pfedor

26 ms·

211.
by pfedor 16y ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Book_of_Communism
212.
by pfedor 16y ago
To the people who claim that thinking happens in some language or other: how about what's going through your head when you play chess? Is that not thinking by your definition? Or do you really narrate it to yourself, as if you were writin
213.
by pfedor 16y ago
"You have nothing to lose. If you quit your job and start your own company, and fail, you'll be much better off than if you hadn't. If you go look for a new job, you will have run your own company. Would an employer rather hire someone who
214.
by pfedor 16y ago
Might be worth noting that if you look at a place where a person's income is a function of their productivity (i.e., smart, hard working people make more money on average) then you should expect some stickiness, because one's intelligence a
215.
by pfedor 16y ago
Well at the very least it's useful if you're comparing job offers, in which case you know the salary, but not the cost of living. (Another thing to look up is taxes.)
216.
by pfedor 16y ago
The book Fooled by Randomness on the other hand argues that the picture painted by The Millionaire Next Door is skewed by a double survivorship bias: it describes people who not only saved more than they spent, invested, etc. but also (
217.
by pfedor 16y ago
Darn you're right :) To defend myself (feebly) I can say that you can max out the after-tax 401(k) to the $49k a year limit, then fund a traditional IRA with $5k per year, then roll it over to Roth IRA after quitting your job (or even right
218.
by pfedor 16y ago
Get a job as a software engineer at a large company. Rent a small room, don't own a car, don't eat out, don't go to Hawaii for vacation, whatever it takes to save $250k in three years. Then go to Vegas and put everything on red twice. (Me
219.
by pfedor 16y ago
Where have you seen a growing number of elementary particles? The number hasn't changed since the formulation of the Standard Model some thirty years ago.
220.
by pfedor 16y ago
One thing to keep in mind is that probably all the bashing of "A New Kind of Science" has more to do with the perception of Wolfram being arrogant or self-centered than with actual merits (or lack of them) of the book.
221.
by pfedor 16y ago
I strongly second this recommendation, but it's not exactly "light on math". It's light on calculations, but you need to have had some contact at the very least with linear algebra and calculus. Now that I think about it, that probably ma
222.
by pfedor 16y ago
By "collapse theory" I presume you mean the Copenhagen interpretation of Quantum Mechanics? That actually gives the guy more credibility: it suggests he learned physics at a physics department of some university, as opposed to, say, from p
223.
by pfedor 16y ago
The difference between Mountain View and Sunnyvale is negligible in comparison with the difference between Palo Alto and East Palo Alto though.
224.
by pfedor 16y ago
Philip Greenspun did address this in an article on a similar subject: http://philip.greenspun.com/materialism/early-retirement/ (scroll down to section "Non-profits are NOT the Answer" if you don't want to read the whole thing).
225.
by pfedor 16y ago
I saw a doctor yesterday about my back pain and he actually recommended against a standing desk. He said they are mostly recommended for people with herniated disks, which is a more serious condition than a regular back pain.
226.
by pfedor 16y ago
Your version contains less information, since it's a result of taking a square of both sides of e^(i 3.14...) = -1 (which is equivalent to the original), and taking a square is not injective. In other words, your version would be true also
227.
ARM Powered Android LEGO Rubik's Speedcuber(youtube.com)
15 points by pfedor 16y ago|2 comments
228.
by pfedor 17y ago
According to Steven Weinberg's essay in "Lake Views", Bush's idea of returning to the Moon etc. was never anything but a smoke curtain, i.e., they wanted to cancel a number of scientific projects planned by NASA (e.g., an experiment aimed a
229.
by pfedor 17y ago
Also he mentions preons, hypothetical particles of which quarks are made, which I believe is an idea mostly done away with.
230.
by pfedor 17y ago
And my guess is it happens way more often than you'd guess. I was quite shocked to watch a movie "Witch Hunt" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1196112/ -- multiple people were convicted and spend many years in jail (one guy 20 years) for chil
231.
by pfedor 17y ago
Let me start by saying that I am not opposed to the proposed healthcare reform, since I don't know enough about it to have any opinion, and I suspect that if I did invest the time and learned the facts I would be in favor of the reform. Wit
232.
by pfedor 17y ago
Text to speech is also used by some blind programmers. I've seen a demonstration once. The speed of reading is very accelerated, so the computer sounds like Donald Duck. Also, believe it or not there's a form of syntax highlighting, diff
233.
by pfedor 17y ago
And, since it's FDIC insured, it's as safe as treasuries as long as you keep below $100k in the account (or was it $250k? I don't remember.)
234.
An Engineer's Guide to Silicon Valley Startups(books.piaw.net)
2 points by pfedor 17y ago|2 comments
235.
by pfedor 17y ago
What's "true" physics and what's just a computational technique is a distinction which seems rather philosophical, and I don't mean it as a positive thing. In any case, there's more to Feynman diagrams than your comment implies. For exampl
236.
by pfedor 17y ago
Not necessarily: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08138/882650-85.stm
237.
by pfedor 17y ago
I believe the opposite error is also often made. I suspect many a time governments or large corporations act in ways which people interpret in situational terms, as a reflection of some underlying plans and strategic goals, while in realit
238.
by pfedor 17y ago
Google is hiring.
239.
by pfedor 17y ago
The evils of threads, and how to replace them with something else to use multi-cores, is very high on the list of blogged about programming topics. They may be high on the list of blogged about topics, but in places where performance real
240.
by pfedor 17y ago
Wasn't there a chapter in Freakonomics about how, contrary to the popular perception, the amount of money spent on a candidate's campaign has very little impact on the outcome of the election?

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