rflrob

61 ms·

691.
by rflrob 16y ago
From an Bayesian/Occam's Razor standpoint, Penrose's data could fit the data "even better", but as it's (arguably) a more complicated model, still have a lower posterior probability. Would a universe with infinite time extent be easier to b
692.
by rflrob 16y ago
> without invading the fetal privileged space (which is what we currently do, and which is high-risk ). [emphasis mine] The standard process is amniocentesis, and according to wikipedia, that has a miscarriage rate "as low as 1 in 1600
693.
by rflrob 16y ago
You seem to forget the venerable classics: vim and emacs. In particular, I've seen a fair number of "Why I've given up TextMate for vim" articles here on HN in the last few months. I've been using MacVim quite happily for the last year or
694.
by rflrob 16y ago
Well, as a virus it doesn't have "cells" in the standard biology sense. The nanostructures might be vulnerable to decay, but since (I think) the relevant bits are the outer coat, I'd think they're pretty sturdy. I suspect the longevity is o
695.
by rflrob 16y ago
You'd think for a Books fail, one might have had the whale be white. Even better if you have Ahab attached to it with a harpoon, but that might be a little grisly for an error page.
696.
by rflrob 16y ago
Who says that it's wrong to have a two-tiered hiring system: the standard "interview then hire" system (though done more rigorously---thus all the "how many golf balls in a schoolbus" questions); and the "let the market see how they do, the
697.
by rflrob 16y ago
While we can't be sure to of the preferences of livestock, we can make pretty good guesses. If the responses of animals in a factory farm are more similar to the responses of an animal that is being injured than an animal that is not being
698.
by rflrob 16y ago
They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown. -- Carl Sagan, Broca's Brain The final message of the article is "When the mocking gets the loudest, double do
699.
by rflrob 16y ago
"it's really none of my business what others chose to ingest, be it meat, veggies, heroin" I agree, with the caveat that what they ingest should inflict minimal harm on the rest of society. I would be equally in favor of government measure
700.
by rflrob 16y ago
Interestingly, the First Hundred were sent on a one-way mission to Mars as well, thus making the original question not quite so off-topic. Once you send someone that far, the thought of not bringing them back seems like an eminently reasona
701.
by rflrob 16y ago
I'm a big fan of Friday Night Waltz ( http://www.fridaynightwaltz.com/ ), which is cheap, fun, social, and darn good exercise too.
702.
by rflrob 16y ago
"I'd personally rank it up with Asimov or Heinlein at their best." There's also a healthy dose of Pratchett, acknowledging the fundamental silliness of magic.
703.
A Wandering Mind is an Unhappy Mind(sciencemag.org)
2 points by rflrob 16y ago|0 comments
704.
by rflrob 16y ago
I heard from a Googler before the article came out that the leaker was fired. While one could imagine a second, as-yet unleaked email about the fake firing, isn't it much simpler just to assume that the leaker was fired?
705.
by rflrob 16y ago
"Hey Bob, I'm thinking about leaking my email... can I diff it with yours?" The other problem I can see is that there's only 5 or 6 of those points, which would be enough to narrow down the leaker, but not ID them outright. Probably easier
706.
by rflrob 16y ago
This works incredibly slowly for me (~30 seconds per symbol after I stop drawing), and doesn't work at all on my iOS devices (where I can actually draw reasonable looking characters, unlike with my mouse). Still, it's a really neat app.
707.
by rflrob 16y ago
I'd suspect that there's a listing somewhere that says, for a given cell, what other cells depend on it, so it knows to update the others when it's modified. I can't immediately get it to work on my Mac, so I can't test it out, though. Ther
708.
by rflrob 16y ago
Another way to interpret the disabled walk buttons is to say that pushing the button N times is N times as effective as pushing it only once!
709.
by rflrob 16y ago
I haven't read through the whole paper yet (behind a paywall (I think... I'm at a university that subscribes, so I have access) here: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/science.11952... ), but table 1 is somewhat telling: there
710.
by rflrob 16y ago
Regardless of whether Zed's tone in the first post was too harsh or not, I think everything from "Guys like you are the reason I stopped doing Ruby" onwards was just fanning the flames unnecessarily.
711.
by rflrob 16y ago
Even if they didn't need that much money, I would say offering prizes for merit-based performance was a nice side-effect. The amount that they needed was the amount required for N chess sets, while the amount that they were able to put t
712.
by rflrob 16y ago
Fortunately, not all customs officers are this bad. About a year ago, I spent a couple months traveling around the Mediterranean, including Syria and Lebanon. Upon my return to the states, I got some moderately thorough questioning, but no
713.
by rflrob 16y ago
"On the go, underarm odor is wiped away with a sliced lemon." A sliced lemon seems like it would be at once more expensive and less convenient than a stick of antiperspirant, though mitigated somewhat if you happen to have a lemon tree.
714.
by rflrob 16y ago
For me, the 5 minutes in the shower substitute for coffee: it helps me feel awake and ready to go.
715.
by rflrob 16y ago
Anyone have a sense of who the market is for cloud-based 3D rendering? It seems like even for a small-to-medium-sized shop it's likely to be worthwhile to have a pretty solid baseline capacity in house...
716.
by rflrob 16y ago
"from the schools' point of view, individual gifts are literally worthless" What the schools want is for alumni to always be giving. Not dissimilar from venture funding, they really care about the tiny fraction of alumni who hit it big, an
717.
by rflrob 16y ago
Not just that, but ports on each side. No more external mouse cables wrapping around the computer.
718.
by rflrob 16y ago
"the call rings through on every Mac you own, even if face time isn't running" Does this sound just a little too intrusive to anyone else?
719.
by rflrob 16y ago
I think we can and should be investing in both. Or rather, in the whole spectrum between basic science and direct medical research. The kinds of systems that make a good biology paper are still pretty abstracted from anything directly appli
720.
by rflrob 16y ago
Well darn. I looked at the data they'd published saying they'd found the planet, and while it seemed tenuous to me, I should've gone on record somewhere saying so. On the other hand, I'm not a planetary astronomer, so my I'm not really qua

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