ErsatzVerkehr

The instructor's (self-written) textbook gets terrible reviews on Amazon. Not a good sign.

http://www.amazon.com/For-Programmers-Third-Edition-3rd/prod...

Keep in mind that the main goal of this project is to further research into nuclear weapons development.

> Too bad shovel ready money wasn't spent on more long lasting impact projects like this.

Perhaps some kind of "Manhattan Project".... oh.

Don't these systems use different object-file formats?

Obviously this is not a desirable property of the system. If it's going to be robust against malicious attacks, it must be robust against well-meaning reimplementations.

Being uncomfortable about alternate implementations makes me uncomfortable.

This is already in use in the micro-4/3rds cameras, which feature interchangeable lenses, but still tight integration between the lens and the camera. There are even firmware updates for the lens.

http://m43photo.blogspot.de/2010/09/lumix-20mm-distortion-co...

When your only tool is "Let's build an App for that"...

Is this true?

... in which case, these nuisance requestors will be executing a denial-of-service attack on legitimate requestors.

"Blocks" seem to be an Objective C feature.

https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/cocoa/...

I thought it was the other way around. Can you cite a source?

Junkmail ("direct mail marketing") is to mail as advertising is to the internet. It pays the bills.

It's probably hypocritical of you to hate on junk mail while working in web development.

You're forgetting convection.

1. As eli wrote above, it accomplishes nothing but annoying your postman.

2. Why would you try to sabotage a public service?

The official USPS policy is that such mail is just thrown in the trash:

http://pe.usps.com/text/csr/PS-086.htm

Here is some other coverage:

http://consumerist.com/2007/11/01/update-taping-pre-paid-bus...

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/566/can-i-mail-a-br...

> Cross borders with blank drives. Re-image when you're at your destination.

I'm guessing you don't actually travel very much.

Thankfully, Immigration/Customs is not run by the TSA. Immigration/Customs appears to be orders of magnitude more competent and professional.

If the 1000 kg is heated uniformly, this is not enough energy to bring it to a "roiling boil". There will be no bubbles.

Will you offer MathJax support?

That's the amount of energy needed to bring nearly 1000 kg of water from 25°C to 100°C, but not enough to begin the phase transition from liquid to gas (i.e. start boiling).

The heat of vaporization of water (i.e. the amount of energy required to convert liquid water at 100°C to vapor at the same temperature) is 2260 J/g. So to completely boil your metric ton of water at 100°C would require an additional 1000 kg * (2260 J/g) = 2.3 GJ, which is 627 kWh!

At 85 kWh, the Tesla's battery contains enough energy to completely boil off 119 kg of water starting at 25°C [0], which is still pretty impressive!

[0] 85 kWh / ((4.181(J/(g * K)) * 75 K) + (2260 J/g))

Also, Google and Facebook are turning the Internet into a total surveillance system.

Clearly this is just another symptom of the Great Argentine Coin Shortage.

i.e., http://www.newyorker.com/talk/financial/2009/06/08/090608ta_...

> that they sold boxes of cereal all across the country for $50 each using Craigslist; they were experienced Craigslist spammers.

Could you expand on this? I haven't heard about it.

> mirroring an image horizontally

...but only a 2-color image.

> more efficiently compressed, more government resistant and more easily encryptable Protocol

Probably these things should not all be done at the same layer.

> In the end you could probably build an ultralight for the cost of a pilots license.

...but not know how to fly it.

In the United States, the restrictions on an "ultralight" are rather severe:

> The governing regulation in the United States is FAR 103 Ultralight Vehicles, which specifies a powered "ultralight" as a single seat vehicle of less than 5 US gallons (19 L) fuel capacity, empty weight of less than 254 pounds (115 kg), a top speed of 55 knots (102 km/h or 64 mph), and a maximum stall speed not exceeding 24 knots (45 km/h or 27.6 mph). Restrictions include flying only during daylight hours and over unpopulated areas.

Hough

As someone who loves Matlab but would rather use a free-software solution, I must say that Octave is not an effective replacement for Matlab. Matlab itself is just so much more feature-complete and polished, turning to Octave feels like going back two decades in technology.