zeteo

92 ms·

781.
by zeteo 15y ago
The counter-argument is, of course, that someone who knows they can't fulfill all contractual clauses will try to check off the easy ones only - including the risible demand that M&Ms be sorted. The argument in the article is simply inv
782.
by zeteo 15y ago
Maybe some people falsely believe they are doing God's work when, in fact, they aren't.
783.
by zeteo 15y ago
Welcome to the real world, such things are bound to happen. The main question is: to what degree does AirBnB know the identity of the perpetrator? Let alone helping the police catch them; but is AirBnB even able to prevent this person from
784.
by zeteo 15y ago
>Most IT departments are a shadow of their former selves. They’ve drastically reduced the number of tech support professionals, or outsourced the help desk entirely. They have a lot fewer administrators running around to manage the netw
785.
by zeteo 15y ago
I'm really curious how he used his philosophy studies to "make major progress in AI". I've spent several years avidly reading philosophy, and ultimately found the field quite sterile. Granted it raises interesting questions, but the answers
786.
by zeteo 15y ago
If they're infinite, the article doesn't do a very good job of even making this basic point. In any case, this bears little relation to what is ordinarily meant by urbanization.
787.
by zeteo 15y ago
The article touches a bit on the depletion of finite resources, in a context with very artificial mechanics (e.g., the administrator decides to spawn monsters among player-built structures). "Urbanization" is a misnomer here. First, all phe
788.
by zeteo 15y ago
>Investing only $19 billion dollars a year is a no-brainer, considering the return is a generation of American kids interested in math and science. This attitude has brought NASA to the lack of relevance we see today. Astronauts spendin
789.
by zeteo 15y ago
After reading the article referenced, the author does sound kind of trollish. E.g. > in the hypothetical case of a planet-trashing catastrophe, we (who currently inhabit the surface of the Earth) are dead anyway. The future extinction o
790.
by zeteo 15y ago
You're right, there are probably instances of this problem for which greedy algorithms are quite slow.
791.
by zeteo 15y ago
"It turns out to be easier and faster to iterate from an existing but wrong solution, than to deduce a correct solution from scratch. Even if you have to occassionally press the “clear” button to start over." This is what I was referring t
792.
by zeteo 15y ago
A greedy algorithm is an algorithm that makes locally optimal choices. The classic example, if you've taken an algorithms course, is the travelling salesman problem with the nearest neighbor heuristic. This starts at an arbitrary node, and
793.
by zeteo 15y ago
They won't run the same way if you start from a different node in the search graph, which is probably what the players are doing.
794.
by zeteo 15y ago
What I'm saying is that you shouldn't draw such general conclusions from seeing a simple algorithm work in a particular case. Your problem-game turned out to be algorithmically simple. This probably makes it more appealing as a game. But mo
795.
by zeteo 15y ago
I'm sure the users he describes can be trusted to make locally optimal choices.
796.
by zeteo 15y ago
What he calls "Iterate and Repair" is basically a greedy algorithm. Greedy algorithms are great where they work, but there are also situations where they break spectacularly. I guess the algorithms course is no longer required at MIT?!
797.
by zeteo 15y ago
The article mentions gold coins and gold statues encrusted with gems, and that they're estimating the value by weight only. Since the encrusted gems can't be weighed separately, and furthermore the value of a precious stone strongly depends
798.
by zeteo 15y ago
>$22 billion [...] is likely a conservative estimate [...] the panel is simple counting and weighing the valuables. "Their value, including antique value, is not being assessed" A quick back of the envelope calculation indicates $22 bil
799.
by zeteo 15y ago
Yes and all the beauty creams are made from "natural" ingredients too. As long as the fiction that great-grandma could have made the same thing with forest-picked herbs is maintained, all is great.
800.
by zeteo 15y ago
The issue was never killing babies. The embryos were going to be destroyed anyways, and parental consent was needed. It's like organ donation on a smaller scale. The real issue is that a large section of the US population is committed to an
801.
by zeteo 15y ago
Comparing something we understand pretty well (computer systems) with something we only half understand (organic life) is not very illuminating. There are also many ways, I am sure, in which large computer systems are like the Universe.
802.
by zeteo 15y ago
In the attention economy, being wrong in a spectacular manner is way better than being right. My suspicion is that the controversy was a bigger factor in the sign-ups increase than the homepage deletion itself.
803.
by zeteo 15y ago
The study is very artificial. These teams were randomly formed and immediately subjected to tests. This is not indicative of the team's performance in the long run. If anything, it points towards the fact that women are probably more trusti
804.
by zeteo 15y ago
His enthusiasm and tenacity are admirable, but he still has a lot to learn (and the "this guy is smarter than anyone else" hype in the article is overblown). That's not an OS, it's a rudimentary shell and a couple of simple programs that ca
805.
by zeteo 15y ago
There are thousands, probably tens of thousands of people out there who have built a 8-bit computer (usually Z80 based), according to schematics, from a microprocessor, memory chips, and a bunch of TTL chips. (I know there were at least twe
806.
by zeteo 15y ago
AFAIK, the minimum definition for an OS usually contains either a file system or processes. I see no indication of that in this case.
807.
by zeteo 15y ago
By some definition of "scratch", we've also built 8-bit computers from scratch in my Electronics class. My respect for this student's accomplishment is proportional to how much of the processor he has designed and built himself; opcode desi
808.
by zeteo 15y ago
Nano-size doesn't seem to play a crucial role in this application. The article is concerned with Italcementi's TX Active cement. Italcementi's main development is a photocatalytic hydraulic binder, and here's their patent: https://data.epo
809.
by zeteo 15y ago
Yet another example of selling good old chemistry as nanotech. The photocatalytic properties of titanium dioxide, also known as the Honda-Fujishima effect, were discovered in 1967: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titanium_dioxide#Photocatalys
810.
by zeteo 15y ago
If it was Quantum Mechanics, or at least Calculus, I'd be somewhat impressed. But Corporate Finance... The 50% pass rate and repeat failures probably evidence the proportion of students who take that class without understanding basic Algebr

More ›