zipdog

8 ms·

31.
by zipdog 14y ago
As a side note, it was only a few years before this (in 1949) that Robert Busa approached IBM's Tom Watson with the idea of using a computer to make a concordance (of the works of Thomas Aquinas). Tom apparently said it was impossible (IBM
32.
by zipdog 14y ago
The 45 minutes aspect is misleading. They haven't been using the room to test that, its just that no-one has spent longer than that so far.
33.
by zipdog 14y ago
Advice like this (which itself is good) makes me wonder how much higher education is missing. If a 4.0 is possible with 1.0 hours of work, then surely the expectations of the students are far too low. Its great that its possible for a focus
34.
by zipdog 14y ago
Yes, they should be testing software-based learning against other forms of private (self-directed) learning, as well as (face-to-face) instruction. Remote-instructor learning through software differs markedly from the same through books in
35.
by zipdog 14y ago
If I recall Dune 2 has no connection to the slightly earlier Dune other than both were produced by studios owned by the same parent, and neither realized that the other team was working on the license. The Dune team finished first, and to '
36.
by zipdog 14y ago
I think the appeal of the service is the convenience. If the message was important enough to warrant no third-party trust, you'd just go the extra hassle of PGP keys from both parties, etc. The target seems to be people who were previously
37.
by zipdog 14y ago
I think its aimed at medium priority info where convenience of both parties is a factor. It seems the point is to send information that, although it could still be compromised, you will know if that happens because your recipient won't be a
38.
by zipdog 14y ago
The Mars missions suggest we're close to having the tech to get robots onto asteroids, some of which might have a fuel source that can sustain an unmanned operation that launches minerals along trajectories back toward .. the moon perhaps.
39.
by zipdog 15y ago
The poll numbers are pretty meaningless without some further info or breakdowns. How many of these are Tesco/Walmart employees? Or at companies with card swipe entrances? I'm not saying someone couldn't use a password in that scenario benef
40.
by zipdog 15y ago
The beer game is also mentioned in Peter Senge's The Fifth Disciple, where he suggests it originated from MIT in the 1960s. I think he had one less link in the chain (3 players not 4) but still the effect was the same. btw, His book is a go
41.
by zipdog 15y ago
Acceptance by the art community is a key factor, possibly the most important. Other factors include artistic intention, aesthetic qualities, and being considered based on what is already considered art.
42.
by zipdog 15y ago
The author's key argument is that extractive institutions lead to state failure. Like most theories of state failure, there's some good examples but enough weak or counter examples to discredit it as 'the' answer. At best, I'd argue that ex
43.
by zipdog 15y ago
It is possible to steal IP though. If you assert ownership of an intellectual property, then your next step can be to stop the original artist from claiming royalties. An example would be the companies claiming ownership of public domain fi
44.
by zipdog 15y ago
A warming of two degrees is not about us noticing (as in, gee, time for a tshirt) but about the impact on the ecosystem. Someone in reddit ( http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/reo35/the_discus... ) pointed to an article noting that
45.
by zipdog 15y ago
I'm not sure if you're suggesting that the Earth's temperature has a background variability ... .. or noting that if the Earth's average temperature warms by 5 degrees it will spike higher than any sustained period in the last 400,000 years
46.
by zipdog 15y ago
'Mal' means 'bad' in latin, btw.
47.
by zipdog 15y ago
A few years back someone wrote an article (to a science journal I think) asking if it was possible that the dinosaurs had high technology but all evidence of it had vanished in the millions of years that have passed. Some dinosaurs were aro
48.
by zipdog 15y ago
A similar system is discussed for CEOs as well. The entrepreneur who starts a company is not always a great consolidator who gets everything settled and organised into a functioning whole once the money starts coming in. The next two I thin
49.
by zipdog 15y ago
I think you're missing an important piece in your summary. The original page-rank algorithm was based around the idea of authority. A site might contain content entirely relevant to your query for cancer, but if it has no authority then its
50.
by zipdog 15y ago
Foxconn apparently has almost 1 million employees in its Chinese factories, so its significant enough in its own right, but I suspect its also a shorthand for all Chinese factories (as McDonalds once was for all fast food). Foxconn makes a
51.
by zipdog 15y ago
Try: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting for a starting point (esp. 'Examples'). Also note that states often provide generous tax subsidies to film projects filmed in their territory. Some films can profit their investors wi
52.
by zipdog 15y ago
I've done some work for a research team dealing with air exposure to known and suspected carcinogens and (I think) I can appreciate both sides of this. In order to do the research my team signed various agreements related to data and any pu
53.
by zipdog 15y ago
There's a lot to be said for habit for making tasks happen that are hard to motivate. If you can spend a week consciously putting on running shoes every morning before breakfast, then it gets easier to do it on other days. Key to this is to
54.
by zipdog 15y ago
A video of the performance is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v... (A handful notice) As a test of whether the public at large can recognize quality musicianship (is the public uncultured, or is the diff b
55.
by zipdog 15y ago
News might entertain us but its chief goal is to sell advertising space. Advertising ultimately pays for almost all news* (esp. newspapers) and so news media focus on getting your attention today, and tomorrow, and using whatever techniques
56.
by zipdog 15y ago
I wouldn't expect so much. There is ample evidence for the ineffectualness of, say, the CIA. As a simple example, at the time of the fall of the USSR (pretty much their major goal) they had admitted they had no effective agents in Russia
57.
by zipdog 15y ago
The radio model was not geared to you (as far as I can tell). Up to the 90s, lots of people who heard a song a dozen times on the radio would then go and by the single or album. Even at $8 and $20. I don't know why they did, but they did. I
58.
by zipdog 15y ago
I've been expecting someone to make this move sooner or later, and I got the impression that Posterous' Spaces was trying to do something like this (but I haven't used it much). It reminds me of adding tags to blog posts and then having sub
59.
by zipdog 15y ago
Exactly. An "explain like I'm twelve" for Godel's Incompleteness Theorum itself would revolve around the idea of self-referential statements (such as 'the set of all sets which don't contain themselves', or 'the barber of Seville shaves eve
60.
by zipdog 15y ago
The uptick after 120 characters would seem to be the natural 'long tail' of the graph, if Twitter didn't have the character limit. Instead of trailing off those people are forced into condensing their tweet down to 140.

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