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RK

2,568 karma · joined March 31, 2008

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RK··on Show HN: Soundkeep (Github for music)
That makes sense. It seems like you would need some non-binary meta information about the wave forms, etc, that I'm sure would not be supported across audio-editors.
RK··on Show HN: Soundkeep (Github for music)
Excuse my ignorance, but is there an equivalent to git for digital music production?
RK··on Why We’re Building Collections
Is the new Ubuntu / Unity Dash somewhat like this (without as many services)?
RK··on Using VimWiki as a distributed, encrypted lab notebook for programming
I have a similar system for a lab notebook / to do list, but without encryption. I use a light weight wiki, Zim http://zim-wiki.org, and setup the directory in my Dropbox folder. That way I'm able to use the full wiki on my desktop, laptop, and work desktop. Because the pages are plaintext with simple wiki markup, I can also view and edit them on my phone.

Zim is also nice for me in supporting LaTeX equations (via a plugin) and being written in Python, I've made a couple of custom tweeks.

RK··on The CIA and Jeff Bezos Bet on Quantum Computing
I have heard from people familiar with the Lockheed project that the purchase was largely motivated by tax incentives. Something along the lines of a Canadian-American agreement, in which companies could claim 10x as much business expenses if they were making purchases of research equipment from Canadian suppliers. The implication was that Lockheed never had strong confidence in this technology, but had little to lose.
RK··on Solar panel made with ion cannon is cheap enough to challenge fossil fuels
And privately designed/built/owned particle accelerators? It's definitely a new era.

I actually worked at a startup from about 2007-2009 that was designing particle accelerators for another company pursuing what appears to be the exact same technology (possibly some of the same people).

http://www.sigen.net/solar_technology.html

No idea what came of the project. Very high current ion accelerators in the +1 MeV range is quite the trick without a huge budget. Our company was full of people from Los Alamos. We were actually focusing on a different application that needed higher output.

There is a quite sizeable commercial accelerator market for medical, industrial imaging, and radiation sterilization use (and of course various "homeland security uses".

RK··on If you want reproducible science, the software needs to be open source
A general project wiki would be nice. I might be missing where the equivalent feature is because I am not a very heavy github user.
RK··on Elsevier = Evil
Maybe the silver lining is that a large scale uproar could incline more people to publish in open access journals in the first place (so-called "gold" open access). </wishful thinking>
RK··on These May Be The Droids Farmers Are Looking For
I can't wait to see produce that is organically farmed by robots.
RK··on Why You Should Move To Berlin
100% agreement on the dönner kebabs. The critical mass of Germanized Turks going back a few generations seems to be the key ingredient.

I spent a year in Berlin then came back to the US. Good luck finding a street style dönner in the US.

RK··on Python: copying a list the right way
The only caveat here is if you are copying a list of lists, you have to use copy.deepcopy() if you want the lists inside your lists to actually be copied.

This caught me bad once. I wish it were on the page linked in the post (and others like it).

RK··on Where does Google actually say that they won’t read Gmail or Google Docs?
Unless you run your own smtp and pop/imap mail servers, there is no way to be sure no one will read your emails.

I think you really want to encrypt your email for that kind of peace of mind. Of course you need buy in from your contacts.

RK··on The $10,000 College Degree
It's not clear to me why the top private schools are able to offer so much better aid packages.

Willingness to compete with each other and huge endowments?

RK··on For HN: Open access to scientific papers, a summary of the state of play
The Scientific American link in the blog post seems broken.

Also, off topic, I never got the email I signed up for about the release of your new book. Did you ever send those?

RK··on Ubuntu should zig to Apple’s zag
I think part of Shuttleworth's philosophy is that he wants Ubuntu to be(come) an OS that the rest of the world can use, not just the traditional Linux power users, but even the emerging computer markets that may not be able to afford the latest and greatest hardware with a proprietary OS.
RK··on Android Orphans: Visualizing a Sad History of Support
Is that a hardware issue? Never had a touchscreen problem myself when charging.
RK··on Android Orphans: Visualizing a Sad History of Support
I'm very happy with Android. But, I only recommend the Nexus line and this post seems to back that up (we'll see as things go forward).
RK··on After 24 centuries, Google puts the Dead Sea Scrolls online for the world to see
I am pretty ignorant of the Dead Sea Scrolls and related documents, but why is the translation not into modern English?
RK··on Poll: Facebook usage
Never seen this on my Nexus One. Also no Facebook account.
RK··on Our holiday / vacation policy – unlimited with bonuses
I'm very confused about the bonus calculus.

More days of = more bonus, fewer days off = more bonus, or you always get the same bonus?

RK··on 'We won and we didn't notice' - a conversation with Jeremy Allison of Samba
I'd be very surprised if there are more OS X installations than Linux installations (or even close for that matter).

Linux runs more servers, more phones, and more embedded devices (set top boxes, routers, GPS's, etc). OS X is limited to Apple products, which, while popular, are not nearly as pervasive.

RK··on Should scientific articles be available free online?
These links are often legitimate. Even Elsevier lets authors post their own articles on their own sites.

But I agree that this is not a good solution to the bigger problem.

RK··on Should scientific articles be available free online?
Article from 2004.
RK··on Introducing Google News Badges
Is this just to encourage people to stay logged-in/cookies on?
RK··on Ex-Wave, Ex-Plus engineer on Google Plus
I had to select View->No style in Firefox 3.6 just to be able to read all of the text... :(
RK··on Why Mark Zuckerberg’s First Public Response To Google+ Is The Right One
And of course, it would be naive to discount the advantage Google has through the presence of one person and one person alone; Andy Hertzfeld. He's a big hitter... a really big hitter. To me, it feels like Yoda just turned up to show the young upstarts what it really means to be a Jedi.

Not to play the doubter, but I remember when Hertzfeld was slated to be the savior of Linux back in 2000/2001 (god I feel old!). His company, Eazel, did produce the file manager Nautilus, but then promptly went out of business.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2000/08/22/hertzfeld_spills_all...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eazel

RK··on Amazon announces unlimited MP3 storage with any Cloud Drive plan
My assumption is that this is a strategic move against Apple and ipod/iphone doesn't support ogg, so it doesn't come into play. Just a guess.
RK··on All these Brilliant People at Facebook Make Me Sad
Probably half of my friends earning physics graduate degrees are not continuing in academic physics, with most of them going into something like quant finance or quant insurance.

The reason for this is primarily that there are simply not enough jobs right now for them in academia.

When I was an idealistic undergrad physics major I honestly never once thought about the job market. I assumed that you'd just go get your PhD and you'd become a physics professor, sort of like going to med school and getting a job as a doctor. You'd follow all of the steps and you'd be set...

Now being on the verge of finishing my PhD, I have a very different perspective and am fortunately in a decent position with employment options. Some of my friends are only now scrambling to make sense of their options.

RK··on Moving back to SF and doing Y Combinator again
What are the advantages of NFC stickers over QR code stickers? (I sure you've gotten this question 1M times...)
RK··on Some Thoughts on Cancer from a Hacker
The book mentioned by the OP discusses the "virus theory" of cancer, which was very popular for a while.

What people eventually realized was that cancer is the result of genetic mutations and there are many potential causes of the mutations, viruses being one of them. E.g. HPV can lead to cervical, anal, throat cancer, etc.

An interesting book. The books feels a little bit narrowly focused on medical oncology, but the author is a medical oncologist, so you'd expect that.

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