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User: peter303

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  1. bubble denial is sign of bubble on Tech Bubble? What Tech Bubble? · · Score: 1

    Most startups fail, even unicorns. To deny statistics is unrealistic.

  2. Wide gulf between basic programming and games on Video Games: Gateway To a Programming Career? · · Score: 1

    These days to do anything interesting with graphics or games you start with a fairly sophisticated graphic library or game engine. To learn programming you need to learn languages, data structures and algorithms. You don't get very far starting from scratch, although I think it is absolutely essentially to be proficient in the basics. A serious game developer needs to know a decent amount of humanities and the arts. You need to tell a 'story' an art millennia old. You need to learn literature, history and design.

  3. Chimps use stone tools, but dont make them on Oldest Stone Tools Predate Previous Record Holder By 700,000 Years · · Score: 1

    The Disney movie Chimpanze shows chimps using tools. There is an article chimp tools in the NY Times this week.

  4. NPR asked how many transisters in a phone CPU? on Ask Slashdot: What Tech Skills Do HS Students Need To Know Now? · · Score: 1

    At a Best Buy store on the anniversary of Moores Law. The salesmen said numbers like a "hundred?" or referred them to another department.

  5. already tit-for-tat on US Levels Espionage Charges Against 6 Chinese Nationals · · Score: 1

    Chinese requires a visa at aminimum of $130. This was in reaponse to the visa increase by the US after 9-11.

  6. watch out if they change Electoral Votes on The Demographic Future of America's Political Parties · · Score: 1

    The Constitution merely specifies the States should select Presidential Electors. Forty-eight states currently allocate all electors based on the popular vote winner. Two states by Congressional District winner. Congressional districts are currently draw to favor Republicans. If more states drop the winner-take-all method, that could strengthen republican presidency chances.

  7. media likes to simplify to 2.5 candidates on The Demographic Future of America's Political Parties · · Score: 1

    At every level of an election. There may be a hald dozen interesting positions in any election. Some are winowed out in the primary, the rest in the finals. Every few rounds a loud third voice makes it to the finals.

  8. main parts of Office; one coding language on Ask Slashdot: What Tech Skills Do HS Students Need To Know Now? · · Score: 1

    Its hard to get a summer office job if you dont know the major parts of Office, or an equivalent.

  9. Lifetime ban from commercial flights on Chris Roberts Is the Least Important Part of the Airplane Hacking Story · · Score: 1

    A steep price to pay. Hope his sacrifice makes air travel safer.

  10. analogy how Rome lost the Republic on Learning About Constitutional Law With Star Wars · · Score: 1

    Rome replaced its monarchy with a Republic early on. But several centuries later ambitious generals took over the republic with a neo-monarchy called the Imperium.

  11. some poor guy same name hounded last year on Decoding the Enigma of Satoshi Nakamoto · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Some clueless Newsweek reporter thought this was the inventors real name and started cheacking out all the namesakes in world. Outed some unfortuned southern California guy.

  12. tech industry looks like auto industry of 1910s on The Auto Industry May Mimic the 1980s PC Industry · · Score: 4, Interesting

    There were hundreds of automobile startups in the 1900s-1920s until standardization and consolidation. Electric and steam vehicles were competitors before internal combustion won out.

  13. niche applications like CAD on Ask Slashdot: What's the Future of Desktop Applications? · · Score: 1

    Where you want lots of pixels, multiple windows and the ability to quickly point to any pixel location. Note, these are apps where you create content as opposed to consuming it.

  14. two approaches: physics & data mning on Can Earthquakes Be Predicted Algorithmically? · · Score: 1

    Seismologists have crushed rocks in labs and heavily instrumented likely fault areas. These have found some physical purcursors of quakes, but not reliable forecasts yet. The most famous and costly experiemnt was a segment of San Andreas near Garfield that broke four times reviously in apparent twenty year cycles. It was 13 years late the time it was instrumented in the 1980s and 1990s. The USGS was heavily criticized on devoting so much money to a single experiment.

    Pattern recognis more pragmatic. It doesnt have to show a physical mechanism (though may point to such). No pattern recognition algorithm has worked in the past. But new ones developed ofr data mining show have their try.

  15. people have tried for at least 40 years on Can Earthquakes Be Predicted Algorithmically? · · Score: 1

    I remember the Chinese claims of preduiction from folk observations and Russian claims from seismic velocity speed changes from stress microcracks in the 1970s. Although they may have "predicted" one or two qquakes, they did not work very well when intensely studied.

    The most likely methods seem to be based on previous seismicitty- future quakes will occur where previous quakes have occurred, e.g. tectonic bondaries. There are tighter algorithms such as fore-shock and after-shock statistics: a larger quake will occure the week following another quake 5% of the time.

    A Russian group had another interesting seismicity method. They drew cirlces around exisiting seismic activity of radius corresponding to quake size. These regions had increased seismic risk. this method sort of predicted the 1989 Santa Cruz quake from Tahoe area activity. The USGS studied this algorithm, but it hasnt been too fruitful.

  16. included in statistical "significance" calculation on Can Earthquakes Be Predicted Algorithmically? · · Score: 1

    True positives, true negatives, false-positives and false-negatives all contribute to the significance calculation. The problem is that damaging earthquakes are rather rare and it doesnt take much in the way of a missed prediction to clobber the statistics.

  17. turning off Opportunity in White House 2016 budget on Opportunity Rover Reaches Martian Day 4,000 of Its 90-Day Mission · · Score: 1

    Plus the oldest of three Mars orbiters. This is to make room in the NASA planetary budget for current and new missions. The WH has proposed this before, but either NASA or Congress bypassed it.

  18. techies like detailed backstories on Why Scientists Love 'Lord of the Rings' · · Score: 1

    I never got into Star Wars as much because it had less of a backstory than other scifi universes and felt "hollow".

  19. there will be remakes and interpretations on Why Scientists Love 'Lord of the Rings' · · Score: 1

    Any great legend has that. Jackson had certain limitations and views.

  20. but they intervene in The Hobbit on Why Scientists Love 'Lord of the Rings' · · Score: 1

    I had to reread that chapter after seeing the movie. The Hobbit was written (1930s) in the middle of writing the Lord of the Rings (1910s-1950s) , before the Big Story was all fleshed out.

  21. multiple source stories liek the Bible on Why Scientists Love 'Lord of the Rings' · · Score: 1

    Genesis and The Flood were two interwoven stories with different numbers and points of view. Toklein wrote some old childrens stories intergrated imperfectly. Come on, he took over 30 years and 2000 pages, two world wars and time out for teaching. Tokelins oldest son Christopher published 14 books of rough drafts and back stories fro his father's notes.

  22. "cultural fit" on Recruiters Use 'Digital Native' As Code For 'No Old Folks' · · Score: 1

    If its a bunch of Party Kids like FaceBook in Social Netweork, would a 40+ want to work there? I a lot of cases its not so balck and white.

  23. only 8 episodes, but 4 of the movies on Actress Grace Lee Whitney, Star Trek's Yeoman Janice Rand, Has Died · · Score: 1

    She had a falling out with an Unamed Executive in the TV series. I felt she was in more episodes.

  24. Amazon 30 minute delivery L.A. to NYC on Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin Launches Its First Rocket · · Score: 3, Informative

    Think outside the box.

  25. Bezos interested in LEO space tourism on Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin Launches Its First Rocket · · Score: 1

    Musk wants to go to Mars.

    SpaceShipTwo, already six years late, wont go orbitable like Blue Origin.