"buying links"? I'm completely new to this; would you mind explaining what the benefit is of buying links?
6,596 karma · joined February 20, 2007
To whomever that has read upto here: you hereby implicitly agree my EULA, in which you swear to enjoy each of your scientific pursuits with intensity and to your fullest degree; and sometimes even to a dangerous degree, if the mood carries you thus. Additionally, you agree to never allow an employer, family member, or any other authority to break your intrinsic spirit; for they have no means of dominating your spirit except that which you subconsciously allow them. You shall be true to yourself and to your own principles, regardless of society (though in privacy). You shall hereby refuse to believe any scientific statement as "true", however benign, except those in which you alone have proven to yourself to be true, by your own hand and evidence. (Though it doesn't hurt to check out what other people have to say on the subject, from time to time; in fact, it turns out to often be a more valuable course of action, for the careful analysis of a close friend can often reveal subtle flaws in your process and in your logic, while occasionally forcing you to re-evaluate your core reasoning for choosing that process in the first place, which always leads to the path of learning and thus improvement and satisfaction.) You agree to eventually die with no regrets. Let no one impose themselves upon your judgement without merit. You shall endeavor to enjoy life to the fullest extent of the law (where applicable), and to realize that money is merely a means, not an end unto itself. In your spare time, you shall research that which is impossible, but intriguing, in order to always have something to strive for, thereby improving your skill and your spirit. You shall follow your curiosity wherever it leads (but keep both eyes open for signs of danger).
Most importantly: thou shalt enjoy every week, else thou shalt fix your life's situation regardless of how immutable it may seem.
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The current theory regarding "why is all that resolution necessary?" is: there are tiny creatures swimming alongside the squid, which respond to a sperm whale's sonar by emitting a tiny amount of light. When the squid sees this light, it knows that a whale attack is imminent, and runs. (Well, jets.)
If the eyes were smaller then there wouldn't be enough resolution to make out the tiny dots of light emitted by those tiny creatures.
Another way of thinking about it is: the eye needed to evolve larger in proportion to how tiny the creature is. If the creatures were twice as big, then the eye would've evolved half as large as it currently is. (If the theory is true.)
Mathematically, there need to be enough retina cells such that "1 tiny creature at distance D can be detected per degree of viewing angle". E.g. if the squid has a 130deg field of view, and it needs to be able to see the creature light up within 1 foot of its eye, then it needs enough retina cells in order to scan the entire conic volume of the space between the eye point and "1 foot in front of the eye point". By the Nyquist frequency, that suggests there need to be at least two retina cells per "tiny creature body length projected from a distance of 1 foot". (The farther it is from the eye, the smaller its projection; and thus correspondingly more retina cells are required, which requires a physically larger eyeball. Note that as the eye gets larger, the field of view remains the same.)
To clarify: the squid isn't looking at the whale at all. Rather, the squid is looking at tiny sea creatures very close to its face that light up when hit by a whale's sonar. Thus they act as an early warning system for the squid.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with "not wanting to impact the world", and it's a shame that so many are implying that it is. It's "enjoying life", plain and simple.
I don't care about money; I let it run out a few months ago. Didn't phase me. I simply got a job when I needed to, and now I have $11k saved up. I'm very lucky to be a programmer. But more than that, I'm lucky to be able to enjoy life by studying as much science as I want to. Does that make me a bad person? By your implication, it does, because I don't care about money, and spend it freely.
On a different note... It sounds like you've been through a struggle, and came out stronger. I just wanted to say congratulations. I respect that a lot.
It's more than a little arrogant to say that she's not the master of her own life just because she works to the detriment of her health. Yes, by defintion, she needs money to survive; nonetheless, she goes out and gets that money when it's needed. That is worthy of respect.
You're saying she's somehow a bad human. In reality it's the greed for money which makes us bad humans.
By committing the fix, they would effectively be releasing a step-by-step guide on how to exploit the vulnerability.
This is fascinating to me. It would be great to learn the reasons why it will cost them so much.
(I don't doubt it; quite the contrary. I'm inexperienced and would love the opportunity to learn more about the realities of the modern security industry.)
It's unfortunately the best quality I can find for free. The rest are locked behind paywalls (which is a tragedy).
If anyone has any more information about the decline of Bell Labs, it would be deeply appreciated.
What were the reasons why it started to lose that magic?
It turns out that, by employing quantum mechanics, it's possible to encode data and then later answer the question "has anyone looked at the data yet"?
Let's say you're a secret agent. You get your instructions from shadowy figures in paranoid places. And, being a secret agent, it would obviously be a problem if anyone were to eavesdrop on the instructions sent by your employers. Quantum entanglement allows you to check: has anyone already looked at this message?
Pretty neat!
Agreed -- that was primarily why I redacted myself. I was being an idiot.
It would be pretty amusing to walk around the local campuses aimlessly repeating "Hi I'm Shawn, I'm looking for someone who thinks Quantum Mechanics is cool!" ... maybe it would even work. Who knows.
Do other apps do this?
Proof: http://db.tt/whiVaG0t
How much data did he access?
Interesting. By definition, that means middlemen are currently adding value.
(I'm just interested. It would be nice to hear more.)
I wouldn't ask for a raise for the simple reason that I'm totally satisfied with my number. So I'm just trying to figure out which of the following is true: I am overpaid, I am stupid for being content and happy, or people just tend to be greedy.
You nailed it. Perfect value-add, perfect price point.
Homepage: interesting concept. I like the clean design and the gigantic "start" button + "take a tour" option.
Next page: A little annoyed that I have to basically squint to see the alternative to Facebook signin. No, I don't want to join your social network.
Signup page: I'll admit, the number of fields to fill out gave me pause. I almost exited out. But I'll grudgingly give it a shot. (Specifically: you don't need my last name, it makes me feel like you want to sell my info. You don't need my location. You don't need my birthday, and the years starting with "1900, 1901, ..." makes me feel like you want to sell my info. You don't need my photo -- if I like your site, maybe I'll give one. But we just met. The lack of a "confirm password" box makes me slow down and carefully type my password, and makes me feel like closing the website. This is all happening in the span of about 3 seconds.)
Next page: Perfect; absolutely perfect. The defaults are spot-on, and the optional infotext (question mark buttons) is nice.
Next page: Hmm.... Reminders? I don't really want annoying reminders yet; I just want to see what your site is like. The lack of a 'skip this' button would make me close the site.
Next page: You want me to spam my friends. No... thanks.
Next page: We're at step 5. It's now gone from cute to annoying. No, I don't want to share my food logs with the world.
Done with the signup. Then you show me http://screencast.com/t/NXMzgOjjR50q ... it's not really clear what I should be doing next, or how it will benefit me. I think there's probably just too much raw text. Separately, each element is good -- "Prep your pantry", for example. And I like handy guides. But the sheer number of things I could be doing next makes me close the page and hope you don't spam me too much.
Apologies if this wasn't useful. I assume website owners like honest feedback, and understand that my viewpoint != the average person's. I have no idea whether your site is good or bad; I was just broadcasting my raw thoughtstream as I went. For example it might be a bad idea to cut the "invite friends" step, even if I am personally annoyed with it -- maybe it's valuable in practice. I don't know.
Best of luck to you!