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jckt

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www.believermag.com 10y ago

What do unsolvable math problems and Mount Everest have in common?

jckt
2pts0
www.americanscientist.org 10y ago

100 or so Books that shaped a Century of Science

jckt
1pts0
www.nytimes.com 11y ago

In College and Hiding from Scary Ideas

jckt
222pts147
www.quantamagazine.org 11y ago

In Mysterious Pattern, Math and Nature Converge (2013)

jckt
59pts12
www.youtube.com 11y ago

BBC Horizon: The Man Who Lost His Body [video]

jckt
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en.wikipedia.org 12y ago

"German Tank Problem" - Statistical Intelligence

jckt
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en.wikipedia.org 12y ago

Lyapunov time - Pluto's orbit becomes impossible to predict in 20mil years

jckt
1pts0
www.bbc.co.uk 13y ago

Hackers plan space satellites to combat censorship (2012)

jckt
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m.washingtonpost.com 13y ago

Our unrealistic attitudes about death, through a doctor’s eyes

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www.theatlantic.com 13y ago

Japan Earthquake, 2 Years Later: Before and After

jckt
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www.helpx.net 13y ago

Help Exchange: Free volunteer work exchange abroad

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thenewcolor.net 13y ago

The New Color

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www.americanscientist.org 14y ago

Mining the Moon

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1pts0
arstechnica.com 14y ago

From software to toilet paper: filmmaker to live open source for a year

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campaigns.f-secure.com 14y ago

BRAIN - Searching for the first PC virus in Pakistan (Video)

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www.historians.org 14y ago

Scholarly Authority in a Wikified World

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ed-thelen.org 14y ago

Facts and stories about Antique (lonesome) Computers

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www.americanscientist.org 14y ago

Quantum Computers: The Square Root of NOT

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9pts0
stallman.org 14y ago

Rms: On Hacking

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I actually thought that the whole "mainland infiltrates HK police" conspiracy was just PRC-phobia (which is a real problem in HK when it becomes xenophobic, sadly) but there's actually been evidence of it (albeit not much). If you're interested you can find videos of a riot policeman saying 「退後一點」 to protesters (and other weird sentences), which is extremely awkward in Cantonese (instead Cantonese would be 「褪後啲」 or something, sounds totally different), especially if you're in an intense situation.

Wasn't the Obama campaign tech effort more about coordinating organisers/canvassers/etc in a "data-driven" way, rather than the Cambridge Analytica "propaganda network" type?

Clinton did indeed have a programme similar to Obama's, which has since (perhaps uselessly overdue?) been panned heavily in the MSM[1].

This isn't to say that Obama/Clinton wouldn't have relied on a Cambridge Analytica type service for moral reasons (in fact IIRC Clinton's campaign did do something similar, but at a much smaller scale), though, but more that they underestimated its potency...

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/11...

I think a lot of that is just to advertise the car ("this the future, people!!"). For example, the article notes how large parts of the F 015 is made of "plastic that changes shape in hot weather", which Mercedes (or any other self-respecting auto brand, for that matter) is never going to put in their actual cars that they sell.

So I don't think we can take the cosmetic aspects too literally as to what Mercedes' design team will actually go for with the final product.

That's a really weird reading of michaelochurch's comment. Note the past tense -- he "wanted to find KP guilty". I'm pretty sure he was simply illustrating his initial reaction to the case, that he feels KP isn't completely innocent, but (more irrationally, perhaps) also that SV clearly has some problems with sexism.

But the case is about whether or not Pao was mistreated by KP on the basis of her gender, and to that, as the jury has (likely?) decided, michaelochurch's opinion is "probably not".

I think the Internet as it was originally designed would have had the opposite effect. I mostly browse the "old" Internet -- i.e. static pages and the like. And all I really see is a diversity of opinion. It's honestly difficult to find someone I completely agree on any given day.

But the rise in "recommendation engines" (Facebook, Tumblr, etc) and even "news aggregators" (yes, the irony) may indeed impart the provincial-ising effect you mentioned. As people are automatically fed information that they have been measured to prefer, they end up grossly overestimating how widely-held their views really are.

I think he/she means that normal exercise, or rather the typical amount of exercise that people do, is insufficient to burn the calories in a normal diet. So while the exercise you do is healthy, you shouldn't be expecting weight loss, though at the same time you should expect less weight gain (which I wouldn't consider as weight loss).

I've been using it on 2 home machines, for the home partitions, one using a HDD and one SSD. Been at it for over 2 years now, and I don't think I've ever had any filesystem related hiccups. Granted, they don't do anything special, just home stuff, but one is at around 75% capacity, so I guess you don't need that much extra disc space.

What would be the UK equivalent of a US PhD? A postdoc position? And in that situation would the stress be comparable? Or is the system just totally different?

A question for those who got their PhDs -- do you think there is a difference between getting one in a European Uni versus getting one in the USA? I've known a few science PhDs in the UK that seemed to be quite content in their decision, while the people that seem to have a bad time tend to do theirs in the USA (speculation in general, not just from the comments in this thread). Would this be an accurate assessment or does the location of your institution not really matter?

You seem quite resourceful so you might enjoy MetaMath[1]. This is, in my opinion, literally learning mathematics from first principles. Well, it's not really learning mathematics (insofar that lot of the concepts won't be particularly novel), but it's really showing you the "first principles" of mathematics, and how you can build that up into other stuff.

If you feel like MetaMath is your kinda thing, do visit the FAQ; it's quite good (and virtually required reading if you're going to do this alone).

Admittedly, it's not going to give you the tools suited for solving problems of antenna designs, or enlighten you about electromagnetism, but if you're into just pure recreational mathematics, it's worth a look.

[1] http://us.metamath.org/index.html

The source on "7.6 percent of bachelor’s degrees were granted in the humanities in 2010" seems flimsy. The Chronicle links to the NYT, and the NYT links to a blog (and not even a specific post). The numbers here[1] I think are trustworthy. For those who can't be bothered, it says 16.8% of all Bachelors' conferred in 2010 -- more than double 7.6% (and according to the same source, around the same as that in the 70s). So I don't know if the liberal arts "are not where the action is these days". There's certainly still a lot of people going into them.

[1] http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d13/tables/dt13_318.20.as...

While I am inclined to agree with you (government overreach? almost sounds like some form of censorship, as a law), I think it's fallacious to believe that new books have some intrinsic good. In fact, new books probably don't, if we take into account the vast number of them being written every year. And I do think that if someone has written something great, a discount is unlikely going to do it any real damage. The point is that good books will be good, and their newness has little to do with it. Conversely, classics are classics for a reason.

That probably leaves the question about books that become "accidental hits" or "sleeper hits". But even then, this discounts aren't going to completely wipe them out and I would believe that these sorts are the exception rather than the norm. Again, there are simply so many new books published all the time, and very little of it can possibly be good.

Gwern has some good thoughts that I feel are relevant:

http://www.gwern.net/Culture%20is%20not%20about%20Esthetics

Peer review isn't the problem. In fact, many of his article do appear to be peer reviewed. For example, this[1] article was published in the peer-reviewed "Journal of Scientific Exploration"[2]. This JSE also publishes a quarterly magazine called EdgeScience[3]. Topics include ESP, telekinesis and UFOs affecting aviation. This doesn't mean nothing he says is valid, but I believe it's a good indication that one ought to read the OP with caution.

[1] http://davidpratt.info/tecto.htm

[2] http://www.scientificexploration.org/

[3] http://www.scientificexploration.org/edgescience/

Before you go and buy a book, you should check out ChefSteps:

http://www.chefsteps.com/

It's linked to Modernist Cuisine, which is also linked to Nathan Myhrvold, who isn't popular here (for good reasons), but it's really a good resource for cooks -- comprehensive and pretty reliable. I haven't really looked into their basic stuff but it's always getting new content so even if they don't have what you are looking for now they might in the near future.