maxander

26 ms·

211.
by maxander 8y ago
I think it's really interesting how when we learn new things (such as this lesson about how the eye works) we often only learn them "halfway." E.g., obviously, you're not blind, and you see as far as you like- but your
212.
by maxander 8y ago
All true, but why mot data mine too, while they’re at it? If you’re not the customer you’re a product... but it doesn’t follow that, if you are the customer, you’re not also a product.
213.
by maxander 8y ago
Skimming the paper, it looks like they predict pliocene/eocene climates primarily for equatorial zones, with polar and high-latitude regions less effected. Eocene climates were also more even, with less of a difference between polar a
214.
by maxander 8y ago
> Both the emergence of geologically novel climates and the rapid reversion to Eocene-like climates may be outside the range of evolutionary adaptive capacity. A lovely little sentence, elegantly understated and used as a seemingly off-h
215.
by maxander 8y ago
Such as broadcasting his twitter handle, like they did right there?
216.
by maxander 8y ago
> [...] had hacked into his Twitter account - @hesuoge - and [...] > [...] said the engineer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of landing in deeper trouble with authorities. Uh, what? Edit: Even worse, it's the W
217.
by maxander 8y ago
I would further generalize; if you want to find low-hanging fruit, know about relevant subjects that aren't presently very popular (such as the Knight-Darwin law) and find relations between disparate fields (such as evolutionary biolog
218.
by maxander 8y ago
I recommend the ISS blog: https://blogs.nasa.gov/spacestation/
219.
by maxander 8y ago
You assert that there's nothing immoral about weapons development, and go on to almost directly contradict this- noting that "force/battlefield superiority" tends to lead to the use of these weapons, killing people. I r
220.
by maxander 8y ago
Literate programming [0] is frequently re-invented, in various forms, because it is simply the right way to do things- and each iteration of it is almost immediately discarded, because we're all sinful and impatient creatures. [0] htt
221.
by maxander 8y ago
My understanding of it is (although I'm not remotely an expert on cell culture) that stem cells can in general be made to divide in culture "indefinitely"; the Hayflick limit applies only to (non-stem) somatic cells. Stem ce
222.
by maxander 8y ago
Probably more harm than good- you probably don’t want ultrasonic waves shaking your neurons around without a good reason. This sounds like a “kick a TV and it works again” sort of technology.
223.
by maxander 8y ago
Both. It really is a significant offense, but politicians on both sides are doing it almost constantly (for example, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/25/us/politics/private-email... ) and no fuss is
224.
by maxander 8y ago
Do we know what hardware each was using? Aside from time, s criticism of the previous AlphaZero/Stockfish match was that AlphaZero was using a tremendous amount of TPU power while Stockfish was running on, essentially, an average lapt
225.
by maxander 8y ago
Relatively negligible. I don’t know what the precise price point for biologics are, but equivalent techniques are routinely used in research; a bit of Googling found a lab services page pricing a an AAV (the kind of vector used in Glyber
226.
by maxander 8y ago
Well, yes, that’s how supply and demand (supposedly) works. The “correct” price is where the demand, at that price, equals the available supply. If the product is scarce, that can drive up the price, but only as far as demand is willing to
227.
by maxander 8y ago
The inherent cost of manufacturing the drug is relatively negligible. The problem is the cost of development and deployment, and the tiny customer (patient) population to spread that cost around to. A gene therapy for a more prevalent diso
228.
by maxander 8y ago
I hope someone with authority over their company's office leasing/layout planning see's this and the various replies- th overwhelming sentiment is approximately "engineers hate dreary corporate office design to the point
229.
by maxander 8y ago
If you're not limited by bulk unskilled labor you're limited by talented, skilled labor. A bunch of skilled labor is coming from elite families that have had expensive educations and white-collar jobs for generations, but a not i
230.
by maxander 8y ago
I'm currently in the middle of applying for graduate programs in [[Computational/Systems/Synthetic/Quantitative Biology]/Bioengineering/Biomedical Engineering/Bioinformatics/Biotechnology] and, after
231.
by maxander 8y ago
If you actually read, e.g., Socrates, you’ll find that his idea of wisdom is actually pretty consistent with the typical Western view. There’s some discrepancies, but the overall shape is the same. Look to Eastern cultures and there’s far
232.
by maxander 8y ago
So they’ve figured out how to turn water (and ethanol and some reagents) into wine. Neat! But I’ll believe that it’s good only after hearing about how it fares in blind taste tests.
233.
by maxander 8y ago
The definition of “wort” includes “used in names of plants and herbs, especially those used, especially formerly, as food or medicinally, e.g., butterwort, woundwort” ... so it sounds likely that some English speaking culture already realiz
234.
by maxander 8y ago
> Each contestant will need to submit a report of no more than 20 pages > Reports should be in pdf form and use 12 point Times typestyle, 1” margins. A 20-page report at 12-point font isn't very much- an average college student h
235.
by maxander 8y ago
I don't see your argument- you say 4% of the colony would be required for child-rearing duties (so, 40 people, which seems a bit high, but whatever) and posit that as a fundamental barrier? There's still 960 (adult) colonists lef
236.
by maxander 8y ago
Seconding the "learn a new expertise" bit. Many fields that aren't programming are full of untended problems that are ripe for automation; these opportunities stay un-taken because outsiders never realize they exist . Le
237.
by maxander 8y ago
It doesn’t need to be enforceable, as far as the minimum wage class is concerned- if the spurious suit alone would have the defendant summoned to court multiple times over months, and likely unemployed during that time, it’s just as destruc
238.
by maxander 8y ago
All of those skilled workers could have been building something useful , however. The waste of their time and skill is indeed burning resources, in an even more concrete sense than setting money on fire.
239.
by maxander 8y ago
“Eating food you grew yourself” is a tax dodge? What about making your own improvements to your house? Cooking your own food? Doing your own laundry? You could pay for any number of services, with the associated tax. So you’re about
240.
by maxander 8y ago
The title is somewhat misleading; they looked for causal effects from subjective wellbeing to cardiometabolic health and vice-versa, but the only such effect that they found was in particular BMI-->subjective wellbeing (and with the

More ›