jonathansizz

This is an interesting trend, which is also happening in other fields such as genomics. Many sciences started off as amateur pursuits before they became professionalized. Technological advances are allowing some of these fields to move back in favour of the amateur. This opens up some nice possibilities for the serious hobbyist; it's surely more satisfying to conduct some original research than to waste time on the web or playing video games.

Personally, astronomy has always been an escape from the electronic world for me, so I've never been drawn to the imaging side with its CCD cameras and computer equipment. But I do know a couple of people who really love it, and they certainly find it rewarding. I'm happy to stick with my binoculars and 12" Dobsonian, but for someone with a bit of spare cash who wants the chance to make a contribution to science, the opportunities are there.

A non-alarmist article:

http://www.androidcentral.com/quadrooter-5-things-know-about...

Book piracy as a way to get free stuff instead of paying for it.

These rationalizations for ripping people off are pathetic; just admit you do it because it's quick, easy and there's little chance of getting caught.

You aren't a freedom fighter, and if you actually paused the trackers long enough to think about what you're doing, you'd have to admit to yourself that what you're doing is simply wrong. At least be honest enough with yourself to admit that.

But you can in Boston.

You could try paying people for their work, or else forgo enjoying it.

It would be nice if they could filter out the intervening objects that are in our own galaxy, to give a clearer perspective.

M33 in Triangulum is comfortably visible with the naked eye from dark skies. A few other galaxies have been claimed to have been spotted with the naked eye, although I've never been able to see any of these.

Also, the 'local group' actually includes M31 and M33 in addition to our galaxy and many smaller ones.

This article is quite shallow, but the one linked below is excellent and discusses in some detail several of the serious side-effects of light pollution (on human health, animal populations, crime, as well as wasted money):

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/08/20/the-dark-side-2

I don't understand why Twitter never implemented some sort of categorization feature. There are many individuals that I'd follow if I could just get a subset of their tweets in my feed.

For example, I might want to follow scientists' tweets on science, but not their political or favourite sport team tweets. Right now it's either all or nothing, but why can't people categorize their tweets so only people interested in them see them? This would be better for both parties.

Unfortunately, the pairs that I have are all no longer produced. If I was in the market today, I'd probably look on Craigslist for some high-quality second hand binoculars. That way, you can go and test them in person after you've researched them online, and you should be able to get more for your money compared with buying a new pair.

For astronomy, you want a large objective lens:magnification ratio, because the higher the magnification, the dimmer the view. For daytime use, this doesn't matter, but for looking at faint objects at night, light-gathering power is everything. Get this ratio at least up around 5, or ideally 7, so 7x50mm binoculars would therefore be better (and lighter) than 10x50mm. I'd start with those before possibly getting some larger (e.g. 15-16x70mm) ones, or just moving straight to a telescope.

I can see Saturn's rings with my 16x70mm binoculars. Jupiter's Galilean satellites are easy with any decent pair of binoculars. You can track their positions relative to Jupiter from night to night.

Binoculars are definitely the way to go for a beginner. Spend 12 months using the naked eye and binoculars to learn the entire night sky that's visible from your location. With the aid of an astronomy book and star charts, you'll learn all the constellations and the names of the major stars in each, plus other interesting objects in each constellation (Messier objects, variable stars). Binoculars also bring out the different colours of many stars. Supplement this with background reading on the targets of your observations and other nearby objects.

During this time, you'll also be able to learn many of the most prominent features of the moon's surface, as well as easily being able to identify the planets (although Mercury can be a challenge and Neptune requires large binoculars and even then will just be a speck of light), and you'll get a feel for which constellations are visible in which seasons. Learning the sky like this is very satisfying and is a great precursor to buying a telescope. Your binoculars can of course be used for other purposes too.

As casual astronomers are generally most interested in the moon and planets, I'd recommend buying a medium-sized apochromatic refractor as a first scope. A high-quality 4" (100mm) one with a good mount can be had for under $1000, and will give stunning views of Saturn, Jupiter and the Moon, even in the middle of a large city. Other planets and the brighter star clusters and nebulae will also look good.

I've noticed this on HN for genetics- and especially evolution-related topics. Many commenters here confidently state as fact things which turn out to be dead wrong. If your knowledge of evolution is limited to having read 'The Selfish Gene', you should be aware that you likely carry several misconceptions and also have many large gaps in your knowledge.

It turns out that, although possibly a virtue when programming, hubris can easily lead you astray if you're outside your field of expertise. Humility is more useful in these situations.

I am sure that this holds true for many other topics; it should give us all pause before we accept statements as true just because they sound agreeable to us, or before we regurgitate opinions whose veracity we're not in a position to verify.

Incidentally, I've also spotted this on the TV show QI, many of whose clever 'facts' are misleading at best or just plain incorrect.

TL;DR

Per legal requirements (and at a loss), Apple recycles monitors and computers, but not iphones.

Summary-of-summary: 15 words. 5 seconds.

> $10/month sounds like a high price point for such a feature.

As someone who is forced by my monopoly ISP (with collusion from my local gvmnt) to buy bundled basic phone service for an extra $30/month (if I want internet access, which I do, and for which I have to pay $87/month for 30/5), I say people in Google Fiber areas don't know how lucky they are.

Exactly. Why can't the database guy add categories to his account (databases, politics, personal) and assign a category from his list each time he tweets? His followers could choose which categories to follow.

That would avoid alienating his followers, but still allow him to tweet on any topic he likes, knowing that only people who are interested in that topic would see those particular tweets.

This would be better for all parties.

> A smart player would put money back into the public coffers so that people could be taken care of, not hoard it for the already-wealthy.

No, a smart player would let others do that, and avoid doing it themselves. Exactly what Google is doing.

I think you should be directing your ire at the overly-complex, full-of-holes tax code.

The fact that we can get around vision problems using technology is precisely what allows such vision problems to become widespread.

Poor eyesight has gone from being massively deleterious and thus exerting a strongly negative selective pressure, to being (usually) trivially correctable and thus having no bearing on natural selection at all (excluding sexual selection).

Once you remove selection from the equation, genetic drift gets free reign; suboptimal alleles will spread through the population.

Note, however, that in the case of myopia we may well be dealing with a non-heritable environmental effect.

I don't admit anything of the sort; you came up with the 2/3 figure.

My best students are pretty much self-taught within the academic environment, which offers them a lot more than any series of MOOCs could.

Maybe around 1/4 of my freshman students shouldn't be in university, and most of these leave during their first year. I'd be happy if admissions standards were increased, as it would be better for all concerned if individuals lacking the necessary ability and motivation didn't waste everyone's time as well as their own money.

Once again, it is the responsibility of each potential student to determine whether they should accept a place at a university, not mine. As long as they're here, I'll give every student as much assistance as I can, but some of them can't or won't be helped.

My lectures are designed to supplement learning that my students are expected to have done prior to class. The lectures are a summary of the material, with worked examples, a chance to ask questions to clear up misunderstandings, and for discussion of key concepts.

Lectures are attended by dozens of students, so they cannot be a personalized tutorial service. That's what office hours are for. My best students don't usually need office hours as they are pretty much self-taught, but the next tier down show up regularly and we sit down together and go through exactly the material they want to focus on in the detail they need.

I tailor my pedagogy to these engaged students, not to the ones who expect to be handed an A for a minimum amount of effort. If you don't work, you'll deservedly do very poorly, and I'm not willing to waste my limited resources on you. And, no, I'm not going to curve your grade up either, because that's not fair on the good students.

Unsurprisingly, poor students don't show up to office hours, don't take advantage of our free tutoring service, turn in material late, and regularly miss lectures. All these failings are entirely their own responsibility, not mine.

In my small town in South Carolina, we're just about to get our third new independent brewery in 3 years. The oldest of the three is already talking about moving to larger premises, and both those currently in business are canning their beer with sales already in hundreds of retailers across the region, in addition to selling beer on site.

All of them brew at least one light American pilsner to appeal to newcomers and also offer a decent food menu and regular special events. I don't think these kinds of places are going away any time soon. They offer an ambience and clientele that's distinct from a regular restaurant or bar, and I've found myself visiting them more frequently as they continually experiment and improve their beers.

Each to their own.

The cinema experience: get dressed then travel to movie theatre, line up to get expensive ($8-$10 per person) tickets, optional purchase of exorbitantly-priced junk food, try to find good seats (not too close to screen or too near aisle), put up with 20-30 minutes of ads, deal with unwanted noise/light from others, then afterwards file out of theatre and go home.

Streaming experience: Pay $5 for everyone, eat/drink whatever you like, pause whenever you like, no risk of distractions from others (choose friends accordingly), comfy and clean seats.

Even with my relatively modest setup (50" 1080p television and 2.1 sound), I'd go with the latter option almost every time.

I'm sceptical about Moments, but maybe if they start tailoring it per-user it could work.

What I would like to see is a relaxation of the 140-character limit and the addition of threaded replies. This would make it actually reasonable to have discussions on Twitter and would surely greatly increase engagement.

Another useful change would be the addition of tweet categories for each account. For instance, I might be interested in someone's tweets about science, but not like or care about their tweets on sport or politics. If users could categorize their tweets, other users could choose which category or categories of tweets they want to follow. This would not only be good for followers but also good for tweeters, since tweeters would no longer need to worry about alienating followers by posting many tweets that most of their followers aren't interested in.

This doesn't make sense. If $200 Windows laptops were as nice to use as Chromebooks, they'd cannibalize mid-range windows machines rather than ChromeOS devices (and would be bad for OEMs' margins).

I value the simplicity, speed, security, responsiveness and convenience of my Chromebook, not just the low price tag, and I'd be stunned if these new budget Windows machines offered any of those things.

You have failed to demonstrate that the quality of television shows has declined over time. There are many excellent current television shows, along with lots of bad shows. But this has always been the case. The difference is that the only old shows that people remember are the good ones; all the old dross is forgotten, whereas with current TV it's there for all to see.

Note that the original quote is a common misunderstanding of the central dogma, and is incorrect (for example reverse transcription RNA --> DNA is common in nature).

The central dogma was invented by Crick, and states that once sequential nucleic acid information (either DNA or RNA) has passed into protein, it cannot be recovered. This has never been violated.

Amusingly, it was none other than Crick's pal Watson who popularized the incorrect version via his college textbook, and it is this incorrect version that is regularly announced to have been 'disproven'.

After moving from the UK to the US fifteen years ago, I was amazed at certain practices that are common in the US: tailgating, weaving and undertaking are ubiquitous here.

I also noticed that a significant fraction of drivers don't know how to use acceleration lanes; they wait at the beginning of the lane until they can pull directly into the main flow of traffic. Tailgating and weaving are probably so common because many drivers do not see left lanes as overtaking lanes, but rather seem to have a favourite lane that they always use; other drivers must navigate around them.

Also, the driving test in the UK takes about 1 hour, with 40 minutes of driving in all conditions (highway, urban, overtaking, merging, emergency stop, three-point turn, parallel parking in an actual parking space, etc.). For my American test, I had less than ten minutes of driving - I took a right out of the test center, drove for 1/2 mile, took a left then three rights and headed back to the test center, went round the back and parallel parked between bollards that had at least two parking spaces between them. That got me my license.

It's just a different culture here - driving is seen as a right, not a privilege.

I just signed up for a Fi invite (anyone know if it's pronounced 'fee' or 'f-eye'?).

I was also sceptical about the size of the Nexus 6, but when Google dropped the price a few weeks ago I decided to give it a try (if you buy from Motorola or Google, you can try it out for two weeks to see if it works for you and return it if not).

I absolutely love it. I even sold my 7" tablet, as the extra screen size of the Nexus 6 is great for reading and web browsing, on which I spend several hours per day. However, I have always used phones with two hands, so if you're someone who likes to use one hand then you probably won't like it.

Coming from the Moto X, I do miss the excellent Motorola software, gestures and IR sensors, but the extra screen size, better speakers, better camera, wireless charging and most importantly for me, the rapid android updates make the Nexus 6 worthwhile.

It probably needs a catchier name and more marketing

Because it has to be exciting.

yeah, just like Exodus is about going for a long walk