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bertm

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Engineer and hacker.

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www.youtube.com 1y ago

Why Are Streetlights Turning Purple? In Depth Analysis and Fix [video]

bertm
3pts1
levenspiel.com 2y ago

Atmospheric Pressure at the Time of Dinosaurs [pdf]

bertm
3pts1
hipmunk.com 6y ago

Hipmunk Says Goodbye

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1pts0
news.ycombinator.com 8y ago

Ask HN: Recommended Benefits Service/Software

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1pts0
www.greentechmedia.com 8y ago

Tesla Battery Supply Constraints Weigh on a Young Storage Industry

bertm
1pts0
www.computerworld.com 10y ago

Peak IoT platform? Filament raises $5M

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4pts0
fortune.com 10y ago

Filament raises $5M to bring the blockchain to the Internet of things

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17pts8
www.mckinsey.com 11y ago

Unlocking the potential of the Internet of Things

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2pts2
medium.com 11y ago

A Declaration of Device Independence

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8pts0
chemjobber.blogspot.com 11y ago

A Chemistry Startup Story

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2pts0
telehash.org 11y ago

V3 Telehash Encrypted Mesh Protocol Declared Stable

bertm
8pts1
news.ycombinator.com 13y ago

Ask HN: Online Contract Law?

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1pts3
singularityhub.com 14y ago

Autonomous Robot Truck Will Debut in Afghanistan This Year

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2pts0
agents.media.mit.edu 15y ago

MIT Media Lab Software Agents Group: Current and Recent Projects

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2pts0
www.ted.com 16y ago

Michael Sandel: The lost art of democratic debate

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2pts0
fora.tv 16y ago

Beth Noveck: The Peer-to-Patent Project

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1pts1
calteches.library.caltech.edu 16y ago

Richard Feynman: Do We Live in A Cargo Cult Society?

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80pts41
www.kurzweilai.net 16y ago

Richard Feynman and The Connection Machine

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9pts0
startupherald.com 16y ago

Tippr Buys Up Patents to Take on Groupon

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1pts0
news.ycombinator.com 16y ago

Ask HN: The less than legal startup, a boot-strapper's advantage

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1pts2
news.ycombinator.com 16y ago

Ask HN: Dynamic Illustration Tools or Code Libraries

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2pts0
news.ycombinator.com 16y ago

Ask HN: Python Development Environment

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7pts7
news.ycombinator.com 16y ago

Ask HN: Google Goes Popular?

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23pts16
news.ycombinator.com 16y ago

Ask HN: The Widget Economy Discussion

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8pts4
news.ycombinator.com 16y ago

Ask HN: 6 Startup Founders, What To Do About Equity

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2pts8
fora.tv 16y ago

Paul Romer: A Theory of History with an Application

bertm
1pts0

Dr. Levenspiel came up in another thread about elephant curves. He tried for many years to get this article published on the aerodynamics of dinosaurs and how this might reflect on atmospheric pressure at the time. There is a long list included of rejections from various scientific publications in the 90s. Seemed fitting for Hacker News.

I have to plug Dr Octave Levenspiel. Levenspiel was a professor emeritus when I did my undergrad. He did much of the work on industrial fluidized beds among other things. The elephant curve discussions were a criticism of the complex multi-parameter fitting for heterogenous catalysis of the time. https://levenspiel.com/elephants/

He tried for a while to get an aerodynamics paper published on the flight of dinosaurs. http://levenspiel.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/DinosaurW.p...

This intellectual curiosity reminded me a bit of Feynman and his plate spinning.

I worked for a long time as a chemical engineer making cadmium containing quantum dots. We had many discussions inside the company about complying with the EPA's TSCA regulations. https://www.epa.gov/laws-regulations/summary-toxic-substance...

The reason why these regulations exist was because toys and consumer goods would be imported with red paint that contained cadmium.

Usually the importer is responsible for complying or at least reporting to the EPA under TSCA.

"A study published in 2007 from the US National Cancer Institute, for instance, found that men that took multivitamins were twice as likely to die from prostate cancer compared to those who didn’t. And in 2011, a similar study on 35,533 healthy men found that vitamin E and selenium supplementation increased prostate cancer by 17%."

They do cite quite a few articles that show negative effects of specific vitamins.

LoRa is a really cool technology. We are incorporating it into our networking stack/ hardware module. From field testing, we've seen about 4-6 miles line of sight, and about a mile through an urban environment (parking garage, apartment building, etc). Plus the bare radio chips are less than $10 bucks.

Another article on the same topic: http://www.computerworld.com/article/2969396/internet-of-thi...

"Filament looks really interesting. It would be possible to dismiss this fledgling business as a hodgepodge of buzzwords, but the credibility of its investor pool, the novel approach it seems to be taking to the problem, and the very real opportunity that exists for IoT networks all combine to make this an interesting play."

edit: a better written version: http://www.coindesk.com/filament-nets-5-million-for-blockcha...

"To build its technology, Filament is using a series of protocols that include the blockchain transaction database behind Bitcoin; BitTorrent, the popular peer-to-peer file sharing software; Jose, a contract management protocol that is also used in the OAuth authentication service that lets people use their Facebook ID to log in and manage permissions to other sites around the web; TMesh, a long-range mesh networking technology and Telehash for private messaging."

Powdered Alcohol 12 years ago

It looks like the powder is made by a physical process. Just as water absorbs into a towel. Ethanol apparently absorbs into dextrin powder and stays as a dry solid.

From the patent:

EXAMPLE II A 150 g. amount of the bulked 5 DE. MOR-REX dextrin of Example I was blended with 250 g. of 90% by weight water) ethanol in a Hobart mixer at speed No. 2 with a wire whisk for 2 minutes. A dry-tothe-touch free flowing powder was obtained that contained 56.2% ethanol and 8.3% moisture. The bulked ethanol containing flowable powder was packaged in air-tight foil envelopes and after 6 months storage had retained its flowability characteristics and its original alcohol content.

EXAMPLE III A teaspoonful (3 g.) of the product of Example II, when added to 10 ml. of water produced a clear, sparkling low-viscosity alcoholic solution with a nonsweet strong alcohol taste.

I noticed that Eastern Nevada has one of the highest mobility rates according to this study. This surprises me. That side of the state is one of the least populated areas and the most desolate. I wonder if there is a statistical bias at work here.

Looking back at the Petagon Papers I found this quote:

"[t]he security of the Nation is not at the ramparts alone. Security also lies in the value of our free institutions. A cantankerous press, an obstinate press, an ubiquitous press must be suffered by those in authority in order to preserve the even greater values of freedom of expression and the right of the people to know." - Judge Judge Murray Gurfein declining to issue such an injunction against the publishing of the Pentagon Papers.

I don't understand how employees can get screwed with ISOs from a tax liability stand point. ISOs are not taxable until a capital gain is realized i.e. exercise and sale. Are you referring to non-qualified stock options?

Why nations fail 14 years ago

I often wonder about these types of theories. They are often hard to prove or disprove. It is fun to try and come up with a theory that is equally as plausible given the information provided.

To your theory on art, could art be defined as anything which a group of people would define as art? Or potentially anything valued by a group seemly without functional value? It seems to be a balance between simplicity and informational content.

Patrick, have you tried a large thematic change to the BBC site in the past? It is pretty neat to see the changes for optimization to the site over the years. Still, I can't help but think the "loud" colors lead to less optimal performance. Disclaimer --> Not a mom or teacher.

It seems difficult to analyze the degree of ambition in any given startup from PR. Although ambition makes for a good story, it doesn't necessarily sell product/get users. So it seems, early stage startups focus on simple messages which the audience will understand. Look at the evolution of PR coming from Air BnB over time.

A good analogy for this is flipping a coin. What is the proportion of total heads to total tails if a population of people each flip a coin until they get a heads. The answer is fairly trivial, as each coin flip is independent. Given a fair coin, you would expect the answer to be near 1. You could always calculate the variance given the population size using the binomial distribution.

A more fruitful question might be: what is the average family size in a country with these birthing habits?