electronslave

Wasn't this the entire plot to Pi?

Given that John Carmack is a massive Republican jerk, part of me wants to say "socialism (and Jet A subsidization) rules!" The rest of me wants to steal the rocket and fire myself into lower earth orbit.

Wasn't this done a decade ago with ReaperBot?

Should I be blushing at the pictures?

When I saw that horrible hand-drying contraption, my first thought was "am I required to put my hands above shoulder-level to get them dry?" My second was "will it amputate my hands at the wrist?"

Tornado sorta makes me feel better about development, mainly because Twisted is phenomenally intimidating, like a black monolith.

A lot of people ignore common sense for platitudes. Sensationalist pro-greenwash caterwauling is just another trend among many that persists across generations, since before our modern era of lulz-inducing post-pamphleteers (Wells, Chesterton, etc.)

HN isn't special, and it attracts all kinds. QED.

You didn't read it. I'm arguing for a more complex model, rather than an idealistic one.

"Less total weight carried, across the system as a whole, would result in less fuel consumption."

While this is correct from very simple standpoint, what are you really saying?

"The system carries n amount of weight." Okay, I can accept that.

"The system carries less weight if one person does not fly." True, but that one person's weight is offset on the specific flight in question by cargo.

For a very large value of n, n-200 = n. An airplane takes a massive amount of fuel to accelerate to rotation speed (it's not just pushing you and cargo, it's also shoving vast quantities of aluminum, steel, plastic and fuel.) The empty weight of a 747-400 (the industry standard) is 400,000 lbs., of which 200 is no factor.

If that empty plane takes off, it will use 100 times the body weight of a human being in fuel during takeoff operations alone and continue to burn as much during each hour of cruise flight. Adding humans decreases range. Adding cargo decreases range. Fuel will be burned.

Your statement assumes a very simple model of "if I don't get on that plane, I'm saving the environment." The actual model is "if at least 200 people don't get on that plane, a seasonally-appropriate ~15 minute delay will happen until cargo can be loaded."

I feel, therefore, that I have contradicted your statement quite soundly. I assure you that I have no interest in representing myself as an environment-hating industry apologist.

I refer you to my previous post on this topic:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=801001

As I said the last time this came up, if a seat isn't filled on an outbound flight, it just makes more room for cargo.

"Taken too seriously" whiffs of "I'm too good to eat my own dogfood." And yes, literal does mean written. And your writing was a statement backed by arguments, fulfilling necessary and sufficient conditions to be considered a thesis. Pedantry aside, I've got a beef here.

You seem like you want to be nice, and like PieSquared wants to listen. There's a definite problem here, though: I don't like Landmark indoctrinators, and a lot of your phraseology comes from that direction, so my hackles were raised instantly. It might come from having had one as a roommate, so if you're just chattering happily away, my apologies. Landmark is scary enough so that when I see them get around another person, I have an immediate negative response.

Addressing what you've currently said, slowing down (http://www.slowmovement.com, am I right?) is irrelevant, because it still means there's a checklist. School, career, car, wife, house, kids, vacation, retirement, cancer, grandkids, dead, buried, gone. Yes, we'll always be dirt in the end. No, we don't have to march to oblivion. Some of us can subvert this as authentic freethinking entrepreneurs. Not all, but some.

Given that you're probably not long out of high school, I'll cut you some slack. You look like you could use some.

The major problem with your argument is that you're telling someone that they can't learn from someone else. Then you go off and spout some pop-psy graphorrhea at her/him. Looking through your past posts, I can see that you're a fan of self-help books. That's fine. Don't push it on someone who's facing the prospect of 2 years she/he wouldn't have to otherwise waste.

The points you bring up:

Socialization: Sounds like you could use some with how much you're emphasizing romance there. Socializing is important, but unless our young poster has been living under a rock, the chances that he's had some experience making friends is pretty good. Let romance come later. Even autism finds a way to continue itself biologically. If she/he doesn't want to have sex, what's the point in making her/him feel awkward?

College: What if our poster wants to travel? Oops, that broke your model of using university as a self-realization tool.

Maturity: Is not a function of writing output on the internet. Seems like at least one of us could learn that lesson. Also, it's not a function of how many things a person has done that you consider worthy. The OP might be at the furthest possible point from your definition from a kid. We don't know. Next time you're sitting alone with your finger up your nose, think about that for a second.

As for all that pseudo-religious stuff you spouted, close your self-help book and live a little. Don't worry. Buddha/Jesus/Yaweh/David Koresh will forgive you. I promise.

Seriously, y'all, circling the drain isn't cool. The only thing that helps you is you.

I lived in Australia.

Boy, that cell phone service sucked. Virgin cost too much and had no coverage. Also, Telstra is an evil megacorporation kept alive with government incentives. Also, Vodaphone seems to ignore rural Australia's existence.

I lived in Europe.

Boy, that cell phone service sucked. It cost too much and had no coverage. Also, it required me to recharge through some obscure SIM-specific menu that crashed my phone a bunch. Also, when I went 20 km to the west and crossed into another country, the service mysteriously didn't work until I kept going another 50 km and crossed into another country.

I lived in Canada.

Boy, that cell phone service sucked. Rogers is an evil megacorporation bent on taking over Canada, charged me an arm and a leg for everything and didn't work except when I stood on my head and prayed to the Inukshuk of reception. Also, Bell's obsoletely fatuous CDMA network (and horrible phone selection) screwed me over too much to mention. Also Fido is just a shill for Rogers. Also, Telus is laughable and triple-charged me for a phone once.

Now I live in the USA.

Boy, this cell phone service sucks. AT&T has no coverage, overcharges and is hated by everyone. Etc.

Wait, I feel like there's a pattern here.

Now that this conversation is closed up, I'll date myself further. I do not mean Visual Basic (nor Victoria Bitter.)

From my vantage point

I might have dated myself above by mentioning Tcl and Pascal, but I've been programming for a few decades. Without ruining the cosmic punchline: all things go away surprisingly fast.

As a former academic gone mercenary, I love that programmers of all skill levels can get into organization, language and specification through Python. It's a wonderful gateway to learning, and in this case, it seems to have done exactly what Python was specified to do!

For my own projects, I've used pretty much all the fad languages from BASIC to Pascal to C. I've used industry-adopted languages like Tcl, Java and Perl. I've experimented with Lisp and Erlang.

After all is said and done, I like Python/Cython/C. It gives me the option to use a glue language for the Windows programming I've done, which is perfect. It gives me a compiled (albeit ctypes-restricted) subset language for writing hashing/storage/whatever functions. It gives me a super-awesome library set that comes built-in.

I know it'll go away someday, but I'm glad to have worked in Python for as long as I have.

This caught my eye for two reasons: 1) Kickstarter got a mention on a wire service and 2) the hilarious internet-anthropomorphizing trend I noticed in older Russians ("can you ask the internet x for me?") is now a mass-media tendency.

Platitudes: Everything You Already Know (But Don't Care About) Is Reprinted and Schilled Annoyingly on Your News Source.

51) My Lawn

All of these kids on it are trampling the grass.

Awesome. This totally precipitated the requisite defensive responses from the younger crowd.

Put this in your pipe and smoke it: press release interpretations (especially of gender studies) are playground arguments, in this case over whether guys or girls are better. If you didn't get it out of your system then, you're probably still in it.

That is, the only people who care about the outcome are those sad, insecure souls who think every generalized test of some self-confirming experiment likely crafted in a Ritalined-up haze by a disingenuous grad student MUST apply to them.

Need proof? What is this experiment testing? Would you put college kids in a computer lab for an hour to test general rules about gender and attraction in society? No. No you wouldn't.

No, HN, this study is not very good, and neither is the silly reporting about it. But if you want, you can have social awkwardness as a door prize.

This is completely silly. I'm going to give some silly answers. I'll assume that these are male stereotypes, but only because I don't know enough female engineers to extrapolate humorous traits.

#1 has no social life, grits his teeth constantly and will probably get grudgingly, angrily married to an unwitting research assistant in his 30s/40s after wondering (for a period of no less than 20 years) why stupid people exist. No children, or an over-worked prematurely-balding vicarious living vehicle, will result. Self-perpetuating cycle.

#2 has a weight problem, and will probably sink into a muttering pile of self-loathing in his late 20s, only to rise again as a slightly-douchey fitness freak or a committed family man. He will marry, be quite happy in mediocrity and become a bearded old programmer. Lots of kids. Weirdly, this one is most likely a gun-toting Republican. Kids will most likely be a bit less incurious, which will make him proud.

#3 is cool and I want at least one on my team, but because he's a lone wolf by definition, he gets uncomfortable easily. He's most likely a man of at least a couple vices. Has a billion hobbies and a pile of old equipment. Least likely to be academic, which is at odds with his vast knowledge. Simultaneously happy with the present, but haunted by a hope for what could possibly be.

#4 also looks on Google for answers, cuts corners at every opportunity, is a great engineer because he conserves all possible energy. Marriage is unlikely, but will probably be an okay father if he manages to stick around for longer than 10 years. Least likely to manage the money he makes without a stickler for a wife.

I'm happy knowing all 4 types. I'm happy being a 3rd/4th hybrid. This really scans like a palm reading, as does the question. ("Will I be rich? Will I have love? Will I have children? Is that a good thing?")

Er, I'm not quite sure you read the article, which basically propped up a kinda-lame joke intended to poke fun at VCs, then missed the point of the joke entirely while explaining its punchline.

I say marketing because the Ice Cream Glove is a joke, whereas the Snuggie has marketing.

I'm fairly sure that if you marketed the Ice Cream Glove with shouty ads in Australia, it'd sell like hotcakes.

Example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7ZAGE0AIcE

This is amazing. Actually, this kind of thing makes me wish I'd stayed in academia, if only because there are so few good courses out there, even less taught in an approachable manner.

Less a how-to, more an I-done.

Seconded. That's probably one of the best places to find bit twiddling resouces ever. I remember I had one of those Coriolis kernel printout books back in the 90s, and I used to crib from that, some hashing function and the page allocator all the time.

"I believe that what I do is interesting, important, and valuable." "[M]y job description becomes distilled to 'I make websites.'"

I'm fairly sure an accountant who goes bouldering in British Columbia will introduce him/herself as an outdoor sportsman before mentioning that they have the dullest job in the world.

Just sayin'.

"So how can you tell the difference between an Ice Cream Glove and a Snuggie?"

Personally? Marketing.

Crazy Uncle electronslave.

Also, the guy who invented that thing. You know, that replaced razors? (I remember this as being my favorite sci-fi trope, next to "name all the presidents from 1965 onwards.")

Like this dude: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wan_Hu

In all seriousness, I think anyone who aspires to legacy isn't focusing on the shape that their life is currently in. Legacy's for dying loaded fogies to worry about, not people young enough to be writing their own bios for press releases.

This is true. Some clouds have silver linings by talented writers.

That particular listing is $45k in this month's Controller. The nearest Микоян parts are sold out of a location in Prescott, AZ. There's a type club in Reno for L-29/L-39s, and it's possible to get parts through a chain there, but MiGs were mass-produced for third world tinpot dictatorship acquisition, with a ready supply of back-compatible parts. There's a reason it was/is the most popular fighter in the world, and that reason is a lot like why Honda is a popular bike.

Either way, it's academic, mainly because you're not getting a jet trainer, I only want to get rated for one and neither of us can afford the fuel besides.

No. They increase payload capacity.

That Southwest airlines jet where half the people weren't onboard? That just got converted into (200 seats * 200lbs lardass Americans) = 40,000 lbs. of roses, prawns and couriered legal documents.

The fact that you're not farting into a foam cushion doesn't matter to the operator or the environment. It just means less cattle are in the boxcar.

Here's how the problem is presented: more people want to fly, but they like fresh flowers, fresh food and, more than this, fast package delivery. Your girlfriend who swears she's helping the environment by insisting on organically-farmed New Zealand lamb? Your dad who overnights parts for his biodiesel conversion? Your mom who wants domestic roses fertilized with only the freshest of cow shit? Yeah, they're dumping hydrocarbons into the atmosphere with every dollar spent.

Fuel on a 747-200 burns at ~23,700 lbs./hr. during cruise flight, more during taxi operations.

Pounds. Flight. More during taxi. You know what taxi operations are, right? Where you're waiting on the tarmac? Happens a lot, doesn't it?

Cargo gets consolidated per air carrier for environmental and operational cost purposes. It just does.

The reason why more empty seats equate to less environmental damage (at least in my mind) is that you're staying at home instead of using the extra energy to get to the airport. Those planes will keep doing what they're doing, no matter what, unless you refine your behavior.

Worried about carbon? Worried about environmental impact? Buy local only. Cut down on time in cars/taxis. Ride a motorcycle. Eat less. Drink tap water instead of anything else. Grow your own food.

Otherwise, do what I do, stick your fingers in your ears, say "lalalalala" and enjoy living in the first world.