article) I learned the polar representation, yep, but didn't connect as i as an "rotation operation" that took you from one dimension to the other. For all I knew, having i be 2-dimensional was like saying "We can repre
7. 247.▲
   by kalid 14y ago

   Sure! You might want to check out http://betterexplained.com/articles/intuitive-understanding-... I like this question because it really works your intuition. The basics: x^y means "grow at x, for y units of time". I see "2^3" as "grow at
8. 248.▲
   by kalid 14y ago

   Thanks for posting that :). My gut-check about whether I've intuitively understood a topic is whether I can intuit new results. I'd wager 95% of people who "learned" imaginary numbers couldn't work out the cube root of i in their head like
9. 249.▲
   by kalid 14y ago

   Thanks, it's been in the works for a while but it's a fun side thing.
10. 250.▲
    by kalid 14y ago

    Shameless plug, but I have a pet project to help with these types of calculations. I made a quick calc here: http://instacalc.com/4471 You can type in any amounts you need. OP has a great visualization though!
11. 251.▲
    by kalid 14y ago

    Take a look at http://campl.us/posts/iPhone-Camera-Comparison
12. 252.▲
    by kalid 14y ago

    Just a thought -- there's lots of little packaging innovations that, collectively, make commodity products better to use. Ketchup bottles: store upside down, wide mouth Toothpaste: flat tops you can store vertically Toothbrushes: grips, pad
13. 253.▲
    by kalid 14y ago

    Different devices, decades apart. Let us know when Apple sues someone for making a toaster that looks like an iPhone, 30 years later. :)
14. 254.▲
    by kalid 14y ago

    "When you’re a carpenter making a beautiful chest of drawers, you’re not going to use a piece of plywood on the back, even though it faces the wall and nobody will ever see it. You’ll know it’s there, so you’re going to use a beautiful piec
15. 255.▲
    by kalid 14y ago

    Take a look at http://opensignalmaps.com/reports/fragmentation.php Android manufacturers & carriers have little incentive to get you to upgrade [Apple sidesteps them and delivers updates directly]. Do you want to target a several-year
16. 256.▲
    by kalid 14y ago

    Thanks! Yep, this was one of the faster ones I've written. I'm doing a few experiments to see how to increase my article output :).
17. 257.▲
    by kalid 14y ago

    Thanks for the feedback! Yep, graphing usually comes much later, so I'm trying to find an explanation that works without it. For the piston rods, I'd say something like "They help capture the power of an explosion. And an engine is a really
18. 258.▲
    by kalid 14y ago

    Exactly! In the real world you are trying to get some system (x^2 + x) into some desired state (2). In math class, we usually "pre-optimize" these equations to (x^2 + x - 2 = 0) and they look very different from the situations you have to s
19. 259.▲
    by kalid 14y ago

    True -- I got overzealous with x^5, some (not all) can be factored. I'll reword to "some more complex systems.
20. 260.▲
    by kalid 14y ago

    Hi all! Author here. Didn't expect to see this on HN so early this morning :). Lots of good feedback, I'll try to answer some of it collectively here. HN readers who can spit out the quadratic formula in their sleep aren't the real audience
21. 261.▲
    by kalid 14y ago

    I'd like to chime in as well: VWO is awesome, and Paras' support rocks.
22. 262.▲
    by kalid 14y ago

    Exactly. This is a huge pet peeve of mine. Socrates' death is famous for how it was done; nobody mentioned that he lived "twice the average life expectancy" (You'd think we'd make a note of killing a 70 year old -- a 150 year-old in today's
23. 263.▲
    by kalid 14y ago

    Thanks, I need to clarify that part.
24. 264.▲
    by kalid 14y ago

    Thanks for the suggestion - that's been on my topic list for a while! So much math I want to learn :).
25. 265.▲
    by kalid 14y ago

    Haha, what a small world! Happy to have the conversation too -- in my years as a blogger, I've realized many disagreements just boil down to misunderstandings. Glad if it was able to help you get into quantum, that topic has been on my to-s
26. 266.▲
    by kalid 14y ago

    1. No worries, apology more than accepted :). 2. Good call. Math Wars is the longstanding problem, these skirmishes are the latest battle. Definitely not clear to the unfamiliar reader. I'll have to think how to reword it. 3. Thanks for the
27. 267.▲
    by kalid 14y ago

    Hi Charlie, Really appreciate you taking the time to explain. I strive to understand people's point of view, especially when they disagree, because there's probably some insight or viewpoint I'm missing. Nope, I'm not personally involved in
28. 268.▲
    by kalid 14y ago

    Thanks for the ideas. Exactly, something like running commentary / different approaches could work. I greatly prefer text to online videos [not sure why, I think I get impatient that I can't read at the exact speed I want?] and would go thr
29. 269.▲
    by kalid 14y ago

    Hi. I appreciate the comments and if you're open to it, I'd like to understand your point of view. The "Math Wars" actually reference a longstanding struggle about math education in the US ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Math_wars ). That al
30. 270.▲
    by kalid 14y ago

    Yeah, it's mostly a tongue-in-cheek comparison :). The meta-point is that the entire online learning space has a small fraction of society's collective attention, scraping by against the popularity of a rap artist who will be forgotten in a