jk4930

Would you send another Lisp program to space, just for the joy of it?

I'd have to use it first to comment on it, but thanks so far. Article makes a good impression.

In the same spirit, why 2 + 2 = 4.

https://us.metamath.org/mpeuni/mmset.html#trivia

https://us.metamath.org/mpeuni/2p2e4.html

Just want to add that I prefer Ada over C++ despite it having less mind share, tools, and libraries because its productivity is so high. (Not saying that I dislike C++.)

And, speculating here, with the encroachment of AI into programming/software engineering, I assume that it's convenient to use languages that are declarative (e.g. Haskell) and/or designed for verification/formal methods (e.g. Ada/SPARK) to integrate AIs of various kinds.

First, congrats on launching. Second, "AWS GovCloud for ITAR compliance," can the USG access my data (EU company) then?

Euro here. Would you send me an email (in profile)?

Sent you an email (from my sometimes blocked alumnus account, if it doesn't appear, let me know).

"Biologically Inspired Cognitive Architectures" and they have some overlap with the AGI (AI at human level and beyond) folks as well.

http://www.bicasociety.org/

It depends on the specific professor. There are stressful and relaxed ones. It trickles down from the professors to their assistants to their PhD students. Here's my ad-hoc list of bad signs. Avoid those.

Professors

* don't have time for feedback

* have no interest in their PhD students' work

* are known to steal results (and put their names on it)

* are ideologically/religiously driven and judge you and everybody else accordingly

* don't open their network to their PhD students

* jump from one hot/trendy topic to the next and burn their PhD students on it

* blame others/circumstances for anything bad

Faculty

* members pride themselves for devoting their lives to the cause

* members do long work days, have little sleep

* has little budget it spends on its PhD students

* feels toxic (Sayre's Law: "Academic politics is the most vicious and bitter form of politics, because the stakes are so low.")

PhD students

* do overtime

* rarely/never publish

* publish in irrelevant magazines

* publish with their names on the nth position (after doing all the work)

* don't or rarely attend conferences

* don't or rarely work on what they signed up for

* take long to finish (or don't finish at all)

* blame others/circumstances for their bad situation

Talk to PhD students, ask on the net, listen to speeches and lectures the professors gave.

A lot of advice given at HN about whether to join a startup applies to academia as well. Unnecessary work, little pay, vague promises, inconsistent management, insider circles. I wonder what academia's equivalent of stock options is. Aiming for tenureship perhaps?

Would you send me an email (see profile) please?

Follow Peter Thiel into the future: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/11/28/no-death-no-ta...

jk at ptscientists dot com

"6. (Mar's Law) Everything is linear if plotted log-log with a fat magic marker."

https://spacecraft.ssl.umd.edu/akins_laws.html

Space burials [1] are a thing. When I investigated this, I found that in Germany the cremation industry is against separating remains, i.e. don't bury a part on Earth and another on the Moon. I'm not aware whether a legal background exists, but at least some might consider it as morally dirty (though I doubt people would really complain over here, but in other cultures people might react stronger). So it depends on your country (culture, jurisdiction) whether it's a viable business case.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_burial

Other than that it's GTO, we didn't publish orbital parameters or spacecraft/payload specs AFAIK.

Considering that there's little time left, your payload (and business model) has severe constraints. Unless you have something pre-developed and nearly ready to launch (e.g. at a university), aim for something simple. That leaves you mostly with media attention (sponsors), technology demos (e.g. for third parties), paraphernalia/vanity items that wealthy individuals or communities pay for (no remains or religious artifacts please). But please be inventive.

$980k (€800k) [1] for the first kg to the lunar surface, for lunar orbit it's less (ask me in private, it's not published). Expect $50k-500k to develop the payload (depends on what it is and who builds it). There are several open source CubeSat designs and kits that give you an idea.

So whether you have a simple payload/business model or a more sophisticated one (more suitable for a later launch probably), contact me better sooner rather than later. Many details need to be cleared early on.

[1] http://ptscientists.com/products/payload/

I work with a former GLXP team (PTScientists from Germany). We left the prize in early 2017 and will launch in 2019. We're actually grateful for the GLXP. It opened doors, it did spread the word and created a community, it forced us to push through to meet deadlines. We had to develop business models (the prize itself wouldn't cover the costs) and adopt a professional mindset while not losing the hacker approach. And while nobody won the prize, the primary goal (kickstarting an ambitious private space industry) was accomplished.

That said, we still offer payload capacity to the lunar surface and lunar orbit. Since there's not much time left, it should be rather small and nice (think CubeSat format). We provide transportation, energy, communication. Don't be shy, fellow hackers, ask me. Here or under jk at ptscientists.com

Pragmatic approach, I like that and am willing to play with it. Combining it with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_path_method could yield interesting results.

Great, let's check it out. I'll send you an email over the weekend.

I work with PTScientists.com/ (a GLXP team until end of 2016). You keep launch costs low by ride-sharing (secondary payload). One revenue source is to sell payload space to third parties (what we did). Additional funding can come from sponsors (in our case Audi and Vodafone).

The intention of the prize is not to cover the costs but to kickstart an ambitious private space movement. One needs to be very lean, inventive, and somewhat risk-taking under those conditions. It forces one to think of business models that make the whole thing independent from a possible prize money (and government funding, which under GLXP rules is limited to 10%).

Would you be interested in bringing Empire to space? To the Moon is possible but difficult and short-lived. I'd prefer the ISS, bandwidth is okay, it would run for months, just need to keep the computational requirements reasonably low (should be possible for a turn-based game). Participants connect via Internet. I'd manage the space stuff, you bring the fame and the fun. (I played Empire Deluxe from 1994-2003 excessively with friends, what a time. Would be a nice way to give back.) It's very spontaneous, but let me know what you think.

Healthy young child discovers Ethereum, gets pumped with massive shot of many tokens, feels good and changes - AUTISM. Many such cases!

Since you're in the UK, look at [1] and perhaps check topics that interest you and follow the names at [2]. Then we have the European Social Simulation Association [3] with Summer Schools and annual conferences.

[1] http://cress.soc.surrey.ac.uk/web/home

[2] http://jasss.soc.surrey.ac.uk/JASSS.html

[3] http://www.essa.eu.org/

Re policy, it's used e.g. in environmental resource management (regional level), anti-terrorism (networks, opinion dynamics), urban planning, disease control. Policy isn't based alone on it, of course. But it's used as an ingredient. Often the models aren't good enough (lack of data and quantifiable causal relationships) to gain an exact image of the modeled system, but they provide a general system understanding (system behavior under different [intervention] scenarios) that is often educational and gives insights that then need to be empirically validated.

A barrier to increase its use in policy-making is the "science-policy gap" between researchers and decision-makers. Either they don't understand the utility of model results and dismiss them or they trust them too much--both is not good. So researchers had to come up with ways to communicate results, often include decision-makers (and other stakeholders) in the modeling process.

I found the history of New World wines interesting, esp. where the grapes came from. E.g.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_California_wine

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zinfandel

They publish in Latin. That shows you how old and established they are.

Look at Rebol 2 docs. Or try this (enough for me to get started): http://redprogramming.com/Getting%20Started.html

End of the 1990s with GNAT 3.1xx on Windows. IIRC there were several libraries and runtime elements included "just in case" and I didn't know that I had to deselect them. Perhaps it was the default setting in the GNAT Programming Studio (GPS) that I used at this time. Didn't experience that with later GNATs (without GPS) on Linux.

I still laugh about my first Hello World. My friends mocked me for my megabyte-sized beginner programs. It totally was in line with the image of Ada being a bloated, bureaucratic DoD monster. GPS made things feel extra complicated and ugly.

That said, I'm considering to use Ada 2012 for several of my upcoming works.

My first Hello World in Ada was 2.3 MB, but I'm sure it was the most safe and reliable Hello World in existence.