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Domain: interstice.com

Stories and comments across the archive that link to interstice.com.

Comments · 12

  1. My personal experiment with this... by simonfunk · · Score: 1 · on Computers, Long Hours and Vision Problems?

    I had an astigmatism developing over many years and after some research decided it was likely due to excessive near-point work (i.t., staring at the computer too much). So I started wearing reading glasses even though I didn't need them, and after one year my vision had _improved_, though this hardly constitutes a statistical sample. See this link, third paragraph, and also here where I give some analysis of the optics and choice of reading glasses. Your mileage may vary!

  2. My personal experiment with this... by simonfunk · · Score: 1 · on Computers, Long Hours and Vision Problems?

    I had an astigmatism developing over many years and after some research decided it was likely due to excessive near-point work (i.t., staring at the computer too much). So I started wearing reading glasses even though I didn't need them, and after one year my vision had _improved_, though this hardly constitutes a statistical sample. See this link, third paragraph, and also here where I give some analysis of the optics and choice of reading glasses. Your mileage may vary!

  3. Re:Linux Journal covered some of this... by tbogart · · Score: 1 · on Effort to Create Virtual Brain Begins

    Well, my copy is at home - but from the title of the article I googled on "ncs brainlab" and came up with:

    Brainlab including references to NCS
  4. Floating another idea: by simonfunk · · Score: 2, Interesting · on How to Fix U.S. Patents
    What if: filing a patent were essentially free (say $20 to prevent spamming the database) but didn't actually mean anything other than to time-stamp your filing, and then if and when it proved worthwhile, one could pay a much much larger fee to cover the costs of the patent office properly (i.e., unlike now) investigating the worthiness of the patent, including assigning a meaningful time limit to it?

    This way, "poor" inventers could still file the initial patent, and then get backing if ever they needed to invoke it, but at the same time nobody (large companies or other) would be able to sue until a serious effort had been made to investigate the patent.

    One of the problems now, which I think is partly to blame for how poorly patents are reviewed, is how to balance the cost of filing against the cost of properly investigating the patents. This pretty much solves that problem, since the initial dirt-cheap effortless filing is a placeholder which can be used in more free-market-like negotiations. (E.g., any sure-win patent never even needs to be properly instantiated [thus saving lots of legal fees] since both parties can see the inevitable outcome and would rather not waste the money. Similarly, a holder of a likely-win patent initial filing ought to be able to garner external funding for the more expensive filing. Etc.)

    The goal here is to enable/require way more diligence before giving someone the "right to sue" (since as y'all know it's often just the cost of the suit that kills, even if the patent is ridiculous).

    More on this idea here.

    Anybody see why this wouldn't help (at least somewhat)?

  5. Re:Go freelance by simonfunk · · Score: 5, Insightful · on Keeping Programming Fun?
    I was raised by a single mom (receiving no alimony or child care) who worked as a waitress while going to school part-time. She earned a lot less than I ever did, and we got by (we even backpacked around Europe a couple of times, when I was three and five). I learned a lot from that about what is necessary in life and what is optional. The margin between what people think they need to spend and what they actually need to spend is HUGE.

    One thing that's important to understand is that all productivity is the leveraging of capital, where capital is essentially the sum of the value of your body, knowledge, and property. If you let yourself go into debt (car loans, etc.), you are falling behind the curve. The closer to a net-value of zero you get, the less you have to leverage and the longer it will take to dig yourself out. Conversely, the more you can get ahead of the curve, the more leverage you have, the easier it is to move forward. The lesson in this is: earn first, spend later, never the other way around. Tighten your belts until you get ahead of the curve, and then you can loosen them in measure.

    I recommend the book The Millionaire Next Door; also The Richest Man in Babylon. Both of them basically tell the same story: whatever you're living on now, cut it by a mere 10% and save that. Most anybody can manage that, and the long-term results are spectacular. People (by and large) don't get rich by earning a lot, they get rich by spending less than they earn, over many years.

    In the end, money is time...

    (FWIW, I started consulting at 18, bought my first house at 21, and lived there with two empty bedrooms, and a [debt-free] car I rarely used, for many years. The extra cost of a family would have been incidental.)

  6. Philodendrons -- the Geek's Green Friend by simonfunk · · Score: 3, Informative · on Caring for Your Plants in Unnatural Environments?
    Philodendrons do great in a cubicle. I had one for years. Actually, I still have it, twelve years later, though now it's on a bookshelf at home. When it gets stragly looking, I give it a haircut, and it just leaps back stronger than ever. No fertalizer in all that time, and I only water it a couple times a month tops (but soak it when I do). Nice looking plants, too. (here's a recent pic that shows some of it.)

    -Simon

  7. Convert some old Modems by simonfunk · · Score: 1 · on Suggestions for Home PBX/Key System?
    I converted an old modem into a telephone line interface for my computer, then wrote some simple scripts to handle voice mail, real-time special effects for phone calls, you know. Note that since it's a regular modem, you have all the standard modem features like caller-ID (which your script could use to implement your whitelist). Wouldn't be hard to add tone-detection (actually, I already had it working a while back but haven't integrated it into this project) to route audio to other machines. If you have a computer in each room, you can just skip the phones (and hey, add voice-recognition for dialing out). But if you want phones... you might check out the LinuxJACK or related products.

    -Simon

  8. Brinley/MSC info, links, etc. by jonnyx · · Score: 4 · on Mad Scientists' Club Returns To Print
    These were some of my favorite books as a kid; got me into model rocketry (and later high power rocketry), buiding fake UFOs, blowing things up, etc. Should be required reading for all aspiring geeks. Maybe some day they'll all be back in print & people will stop begging in alt.binaries.e-book.
    • Bertrand R. Brinley's books:
    • Rocket Manual for Amateurs - 1960 (nonfiction)
    • The Mad Scientists' Club - 1965
    • The New Adventures of the Mad Scientists' Club - 1968
      "The six members of the Mad Scientist Club experiment with new projects which include making rain and launching a flying saucer."
    • The Big Kerplop - 1974
      "When the mysterious object that lands in the lake they're fishing on turns out to be a bomb, a group of boys decide to find it themselves since no one pays attention to their story."
    • The Big Chunk of Ice - unfinished manuscript

    Ebay has had some decent auctions recently, but another good resource for used books is Bookfinder. Keyword/author = "Brinley" works well on either site.

  9. Brinley/MSC info, links, etc. by jonnyx · · Score: 4 · on Mad Scientists' Club Returns To Print
    These were some of my favorite books as a kid; got me into model rocketry (and later high power rocketry), buiding fake UFOs, blowing things up, etc. Should be required reading for all aspiring geeks. Maybe some day they'll all be back in print & people will stop begging in alt.binaries.e-book.
    • Bertrand R. Brinley's books:
    • Rocket Manual for Amateurs - 1960 (nonfiction)
    • The Mad Scientists' Club - 1965
    • The New Adventures of the Mad Scientists' Club - 1968
      "The six members of the Mad Scientist Club experiment with new projects which include making rain and launching a flying saucer."
    • The Big Kerplop - 1974
      "When the mysterious object that lands in the lake they're fishing on turns out to be a bomb, a group of boys decide to find it themselves since no one pays attention to their story."
    • The Big Chunk of Ice - unfinished manuscript

    Ebay has had some decent auctions recently, but another good resource for used books is Bookfinder. Keyword/author = "Brinley" works well on either site.

  10. Brinley/MSC info, links, etc. by jonnyx · · Score: 4 · on Mad Scientists' Club Returns To Print
    These were some of my favorite books as a kid; got me into model rocketry (and later high power rocketry), buiding fake UFOs, blowing things up, etc. Should be required reading for all aspiring geeks. Maybe some day they'll all be back in print & people will stop begging in alt.binaries.e-book.
    • Bertrand R. Brinley's books:
    • Rocket Manual for Amateurs - 1960 (nonfiction)
    • The Mad Scientists' Club - 1965
    • The New Adventures of the Mad Scientists' Club - 1968
      "The six members of the Mad Scientist Club experiment with new projects which include making rain and launching a flying saucer."
    • The Big Kerplop - 1974
      "When the mysterious object that lands in the lake they're fishing on turns out to be a bomb, a group of boys decide to find it themselves since no one pays attention to their story."
    • The Big Chunk of Ice - unfinished manuscript

    Ebay has had some decent auctions recently, but another good resource for used books is Bookfinder. Keyword/author = "Brinley" works well on either site.

  11. Missing Link by mr100percent · · Score: 1 · on Mad Scientists' Club Returns To Print

    From the previous /. story, there was This link from a fan site

  12. Can the Mad Scientists' Club be next, please? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0 · on 5 Novels

    Just when I was about ready to give up on Slashdot, you go and post something in such impeccably good taste. Pinkwater has been one of my all-time faves for a long time. Hey, can we use the Slashdot Effect to get them to re-issue the Bertrand Brinley Mad Scientists' Club books? See the web page about them if you aren't lucky enough to have the memories from your childhood.