yaks_hairbrush

12 ms·

31.
by yaks_hairbrush 8y ago
Historically, quaternions came about as a way to try to reason about three dimensional physics. I mean, complex numbers were obviously really nice -- two dimensional numbers you could meaningfully add, subtract, multiply and divide. But t
32.
by yaks_hairbrush 8y ago
There's a danger in pedantry -- outsiders can mistake it for "see: there's no consensus that the earth is a sphere!". Having said that, the earth is not an oblate spheroid -- it's very slightly pear-shaped, and has
33.
by yaks_hairbrush 9y ago
So the ant (allegedly -- I'm eagerly awaiting that source!) saw a dot on the ant in the mirror, and tried to remove the dot on its own forehead. The key point: that looks an awful lot like the identification of the self with the refle
34.
by yaks_hairbrush 9y ago
I believe Randall Munroe was talking about touching neutron star material, if hypothetically we could stably put it on earth.
35.
by yaks_hairbrush 9y ago
I want to know more about that gamma-ray wall... - Would the CMB be so energetic (from the proton's frame) as to create electron-positron pairs? - If the particle can't travel more than 100m light-years, what happens to it? Does
36.
The Universe Is Not a Black Hole(preposterousuniverse.com)
3 points by yaks_hairbrush 9y ago|0 comments
37.
by yaks_hairbrush 9y ago
> More oddly still as you approach the size of the observable universe, the required mass density crosses the cosmic mass density, meaning light emitted from Earth cannot gravitationally escape the universe created by the Big Bang This i
38.
by yaks_hairbrush 9y ago
There a germ of the right idea here, but our universe is really more of a black hole backwards. Within the event horizon of a black hole, the singularity is always in the future. Within our universe, we see a singularity in our past. In s
39.
by yaks_hairbrush 9y ago
> Intuitively, that's not "obviously" false to me. That's fair -- intuitions are pretty personal things. It is "obviously" false to me, and Bertrand Russell fairly well articulated the reason why by calling
40.
Dev Bootcamp Shutting Down(facebook.com)
206 points by yaks_hairbrush 9y ago|289 comments
41.
by yaks_hairbrush 10y ago
The factorization of 2 is fine -- factorizations are equivalent if they're off by a unit, and i is a unit. By the same token, 1+i and 1-i are essentially the same prime, since you can multiply one by a unit to get the other. That&#x27
42.
by yaks_hairbrush 10y ago
Here's a thought: Could we put one of these at the L1 point of the Earth-Sun system to protect against solar storms? If something like the Carrington Event happened to our current society, it would be absolutely devastating. Bonus: Co
43.
by yaks_hairbrush 10y ago
Patents represent a deal: You publish specifications, and society will grant you exclusive use for X years. Thankfully, unlike their copyright cousins, patent laws have not seen an increase in X. This serves to prevent knowledge from bein
44.
by yaks_hairbrush 10y ago
Actually, the big bang bears a pretty striking resemblance to a white hole. That's the time-reversed version of a black hole. Whereas with a black hole, all paths lead toward the singularity at its core, with a white hole, all paths
45.
by yaks_hairbrush 10y ago
> I'm not sure how I feel(as an AAPL shareholder) about [giving her time off] If I were an AAPL shareholder, I'd be very pleased about it. The behavior indicated in the post very much leaves the company at risk of spending pos
46.
by yaks_hairbrush 10y ago
But where's the NPVIC going to get the 270 EVs from? The blue state contribution is just about maxed out, while swing and red states have no incentive to join it.
47.
by yaks_hairbrush 10y ago
A lot of comments here are referencing the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC). If it ever comes to fruition, it would be a rather clever hack to get around needing a constitutional amendment to change/abolish the elector
48.
by yaks_hairbrush 10y ago
Don't know why you were downvoted, you're absolutely correct. At first glance your n and my n are different, with mine (n1) being the input to the function and yours representing the number of digits in a multiplicand (n2). n1 a
49.
by yaks_hairbrush 10y ago
That's log(n) time due to the exponentiation.
50.
by yaks_hairbrush 10y ago
There is no constant time implementation. Binet's formula uses exponentiation, which gives us log(n) time.
51.
by yaks_hairbrush 10y ago
> why would anyone want to use their high-interest credit card to borrow even a few tens of thousands? Here are a couple ideas: lawyer fees during a contested divorce and emergency spending from being out of work too long.
52.
by yaks_hairbrush 10y ago
It's great that you had it easy. I didn't. When I quit nicotine about two years ago, I got kicked into a deep depression that lasted about 3 months (Worth noting: I had a history with depression). I developed panic attacks (and
53.
by yaks_hairbrush 10y ago
Life expectancy is better today, but life expectancy as a hunter-gatherer was probably better than you think. [0] suggests a modal adult age of 68-78 years for hunter-gatherers. Infant mortality is indeed way down, and that's a big po
54.
by yaks_hairbrush 10y ago
You're not speaking the same language as your parent commenter. "Generally Recognized As Safe" (GRAS) is an FDA designation, and not a literal phrase. High Fructose Corn Syrup, for example, is GRAS.
55.
by yaks_hairbrush 10y ago
Can you provide your email?
56.
by yaks_hairbrush 11y ago
I do not agree with your first statement. Mathematics is about developing and studying tools to solve problems. Proofs are only one aspect of that.
57.
by yaks_hairbrush 11y ago
The issue of proof is very different from the issue of learning. I thought it was the latter being discussed.
58.
by yaks_hairbrush 11y ago
I don't like this attitude at all. Euclid, Archimedes, Newton, Leibniz, Riemann, and many others did a fine job correctly calculating areas, volumes, and so on without need of measure theory. Why is it so important to avoid the proble
59.
by yaks_hairbrush 11y ago
One mechanism by which it's good for the employer is information asymmetry. The employer knows all of the employees' salaries, but the employee does not have this information.
60.
by yaks_hairbrush 11y ago
This comment is making the page formatting gross. Those special characters with the strike-throughs make the entire page over-wide, thus requiring horizontal scrolling to read comments.

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