I enjoyed cassettes. I still have a bunch, and a cassette player in my car. And I never use them over streaming audio from my phone. Why? Because this is 2017 and I'm not a hipster.
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Initial conclusions indicate an error in production that
placed pressure on plates contained within battery cells.
That in turn brought negative and positive poles into
contact, triggering excessive heat. Samsung however
stressed that it needed to carry out a more thorough
analysis to determine “the exact cause” of battery damage.
I seem to recall an article not too long ago (perhaps here on HN?) that analyzed the Note 7 battery failures; their conclusion was along the lines that the phone was designed too slim for the battery manufacturing tolerance.
So in some percentage of the phones the battery will be under constant mechanical pressure because the battery is slightly bigger than the space allocated for it. This pressure may eventually force the plates inside the battery into contact with each other, or at least close enough to cause leak currents and overheating.
> Does turning them off prevent them from catching on fire?
Not necessarily. Assuming the cause is as Samsung describes it, it can happen even with the phone turned off. But overheating to the point of thermal runaway is more likely at higher voltages (during charging, or with fully charged battery), and probably more likely during high current drain (aka using the phone).
For more technical details, I suggest the Electrical Engineering Stackexchange.
I agree that once the primary use of Java moved outside the browser, there was no particular reason to not give the option of AOT too. I'm not sure why Sun was so adamantly opposed to the idea.
If I recall correctly, Sun really wanted to stick with JIT on Java Embedded too, they just couldn't get it to run fast enough on embedded hardware. For desktop and servers, they considered bytecode interpretation and JIT "fast enough".
https://web.archive.org/web/20050420081440/http://java.sun.c...
When the appliance market didn't pan out, they went for web browsers and Java applets. Bytecodes were a feature because browsers didn't exectute native code, and because it allowed for sandboxing to limit the attack surface.
Even when Java became more popular on the server than in the browser, the "write once, run everywhere" was considered a major feature: The same bytecode could be distributed everywhere; no need to maintain a heap of different build environments for different CPU architecture and OS combinations.
Gray code [1] does it for integers: Any two consecutive values are one bit-flip apart.
Instructions could perhaps be encoded similarly: Say an n-bit gray code represents an instruction. Each instruction has an n-bit ID, IDs are spread evenly over the space of n-bit values, and each instruction code resolves to the ID with the smallest Hamming distance [2].
Then most bitflips would yield essentially the same program, as long as the number of instructions is small compared to the number of n-bit values.
Our CPUs wouldn't run that directly, but I think it should be possible to construct simple bytecode instruction sets where practically any permutation of bits gives a syntactically valid program, and where bit sequences with a small Hamming distance in most cases resolve to similar programs.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gray_code [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamming_distance
In my case that's triggered by too much activity. I've gradually learned to stay within my limits most of the time, so these days I don't have the flu feeling as often as I used to. Although I have to limit activity to a handful of hours per week in order to keep it at bay.
There's no consensus yet, but there is a bunch of interesting research going on. Most of the theories I've seen fall in two broad categories:
- An issue with the mitochondria, the energy production in the cells, that for some reason produce just a fraction of the energy they normally produce. So the fatigue is a result of insufficient energy production. I'm partial to this class of theories, since it seems to match so well with my experience. I particularly like the one I saw just a few days ago, explaining CFS/ME as a kind of evolutionary hibernation where the cells shut down in response to a real or imagininary threat, in the hope of outlasting the threat rather than fighting it [1].
- An issue with the immune system, which for some reason remains hyperactive even when there is nothing to fight as far as anyone can tell. So the fatigue is a result of the immune system consuming an inordinate amount of energy, just like if you were having the flu. According to these theories it might be an autoimmune disease where the immune system is effectively fighting ghosts [2], or the immune system might be busy with an actual threat that the standard tests don't pick up [3].
I don't know if both groups of theories can be true at the same time - e.g. if one is a cause and the other is an effect, or maybe they are both effects - or whether we're talking about different subsets of patients with different underlying causes.
Unlike my sibling post, I think it's a genuine condition. I agree that the current diagnostic criteria basically boil down to "unreasonably fatigued and we don't know why". But I've met a number of other people with the same diagnosis, and there are too many similarities for us to be just an arbitrary collection of tired people. Maybe there are two or three distinct subgroups with different underlying causes, maybe there are a handful that has been misdiagnosed. But I'm sure there's something there.
For recovery, we don't know yet. A number of things have worked for a number of different people, some people eventually get better on their own. Long term and in general, we will hopefully know more in a few years.
[1] http://www.healthrising.org/blog/2016/09/01/metabolomics-nav...
[2] http://www.tv2.no/a/3615631 - cancer drugs help for some patients according to study (by killing off the immune system)
[3] https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/06/160627160939.h... - gut bacteria
The risk of the event itself doesn't matter; what matters for your personal risk is how much of your personal fortune you put into it.
If losing a bet makes you homeless, it's hardly a good bet no matter how good the odds are.
Conversely, there's barely an "insane" bet in the world as long as the probability for a payoff is greater than zero (excluding e.g. Nigerian scam emails), and as long as the amounts involved are small relative to your disposable capital and the payoff expectation.
Think of it as "how many times do I need to place this bet before I win", vs "if I win, what's the payoff", vs "if I'm wrong, what's the most I could lose".
If you get those numbers right, I can't see that bitcoin margin bets are intrinsically insane.
Or suppose a neighborhood kid is angry at you, have figured out how to hack the system, but haven't yet figured out the difference between "that'll teach them a lesson" and "this might actually kill them".
Or, hypothetically, if system hacks don't require a physical connection, it's wide open for anyone anywhere in the world to replicate something like the file encryption extortion scam[1]: Break into as many cars as you can. Send them a mail saying that you hacked their car. They can take the chance of figuring out what you did on their own, or pay you money to revert it. The scam might work just as well for cars you didn't break into, as long as the owners believe it's a credible threat.
The point isn't necessarily that these scenarios are more likely than in the physical world. The point is that many people have a fair idea how the physical world works, while they have only vague notions about "hacking" in the virtual world. We know that there are new threats, but we don't yet know what they are, so these new threats will be inherently scarier than the threats we already know about. (The devil you know, etc.)
[1]: http://www.techspot.com/news/17678-file-encryption-extortion...
My feet hurt for the first few days, but after some experimentation with different footwear (I ended up with a pair of orthopedic sandals as the most comfortable), a soft mat to stand on, and a 5-10 minute break each hour, I had no issues after the first couple of weeks.
I'm pretty sure that moving is better than either standing or sitting. Since walking around isn't very compatible with working on a PC, I expect that an adjustable desk is pretty much the best we can do. Along with switching between standing and sitting, frequent breaks, and suitable footwear.
So I guess we're just seeing a conflation of cinema, TV and computing, at least when it comes to displays and resolutions, so the marketing terminology is conflating too.
Especially since 4k is an exisiting standard, I'm willing to give them a pass for keeping the naming convention. (Although the 4k TV standard, which most 4k monitors will be using, is slightly different: It's the cinema standard cropped to a 16:9 aspect ratio.)
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_cinema
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Cinema_Initiatives#Imag...
But suppose I had a Kickstarter for a car on the same premises: "A revolutionary car powered by sunlight and water - fill up with water every now and then, and it will run forever". No further details. Would you buy?
I think it's a very small percentage of the world that would know off the bat why "sun and water" could work for a spacecraft, but not for a car.
I think some more detail on the physics behind it, aimed slightly below say Physics 101 level, would help to convince more people to contribute. It makes it simpler to distinguish this from "crystals can change your life" or "lose X pounds of weight in Y days" style marketing, which promise the moon but don't explain how their miracle is supposed to work.
They do give an explanation in their link[0], but I think having a summarized version on the Kickstarter page itself would help donations. (To be clear, this is a comment on the marketing, not on the physics or feasability.)
The Leaf is the same price as a Ford Focus or VW Golf. So if you're looking for a car in this class, there's no extra cost to going electric.
Airbnb is potentially disruptive in the same way as early eBay, by providing a larger market (more options for buyers, more customers for sellers), and by inserting themselves as a trusted intermediate (potentially increasing convenience and trust in the marketplace, which can lead to a larger total market - more people engaging in short-term rentals when the process becomes more convenient).
One model of technical innovation: Once in a great while there is a major technical innovation, but to become a product in widespread use the 'technical' innovation (inventing a new type of product, say "horseless carriages") needs decades worth of 'process' innovation (making the product simpler and cheaper to produce, e.g. Henry Ford's assembly lines, and making it easier to use, e.g. by standardizing the controls for steering/braking/etc across all cars).
In this model, Airbnb is, or could be, a process innovation that makes short-term rentals a viable option for more people. If it succeeds - too early to tell, but looking good so far - it would be a disruption in that sense.
If you were all alone, wouldn't it be a better survival trait to be groggy 24h/day than to be fully alert 16h/day and dead to the world the remaining 8h?
I've heard that there are species of fish (and possibly birds) that are awake around the clock; they deal by sleeping one brain hemisphere at a time, which leaves enough active brain to avoid obstacles and predators.
If humans never took that evolutionary road, does it mean that we are genetically disposed to social groups, i.e. "someone else is watching your back while you sleep"?
I suppose that the brain cells can't shrink that much while retaining their full function.
If I decided to produce my own razor blades, I suppose I would need to buy an iron mine, a factory to melt the ore to iron, and a factory to turn the iron into razor blades. And presumably hire a few industrial designers or engineers to ensure that I got a nice razor rather than a lousy one.
I've no idea what any of these things cost, so I'll pick a random number and estimate a few hundred million USD.
And say I did all that just to get razor blades for myself, because I thought the market offerings were too expensive.
So my math is: Say $500m to aquire the means of production, an unknown yearly cost to keep them running (so I'll just ignore that part), and a consumption of one razor blade per week or slightly more than 3,000 blades in a lifetime (assuming 60 years, age 17-77, of shaving). According to my calculations, razor blades "should" cost in the neighbourhood of $160,000 per blade.
That's my math. What's yours?
Instead, it was obsoletive, like PC vs typewriters - the PC was way more expensive, but could do so much more, and once you had a PC it didn't make much sense to have a typewriter too.
"FEINSTEIN: [...] upstream collection [...] comprises about 10 percent of all collection that takes place under 702, and occurs when NSA obtains Internet communications, such as e-mails, from certain U.S. companies that operate the Internet [backbone]"
If vacuuming the internet backbone is only 10% of the data they collect, where the hell do they find enough data to fill the remaining 90%?
Phone calls/SMS? Banks/payments? Encryption they can't break, so they have to ask the endpoint, like Lavabit?
That would transform PizzaHut from an obnoxious ad ("seller oriented") to a genuinely useful option I would probably use on occasion ("customer oriented").
I dislike intrusive ads (and spending good money on a physical gadget just to be met by "congratulations, and incidentally you've also bought into a lifelong relationship with this pizza vendor" is intrusive).
But I don't mind being told that "newspapers are here, food is over there"; I might even find it useful at some point.
I still think it would be nice if Apple would let me hide the non-deletable apps I don't use: Let me hide the newsstand icon, pop it up again if I ever decide to subcribe to a newspaper.
But the newsstand doesn't grate me the way a permanent link to any particular magazine would. Any particular magazine is unlikely to be my favorite, it might even be one I hate. That doesn't imply that I hate magazines, newsstands, pizza or food in general.
Sounds ballpark reasonable to me - Europe is twice the population of USA, and USA is split over more timezones. And Asia has more people than USA and Europe put together.
I think it mostly goes to show that it doesn't take much information to reduce the number of possibilities by 1-2 orders of magnitude.
In my case, Safari on iPad makes me 1:67,000. Chrome on the same iPad makes me 1:1.6 million.
- the snooping is explicitly targeting foreigners. In USA I'm a foreigner, by hosting in my own country I have at least the protection of being a citizen.
- if I don't like the snooping my own government does, I can call my representatives, vote for "less snooping" political candidates, start lobbying etc. In a foreign country like USA I have no rights or leverage whatsoever.
In the "fishing pole" analogy: You may give them a fishing pole in the best "central planning" fashion, but they may have little use for a fishing pole because there's practically no fish in the region.
By giving them money, you trust them to decide for themselves whether a fishing pole would be more useful than say a plow.
I think there is a point where people stop trying to be self-sufficient and start relying on handouts. It would be interesting to know what triggers it.
But the assumption that some external provider of aid always knows which kind of aid is better is probably a fallacy.
- Ideological motive: Internet corrupts people, we must protect them from evil influence.
- Political motive: Disrupting infrastructure as an attack on the current rulers.
- Financial motive: Maybe they sell cable repair services or satellite-based internet access.
Or just plain vandalism, which doesn't need a discernable motive.
No way of telling without asking them, I guess.
When one invests over 100% of one’s capital in a single
financial instrument – even if that instrument is considered
low risk – it is indicative of poor risk management.
[..]When bankers do the same with investors’ money –
because their bonuses are linked to short-term income
while the losses are underwritten by the taxpayer – the
same behaviour is more than just poor risk management – it
is ‘casino banking’. [1]
[1] http://www.centralbank.gov.cy/nqcontent.cfm?a_id=12472&l...
Two reasons:
* For better or worse, humans are not machines. We can only keep doing the same thing over and over for so long before we go crazy, somewhat like Chaplin in Modern Times [1]. Creative work is somewhat less tedious than assembly line work, but there's still a limit.
* Because "non-free" time is time you spend making somebody else happy: Your boss, customers, friends or family, or society at large, e.g living up to expectations that you ought to be successful. Somewhere in there you need to make room to make yourself happy as well, it's not possible to live a life merely by attempting to live up to other people's expectations.
> I take it as implicit that the one thing the elite players are not doing in their "free time" is playing music or that would obviously be a form of practicing.
That doesn't follow. The kind of practice that makes you better is the boring stuff - playing scales and working on your technique. Doing fun stuff like playing your favorite tunes may be part of the training, but it's not the kind of training that improves your skills.
To keep learning, you need to keep pushing yourself into new unfamiliar territory, and to stay focused on mastering it while you're there. And we generally can't stay that focused for more than a couple of hours at a time.
But in this case they don't want that. They want the illusion that the water is standing still, which you get by sampling the signal at the exact same point in every cycle. So to the sampler/viewer it looks like there is no signal at all.