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ricksplaton How we're scammed into eating phony food

I don't think you can say that just because rules are being broken, that is a case for them being repealed.

ricksplaton How we're scammed into eating phony food

and the like

Currently under EU regulations it is a requirement that GM be declared, so it is wholly appropriate.

ricksplaton 107 Nobel laureates sign letter blasting Greenpeace over GMOs

Fear of the unknown is perfectly rational when what is at stake is something as critical as the food chain. What is needed is more edifying public debate than "You're evil" vs "You're stupid". Ideally I'd like to see these technological advances take place in a non-commercial setting, or at least a more rigorous form of commericalisation than the one used for iPhones, McDonalds and Olestra.

ricksplaton 107 Nobel laureates sign letter blasting Greenpeace over GMOs

Do algae not rely on photosynthesis?

ricksplaton Stop Bashing G.M.O. Foods, More Than 100 Nobel Laureates Say

GM sounds like a great idea, but in the open for the benefit of all.

ricksplaton Common definitions in chip design and production

Common chip-design paradigms? Architecture patterns? I was expecting things like "TTL", "Discrete Logic", "Von Neumann", "Microcontroller" etc. etc. Interesting nonetheless.

ricksplaton The UK will now become a tax haven for the rich

Tax havens are so 2015. At a time when there is a rising impetus towards closing tax loop-holes the UK is going to try to differentiate its economy by exploiting them? It might just work, for London, but the UK is just too big to fly under the radar, and in any case it's difficult to build a domestic economy of the size of the UK on crumbs from the rich man's table ...

ricksplaton UK votes to leave EU

Wrong again Sir!

ricksplaton UK votes to leave EU

Exactly my point!

ricksplaton A Scenario Where Brexit Does Not Actually Happen

> That he was able to become mayor of London shows his broad appeal

The expression I heard a couple of times from my Londoner friends was that he canvassed "The Doughnut" which is the term for the wealthier classes living around the peripheries. His predecessor Livingston had shaped policy to suit the more urban residents.

Johnson is great at campaigning, and speaking and though he comes across as a buffoon he's a very shrewd guy. But I believe he's the dancing monkey rather than the organ grinder. He is untested in policy formation. I don't believe he has the stones to do the heavy political lifting that will be needed to lead the UK post-brexit.

ricksplaton UK votes to leave EU

Well Sir, what is it then that qualifies your otherwise unqualified remark?

ricksplaton The Bitcoin Halving Explained [image]

Worst Infographic Ever - but an interesting article nontheless

ricksplaton UK votes to leave EU

Yes you are right. Political parties need to present a Euro agenda that their representatives will commit to advancing. Currently we only have the false dichotomy of (a) do what Brussels tells us or (b) tell Brussels to GFT which really isn't good enough. Sending the prime minister over there every 6 months or so to "get concessions" that the representatives should have been coherently campaigning for in the first place doesn't count.

ricksplaton UK votes to leave EU

Sorry got it backwards :-) no U or B

ricksplaton UK votes to leave EU

Sir Thomas More: "it profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world... but for Wales?"

ricksplaton UK votes to leave EU

>means a border wall

Hadrian's wall and miles of rural waste should already be sufficient for these purposes.

ricksplaton UK votes to leave EU

Chances are you're English though.

ricksplaton UK votes to leave EU

> European economies were integrating before the EU anyway.

No no no, the EU is an artefact of that integration. Just because it's grown a head and legs, and started to talk isn't an excuse to kill it though. Better off talking back. But when the quality of representative you send over is Nigel Farage you can't expect much of a conversation.

Definitely a frank discussion to be had about the behaviour of the EU (in particular the EC) and maybe such a discussion will be the good that arises from this ill wind.

ricksplaton UK votes to leave EU

Just a couple of years ago Scotland were all set. Then some EPP crony said something about not being in the EU any more and swung the vote.

As for NI - for the sake of peace that would be a more drawn out process.

ricksplaton UK votes to leave EU

Gibraltar, Scotland, Northern Ireland (what will become of the peace process?). Effectively the UK is left with Wales. Is it even a 'K' any more? Would that take the 'G' out of GB?

ricksplaton UK votes to leave EU

The elites are one thing, and actual European people are another. Of course the elites have a disproportionate amount of control but that's true of any institution but it doesn't invalidate the institution. European people by and large enjoy a better quality of life because of free trade, movement and most importantly peace. That there's one set of scoundrels at the top vs another isn't as important as is made out. At the end of the day all that will happen in the UK now is a new set of elites take control (the old rule Britannia brigade that were previously on the wane) and there won't be the buffer of a larger enveloping organisation to help smooth over the bumps. Britain has been declining recently because that's what happens to spent colonial powers, not because they were in the EU.

ricksplaton Critical Update on DAO Vulnerability

Sounds like kernel space code.

ricksplaton Statistics for Hackers [video]

This is "hacker" news after all ...

ricksplaton What Google Learned from Its Quest to Build the Perfect Team

See Asimov's ideas on creativity - it is essential for the production of new ideas that team members feel they are in an environment where "stupid" ideas are not mocked. For every 1 good idea it's fair to imagine there might be 10 daft ones. The more ideas in circulation the better - and it also gives people with daft ideas an opportunity to have them challenged in a constructive fashion - which may lead to them developing the kernel of their idea that might not be so daft.

    http://www.openculture.com/2014/10/isaac-asimov-explains-the-origins-of-good-ideas-creativity.html

ricksplaton What Google Learned from Its Quest to Build the Perfect Team

I think this is what's called Power Distance Index (PDI) in Hofstede's cultural dimensions theory. It's a fairly well established set of sociability measurements that's been around since the 1970s and is quite well established. Interestingly it also emerged from another (perhaps the original) large multicultural global technology organisation: IBM

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

ricksplaton A London Subway Experiment: Please Don’t Walk Up the Escalator

5 seconds makes all the difference when you're running for a train.

ricksplaton Aspiring to a Higher Plane: “Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions” (2011)

If you can find it, "The Dot and the Line" is another brilliant tale along these (ahem) lines [0]

I've had a look around and cannot find it online, though the excellent animated adaptation is easy to find [1] - well worth picking up the hardcopy as a beautifully designed picture book.

I'd also recommend Norton Juster's other work "The Phantom Tollboth" as being another great math & science inspired kids fairy-tale type book [2]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dot_and_the_Line

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmSbdvzbOzY

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Phantom_Tollbooth

ricksplaton How “Silicon Valley” Nails Silicon Valley

> Google 0.1 did something technically nontrivia

Indexing and rating web pages based on links back to pages. Basically a massive "outer join" on the web. Basically a software implementation of how academic papers are rated, but technically a massive data processing exercise - not just a good idea in theory but required a great deal of engineering skill to implement.

ricksplaton Amazon Alexa Comes to Pebble Core

I don't think that's any proof - like you say it's "burgeoning" and complaints abound on security and reliability. I doubt it makes a huge amount of money at this stage.

I don't believe the 21st century has shown that at all - it wasn't marketing that made apple the behoemeth that it is ("it just works" was more than just a slogan). Look at the declining fortunes of IBM & HP??

Yeah individuals can be fooled, but en mass things revert to a nature state. "you can fool some of the people some of the time but you can't fool all of the people all of the time" as true in this century as the last

ricksplaton Amazon Alexa Comes to Pebble Core

Just so ye know - PR, managing expectations and policing discussions boards aren't a good way to promote a high end devices company. Developing high end devices is, and useful services to go with them is "For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - a quote I'm sure Jobs was familiar with.