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Anthony Roach

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They are different in degree and method, but fundamentally they are the same thing. In the end they are both humans causing the genes of a good crop to change over time. Direct genetic engineering is going to be faster, but the end results could still be the same as indirect breeding and hybrids.

The RSS Apocalypse 13 years ago

RSS was dead for non-techies before this too, which is why the audience for Google Reader was so small: it was only techies. Non-techies have simply been using Facebook and Twitter all this time, and now they will just continue to use Facebook and Twitter.

Techies on the other hand will migrate to other products, and RSS will keep chugging along as a techie-only protocol.

The Earth is not an intelligent agent. The Earth doesn't "know" anything. Also, plenty of plants have evolved to be poisonous to prevent animals (including humans) from eating them, so you can't just blindly go around eating any mushroom or berry you find in nature. Natural does not always mean "good for you".

PHP has nothing to do with the browser (i.e. the "platform you download software into"). If you don't like programming in PHP, then pick a different server side language instead. Even JavaScript can mostly be avoided, if you want, by using one of the higher level languages that compiles down to JavaScript.

The big problem with Microsoft's spec is that it doesn't specify a protocol, so it is impossible for other browsers to implement the standard. The spec only says that RTP will be used but not what specific profile or codecs. Microsoft's prototype uses a plugin for Chrome and IE that implements their proprietary protocol.

The WebRTC spec on the other hand does specify a protocol via the RTCWeb IETF specs. The SDP used in WebRTC is part of that. Also the Chrome and Firefox teams are working hard to get the two browsers talking to each without resorting to prototype plugins and instead using their own separate implementations of the WebRTC protocol.

When/if Microsoft publishes the protocol specs, then their UC-RTC-Web spec will truly be complete and we can judge it on its merits compared to WebRTC. Also in a very real sense the WebRTC spec is more complete since it does specify a protocol.

Where is the proof that these elevated caffeine levels in the water are from humans? Couldn't there be some naturally occurring source of ocean caffeine? Caffeine producing sea weed, for example.

Also the "high" level they measured was 45 nanograms per liter of water, which is 0.000001 parts per million. The molecular weight of caffeine is 10 times that of water which means there is one caffeine molecule for ever 10 trillion water molecules. Seems pretty insignificant to me.

That's awfully dogmatic of you. Why can't people have different goals for meditating?

Speaking of running... same thing... people can run for different reasons. Certainly long distance running is great if your goal is to increase your willpower, but its also great if your goals is to increase your physical endurance or if your goals is simply to be able to run really far.

It's harder than it sounds. Your subconscious will continually try to interrupt your mindfulness of the dish washing. The main trick of meditation is to be able to gently push those idle thoughts away and refocus on the dish washing (or whatever it is you are meditating on). Even if you don't end up enjoying dish washing more, meditating like this is an excellent workout for your focus and concentration and can be a real stress reliever as well.

You are making some pretty big jumps in logic there... he's not saying you have to "think like Linus" to get Git, he's just saying it is different enough from traditional SCMs that there is a learning curve.

I use a traditional SCM everyday at work (Perforce) and it only took me an hour or so of reading to get Git and be productive with it. I'm not sure I'd say Git is "fun" to use, but I'm not sure I'd say that any SCM I've ever used is "fun". Getting the job done is more important than fun to me.

I have a friend who works for ITA/Google today, and he tells me they are still using Lisp and their Lisp codebase is huge and complicated and not likely to ever be ported to another language.

Also, when traveling at the speed of light the entire universe would appear to have collapsed down to a single point, because of length contraction. So really, the notion of movement or change completely breaks down when you are moving at the speed of light... except in your reference frame were everything is normal. Also, it would take an infinite amount of energy to accelerate something to the speed of light, so the speed of light is a limit that you can never actually reach (i.e. an asymptotic limit).

Americans don't elect scientists, because scientists don't run for office. Scientists don't run for office because they want to be scientists rather than politicians. Maybe the problem is that American politics requires elected officials to spend 100% of their time being politicians?

I haven't been able to get it working on Windows 7. After much hoop jumping I've gotten stuck on this error while trying to run the jar:

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.IllegalStateException: Can't change/establish root binding of: warn-on-reflection with set (compiler.clj:1)

Can't you add new tiers at any time? You could make parallel $15, $30, $50 and $100 tiers. Also, nobody has actually paid yet, since the money isn't collected until the end of the period. People can change their amount and reward selection at any time before the backing period ends.

I agree with you in theory that kickstarter isn't a place to shop, but in practice it appears that offering 0 marginal cost rewards (e.g. software, videos, early access, media, etc...) at low tiers is a very successful strategy.

Agreed. $50 for a license it too high. Lowering it to $15 for a license would put it in impulse buy territory for most people, and you'd likely get a lot more backers and receive more money. Personally, I don't know you at all, so I have no reason to trust that you will produce something good, and so I don't want to gamble $50 on it. But, I would gamble $15 on it.

The other software kickstarters I've backed have included a copy of the product for the lowest tier (usually $15), and then added swag like t-shirts at the higher tiers.

Something like this:

$15: Light Table license

$30: Light Table license and included in the list of contributors

$50: Light Table license, included in list of contributors, and early access to beta

$100: Light Table license, included in list of contributors, early access to betas, and t-shirt

Lowering the early access will get you more beta testers, and raising the t-shirt higher will make you have to ship less t-shirts.

Ok, what do you suggest be done about it? It's easy to complain about how broken the system is. The hard part is fixing it. If you aren't willing to work within the system (i.e. vote, call your representative, run for office yourself, etc...), then what are you going to do?