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If the suggested theory of static primes holds true, during application design, what part of of the definition of random did we not quite understand?

As usual, XKCD has the answer.

You understand wrong. The ballmer peak is funny. But it is not science and it is *not* biology. It is quite easy to measure relevant motor skills with alcohol impairment. Every single person gets bad then worse then terrible.

notice that economists aren't even on the scale
oh god, I just ob xkcd'd. I feel so dirty...

you have made a very common error regarding the speed of change in exponential processes.

I doubt he has, actually. But in any case your argument is circular by the very definition of an exponential function.

And that is without anything radically new being discovered in that time period, so 20 to 30 years is actually possible.

Right, because past performance is always an indicator of the future.

https://xkcd.com/605/

that might have swine flu

OTOH, you can eat bacon anytime you want.

Looks like you've been standing too close to Randall Munroe.

(AKA Oblig. xkcd)

Success

The best part of that comic is the Alt Text: "40% of OpenBSD installs lead to shark attacks. It's their only standing security issue."

https://xkcd.com/349/

And what's even better... https://www.debian.org/ports/k...

The problem with economics isn't the math or the scientific method. The problem is, at its lowest level what happens in economics is based entirely on how all the individual participants in the economy think and act. That is, if your economy were based on a population of deterministic robots whose "decisions" could be predictably be quantified and modeled, then economics would probably by the purest science right after math.

But because the economic actors are humans, many of them with wildly unpredictable and irrational approaches to buying and selling, and prone to media hype and mass terror, economics ends up becoming one of the least-predictable sciences. Even if I can correctly predict with precise accuracy what the price of gold should be, its actual price will be different because it's skewed by people out there who are convinced gold is the only safe investment, or who are convinced gold is garbage.

The comments here are boring. I was hoping for a conspiracy theorist that would point out that it's unfathomable for us to have been to Mars, since even our moon landing took place in a studio on Earth. On a side note, this is my favorite argument against the faked-moon-landing theory: https://xkcd.com/1074/

People act differently when they are not accountable for what they say. You know that from reading every online forum ever. My facebook feed to positively civil compared to every anonymous forum. [ ... ] Don't piss off keyboard warriors and facebook won't know, doesn't need to know, and doesn't care that it's not your legal name.

In other words, succumb to the chilling effect. Everyone should be more careful what you write. You never know when a future employer might read it.

This is very important, so I want to say it as clearly, and anonymously/pseudonymously as I can: FUCK. THAT. SHIT.

The average person cannot be fat, stupid, oblivious, trusting of advertising (and paid studies and other obviously biased sources), saturated in meaningless tabloid bullshit, and view non-job-related thought as tedium to be avoided or offloaded

That's not the average person. The average person is permanently angry, and blames everyone else for all the problems they see. If only everyone else was just like them, eyes open, took the red pill etc. everything would be so much better.

Many of them watch Fox News, but there are equivalents for all predispositions. They all give you the same thing though - hatred of all the other sheeple ruining your life, and the feeling that you are powerless against the hoards of mindless idiots who watch the other channels.

https://xkcd.com/1386/
https://xkcd.com/603/

The average person cannot be fat, stupid, oblivious, trusting of advertising (and paid studies and other obviously biased sources), saturated in meaningless tabloid bullshit, and view non-job-related thought as tedium to be avoided or offloaded

That's not the average person. The average person is permanently angry, and blames everyone else for all the problems they see. If only everyone else was just like them, eyes open, took the red pill etc. everything would be so much better.

Many of them watch Fox News, but there are equivalents for all predispositions. They all give you the same thing though - hatred of all the other sheeple ruining your life, and the feeling that you are powerless against the hoards of mindless idiots who watch the other channels.

https://xkcd.com/1386/
https://xkcd.com/603/

I will defend Thunderf00t's right to speak to the death, but what I won't defend is his incitement to mob violence. He has already been kicked off some platforms for things he said, and every video just fuels the fire. If he really cared about the issues he would take a very different tone, but instead he does what makes him the most money regardless of the consequences.

He can say what he likes, but others are free not to listen or give him a platform. If he breaks their terms of service, they can kick him off. I am free to point those ToS violations out to those services if I want to.

https://xkcd.com/1357/

Thunderf00t's research is into biochemistry, it has nothing to do with is anti-feminism, and is of no interest to me. I'd love it if he concentrated on his research.

And your dismissal of the possibility that it happens to men too says a lot about you and your heroes.

I never said that. I'm well aware it happens to men, it has happened to me.

Some of the comments that confuse you are probably AmiMojo's, because he is trying to conflate unrelated issues and shoehorn the hack into long-running false narrative that Gamergate is a harrassment campaign against women, so he can justify censoring its voices.

I'm not interested in censorship, merely preventing further harassment. Note that Thunderf00t, for example, has already been kicked off Twitter for his abuse. It's not about censoring his speech, it's about stopping the cycle of harassment that he perpetuates for financial gain. It's obvious he s motivated by money rather than ideology, so once the money goes away so will he.

The most ridiculous (and most widely publicized) assertion in the report was that "cyber-violence" exists and is similar to actual, physical violence:

Your dismissal of mental health issues as somehow less real or serious than physical health issues is disgusting. If someone is beaten to death or commits suicide because of harassment, the result is the same. More over, if you look at what has happened to the speakers (Sarkeesian, Quinn) the violence they speak of was actually online mobs composed of individuals who fed off each other. Every time one of them did something it legitimized the cause a little more, making the next one a little bolder. Eventually there were credible death and rape threats, complete with home addresses.

By trying to claim that cyber-violence is less serious you create a situation where it can be ignored until it gets to the point where people are actually dying. I think most people would want intervention before then. Again, it's not a censorship or freedom of speech issue, it's a criminal one.

https://xkcd.com/1357/

You don't even need a big hammer. The combination of some easily-obtained drugs, any solid surface, the secret-holder's fingers or other body parts, and just a small ball peen hammer will fully suffice to access any data, or the password to get at said data.

XKCD explains it in a nutshell.

http://xkcd.com/1190/

Slightly over 3000 frames, quite a bit shy of the GIF artist's vision (if you'll allow that term), but orders of magnitude more interesting for being a movie to start with, and for being set during the flooding of the Mediterranean Basin, arguably another couple of orders of magnitude more creative.

Heck, Mandelbrot zooms are more interesting than a counter.

http://xkcd.com/927/

https://xkcd.com/1456/ (title text)

Meh.

I mean, if something legitimately looked like it would make it possible to purchase google.com, for example, and it was a reputable site, then I would try it. Not because I would want to do evil, and not because I intend to cause harm. But only because I'm curious and would assume that it doesn't actually work, and the small part (ok, bigger than I'd like to think) of me that relates to this comic would be compelled to point out to the reputable vendor that something was obviously wrong with their site as I would expect to complete the transaction and not actually end up owning google.com.

The surprise for this guy was probably that the transaction actually went through and some reputable system actually believed him to own the domain.

Obligatory XKCD
http://xkcd.com/681_large/
It's not the same. But starting off the moon spares you only some 20% energy.
So i't probably not worth the trouble of setting up an extremely complex factory up there, even if that 20% gets worse due to the rocket equations.

When you can tell me we have invented artificial gravity technology that can maintain 1G for the trip to, the stay on, and the return from Mars, then you can talk to me about "going to Mars."

The effects of microgravity on human physiology are well known; we have had astronauts in space for a long time now.

Wake up sheeple!

Considering the audience, it's best to keep it simple.

And I suppose "Superman" is just a slightly larger human being.

https://xkcd.com/1394/

Science isn't supposed to be fun. It's a method and its rigorous.

OB: xkcd.

Actually Mythbusters can be science. Often it's a science related show, but once in a while they do real scientific research. When they wanted to fill a sewer with methane and blow it up, they contacted some university professors and they were in on it right away. They had tried to fund a full scale experiment for years, but nobody would pay for it. As a result,the explosion was with professors measuring stuff they needed for research while they also recorded it for TV.

Sort of the same happened about firing bullets strait into the sky. They figured out that nobody had made many tests of that and they just went with it not knowing in advance what would happen. They then published what they had done and the impact locations and angle since their number of shots by far exceeded anything else published.

They reproduced 19th century rockets at some point and not having been used in living memory, the accuracy was unknown, in which case they did do research. It didn't aid modern rocket science, but I bet some historians were interested.

There are more cases than that, but I can't remember them offhand.

Having said that, most episodes is more fun and TV show than real science.

Science isn't supposed to be fun. It's a method and its rigorous.

OB: xkcd.

...

Radio is pretty much all we, or aliens, have and ever will have to throw information out into the universe.

Intelligent Extraterrestrial life can't invent interstellar travel either, because it is mechanically impossible.

Though random scientific discoveries sometimes invalidate our entire model, presenting a whole host of new technological possibilities, it is extremely unlikely that this is going to happen (and definitely not in your life time).

We won't meet aliens. We won't ever get off this rock. Our efforts are better spent elsewhere.

https://xkcd.com/585/

Ballmer peak

We can build a swimming pool there! And it will be fun! See here.

Well, it does "travel" through "time".

https://xkcd.com/209/

It's just like Voyager 1

Xkcd has the answer.

http://xkcd.com/1425/

Well, the important thing is that you've found a way to feel superior to both

http://xkcd.com/1581/

https://xkcd.com/1471/

SPOILER ALERT: Spoilers about the first chapter of the book follow! (Because someone is likely to complain about that kind of thing.)

Has anyone actually done the math on this? We are not talking about a man being blown around in a windstorm, really. We are talking about equipment that NASA launched to Mars getting blown around in a windstorm. The ascent vehicle getting blown nearly over is a stretch, for sure, but perhaps the injury that befalls the protagonist is not. It was inflicted on him by a piece of metal that was thrown by the windstorm. I am not qualified to do the math, but I hope someone else here is.

While the protagonist and most likely the ascent vehicle are fairly heavy, presumably everything else that NASA spent rocket fuel to put on the surface of Mars is as light as it can possibly be to still do its job. It would not take much air density to pick up a piece of metal that has high surface area and small mass, like a thin piece of aluminum with a bend in it to make it rigid would be. It certainly could be whipped by the 150kph (42m/s) wind. Anything near that speed and it would not have a problem piercing a spacesuit or damaging a circuit board. Maybe it would not likely have enough energy to do both of those things and still seriously injure a human, but it is at least plausible from this high-level perspective.

So, who here has the knowledge and the energy to run the numbers on whether this is more than just plausible and actually possible? I wish I had the former because I certainly have the latter and enjoyed the book--the plot, the technical details, and the writing style--enough to want other people also to enjoy it. Maybe Randall Munroe will give it a shot, although it is a bit non-absurd for his usual taste.

By the way, let's give the author one deus ex machina point for how he solved the final problem that his characters faced. Does he get a negative deus ex machina point for how he created the first problem that they faced and thus balance it out or do both problems and solutions have positive valence when counting the dei ex machinis?

You can't become someone new in real life, but you can become a new person on the Internet, someone nobody cares about anymore. There are probably millions of doxx out there, and nobody has time to SWAT all of them. If your old identity disappears, people will stop caring.

Change your email, create new logins for your forum and social media sites and give the new identity only to people you absolutely trust. And stop going to the forum that doxxed you (or if you insist on being a moron, create a new login).

Two comments: first, this only works if people are interested in you because of who you are on the Internet. If you're somebody in real life, you're screwed, but you can probably get the cops to care. Second, yes, this is totally letting the doxxers win. But once your info's out there, it's not about being right on the Internet, it's about keeping your house from burning down.

No but at this point I miss seeing those flashing but quiet and not malicious (ok misleading) "YOU'VE WON A NEW CAR"
They really weren't that bad also:
XKCD new car https://xkcd.com/570/

well the question there is, are you worried about you, worried about your descendants or worried about the human race in total.

for the first two, no, nothing to worry about, for the last, almost certainly nothing to worry about.

We're barely changing carbon dioxide, 2ppm per year out of a total of running total of about 400 ppm CO2.

and we've been like, super dedicated to that. I don't imagine we'll make much of an impact on hydrogen loss by the time we move on to something better.

also, you underestimate how much hydrogen is in the oceans.

https://what-if.xkcd.com/53/

obligatory xkcd.

Obligatory:
https://xkcd.com/937/

Elon Musk's idea is about as realistic as firing an assault rifle at the ground and using it to get yourself into space..

Obligatory what-if.

Oblig. xkcd

Each website will inevitably have its own API that is incompatible with every other similar service.

Nothing you can't solve with an adapter API controlled by 47 tons of incomprehensible XML.

Of course, now you have two problems.

https://xkcd.com/927/

http://xkcd.com/1559/

Secondary sources tend to be write ups by people who don't necessarily understand what they're writing about and may misrepresent or distort the data, which then goes full circle and gets reported as established fact by other authors who think researching the Wikipedia article is sufficient to verify some information. This XKCD comic demonstrates the process by which this can occur.

What we really should be doing is getting Congress to change the copyright terms for scientific research. Outside of a few seminal works that frequently cited, I would imagine that most access to a publication wavers after a decade simply because new works have built on top of it and are more relevant. Change the laws so that the copyrights for those works expire after ~ten years so that they become available to the public. Someone could probably experimentally determine a better term based on citation and access history, but ten is a good starting point.

... doesn't exist. It just doesn't. No matter how many privacy walls a country throws up, a properly motivated rival country WILL find a way over them. Want to avoid surveillance? Learn about end-to-end encryption. Stop storing crap in the cloud. Be mindful of your choices in operating systems and mobile devices. And, even then. realize that a five dollar wrench is ultimately all it will take to defeat you.

It is mostly ignored because of the condescending attitude that too many programmers have. We're supposed to be encouraging young people to get into programming, and in the same breath belittle people who dont understand why it would be on the 256th day of the year?

I'm going to link an obligatory XKCD reference now: https://xkcd.com/1053/

https://xkcd.com/638/