bladedtoys

Even though simpler, I think what I built is only partially successful at this. In the end I think the audience for my toy and Marc's game will only be people excited about new concepts and toying with theoretical math ideas where the bulk of the fun is just from that rather than game play.

I believe much of a game's fun comes from matching the users existing abstract ideas about the world. I suspect that 4D manipulation of objects is so deeply counter intuitive that doing this is extremely difficult.

But I for one will be thrilled by any from of Miegakure that is ever released whatever it's state or level of fun.

It's possible intelligent species inevitably overcome/loose the desire for infinite self replication.

It's clear other animals will breed to occupy all available habitats. But it seems humans uniquely are developing the idea of the preserve in which environments are intentionally left unoccupied. I have even heard a tiny amount of talk questioning the impact of even a Mars landing. If that question is already coming up centuries before interstellar travel, one wonders what attitudes will be prevalent then.

Just a century ago it was quite desirable to intentionally release new species of bird's into new continents purely for aesthetic reasons. Now such an attitude would be abhorrent.

I suppose if one could demonstrate that the desire to endlessly replicate across the universe is somehow beneficial to individuals currently living then I imagine their values will embrace it. If endless self replication is not beneficial to the exiting population then they will eventually reason their way clear of that instinct and that reasoning will be integrated into their ethical code.

So while I, like most people reading this, am very excited by space exploration, that attitude may not be a permanent cultural characteristic.

I'd vote for time being defined in terms of some universally observable phenomenon. Say the rate of cooling of the CMB. Anyone with a super spiffy radio telescope anywhere in the universe could then tell what time it is.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PSR_B1919%2B21

...technically all they did was lower the price by $19 a month.

...and bought a lot of press for that

...and a lot more shots at the 5% revenue.

It's really great of course. But better yet, it's really very clever.

Where P is Golden ratio ( about 1.618 )

So yes it resembles exponential growth but as you can see it is slightly less due to the "- ( -P )^-n" part.

Pictured camel: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bactrian_camel

Some groups such as fructivore primates have since re-evolved color vision to recognize ripe fruit from unripe. Thus not only our ability to see "pretty" colors but our probable instinctive liking of them as "pretty".

Also, color is more complicated than simple wave length. Human perception and wavelength correspond fairly well most of the time. But we actually have three different cells for detecting color (rather than say two: one for high frequency one for low). The result is we can perceive a color like purple where in fact there is no one wavelength but a blending of two wavelengths. Pedantically by the way, red is a relatively low wave length.

One wonders if Hugo Boss actually got ideas from comic books bad guys.

*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Great_Eastern

And four cables connect Alaska to the lower 48? I wonder why.

To this I might add a rhetorical question: how would science have gone about discovering the scientific method? Indeed, in which discipline would that question fall even today?

Nor for that mater are 1st century invaders (Romans)

Indeed, if Normans are considered an intrusion into a formerly pure Britain, one would think that the Doomsday book would be the considered the beginning of illegitimacy rather than the other way around.

Here for example is an image of a pre Julian calendar http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Roman-calendar.png

Among other things, you can also see another bizarre truth: the pre Julian calendar did not have a leap day, it had a leap month (more or less randomly inserted sometimes to delay elections). It's labeled INTER on the image.

The terms NON and EIDVS are the Nones and Ides of each month the latter of which I imagine Julius would have liked to reform out of the calendar all together. Hindsight.

Which reminds me of a not so useful poem:

In March, July, October, May,

The Ides are on the fifteenth day,

The Nones the seventh; but all besides

Have two days less for Nones and Ides.

For example "...the nautical mile – 1.852 kilometers – was introduced in the 15th century..."

For one thing, there was effectively no international standardization on other units in the 15th century. Indeed different countries did not even agree on the current calendar date. So the claim that the knot was precisely international defined in the 15th seems incredible.

Also, the diameter of the earth was quite controversial in the 15th century (Columbus notoriously used a very low-ball figure to raise funds for his westward expedition to China). So it seems unlikely a precise figure for the length of a minute of arch could be agreed on and less likely that it would be accurate.

Because no one has ever had one[1].

There was no industrial revolution in China or India or the Muslim world who arguably were more advanced than medieval Europe.

There was no industrial revolution in Rome or the Hellenistic era who had vastly more potential in the creation and exchange of ideas than the medieval period.

There were no industrial revolutions among the new world civilizations who had larger populations than any medieval nation. There were no industrial revolutions in sub Sarahan African even though there was iron working and abundant resources.

Quite possibly the industrial revolution was actually an improbable set of circumstance and people for which ad hoc but inadequate explanations abound.

(and so there hasn't been an industrial revolution on that tv show because it is unrealistically unlikely.)

[1]With one exception, the one we happen to live in.

If you have a few examples of these I'd be very, very much obliged.

For "near by "objects on can use parallax: look at the object on a given date then again 6 months later and see how much it shifts against the back ground stars. Simply triangulate using the known distance from earth to sun as half the side of a triangle.

For "moderate" distances one can rely on certain variable stars that always have a known brightness. Then when you locate such a star, note how dim it is and calculate how far away it would have to be to have that brightness level.

For "far" distances one can measure the red shift. That is to say, on the large scale everything in the universe appears to be moving away from us. Further away object move faster than nearby objects. Thus if you can measure how fast something is receding from us you can tell how far it is. The technique for measuring speed like this is to measure the Doppler red shift.

I ask because I wonder what limits there would be to complex molecules forming under those circumstances: how much insulation would they need to protect them and whether that amount of insulation would limit the development of life.

The explanation on the page takes another approach: all black and white line drawings and a lot of brevity.

But it's really a hell of a lot of fun tying to figure out how to present impossible to visualize phenomenon.

And you are not remotely too dumb: if my story didn't come through it's my fault.

But there is likely a plausible explanation why some property of the product improves its sales. And indeed, that property may really be necessary for a product's success. But it may be an insufficient cause.

e.g. facebook started among college kids so my product focused college kids will success.

So I'm thinking it's a flavor of over generalization or selection bias and I opine that you can most easily show how ridiculous that kind of reasoning is with the "A is X, B is X therefore B is A" fallacy.

all A are X

this B is X

therefore this B is A

then: for A: successful business. for X: has certain traits. for B: our new product.

So the question probably ought to be "what are the odds of 76 heads and it being detected correctly + the odds of not getting 76 heads but believing you did". In the real world, the last part would obviously dominate and so we are more likely to see false positives than real results.

So (@dangrossman) the legal issue is averted: both costumers are in the same isp which, to them, works like a black box. So the article's use of the word "steal" is quite nonsensical.

Also remarkable is the advanced anticipation of demand. For example, Netflix is not even available in Spain and bandwidth demand is currently low compared to say the US. My guess is that it is not to facilitate video over the internet etc. but that it is a cheap way to undercut competition from Vodfone and Orange (other Spanish providers). Bandwidth sharing might mean more consistent high bandwidth for those who need it.

Actually the potential issue is inverted: you may not be able not opt out of the system.

The other potential issue is Telefonica itself. Historically it has been as appalling company to customers. It is possible this is changing but there certainly used to be a long track record of awfulness. Indeed it is my utter shock that Telefonica of all companies on earth would manage to do something of this sort that is compelling me to ramble on like this.

If Telefonica is changing, kudos!

There are studies (Eddy 1982; Gigerenzer and Hoffrage 1995) that show only a small percent of physicians understand even basic statistics.

Just Google same and you'll get a zillion links to freshman college homework discussing the problem.

Yet still one would expect that most quick decisions are bad decisions. I would conjecture there are far more failures that come from quick decision than successes.

But if the market strongly favors speed then it will select those few that just happen through chance to make the right quick decision.