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User: metamarmoset

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Comments · 44

  1. Re:No. It would not. on Would Scottish Independence Mean the End of UK's Nuclear Arsenal? · · Score: 1

    Always hatin' on the Munroe Republic :(

  2. Re:To Paraphrase on Biofeedback Games and The Placebo Effect · · Score: 1
    A quick Google scholar search for biofeedback returns "about 139 000 results", for just papers; patents and citations unchecked.

    I recommend reading anything by John V. Basmajian. He wrote a good criticism of what he saw as common fallacies in EMG research in a chapter of "Mind/body integration : essential readings in biofeedback" (itself a mixed bag of good and poor articles.)

    Some links to articles of interest: Moser et. al. 1997, Rodriguez and Rosa 2012, Andrasik 2010

    Happy reading!

  3. To Paraphrase on Biofeedback Games and The Placebo Effect · · Score: 1
    Study finds: "Subject trying to learn how to relax, manages to relax, despite the relaxation aid being BS or even counterproductive."
    Conclusion: "Recommend that autonomy of subject is taken into account in future studies, where success during trial is in subject's interest."

    In good biofeedback studies, the subject should not be aware of the parameter they are attempting to control (e.g. I read a study in which the subject learned to raise and lower their body temperature at will, where as far as they were concerned, they were just trying to move a ball across a screen with their mind.)
    Biofeedback is an interesting field with a lot of good scientific support, but suffers from a bad reputation due to prevalence of pseudoscience.

    Disclaimer: I have worked on biofeedback research projects in the past.

  4. Re:Do they own him? on Amazon Sues After Ex-Worker Takes Google Job · · Score: 1

    Yes, I'm sadly disappointed that my search for 'organ' came up blank :(

  5. Re:Powerpoint? on Physics Forum At Fermilab Bans Powerpoint · · Score: 2

    Beamer FTW!

  6. Re:Ah PETA... on PETA Abandons $1 Million Prize For Artificial Chicken · · Score: 1
    Quoting the daily mail should get you modded down, not up.

    The daily mail has a long record for making up statistics and deliberately misunderstanding facts, so as to push an an agenda which includes anti-animal-welfare.

    Also, you seem to have upped the statistics from 84% in one shelter (according to the mail) to 90% for all animals (according to you). Silly you.

  7. More whistleblowers please on Half of US Nuclear Missile Wing Implicated In Cheating · · Score: 1

    Please remind me: why does the government think that whistleblowers are the greatest threat to national security?

  8. Re:Because it's fucking awesome, that's why. on Why the World Needs OpenStreetMap · · Score: 2
    Firstly: your random address doesn't exist. 521 1st st, New York, NY does, however and OSM finds it straight away, even showing house numbers on the buildings!

    521 N (as copy-pasted from your post into the search bar) returns two alternatives - in Nassau and in Cattaraugus, where there are North and South 1st streets.

    Other counterexamples:

    All the starbucks in my town are listed in OSM.

    Looking for bus routes in Kent, England
    Google Maps: Search, get the occasionall bus depot. Public transport layer, get not a thing.
    OpenStreetMap: Search, get nothing. Transport layer: get detailed visualisation of bus route and train routes.

    OSM also has an excellent layer for cycle routes. Google thinks it has one, but it's woefully incomplete and inaccurate.

    Basically, I find OSMs local info to be more complete, but google has a better search parser and, of course, street view.
    They are both utterly useable.

  9. Re:I thought that we were supposed to be pro-activ on How Reactive Programming Differs From Procedural Programming · · Score: 1
    Ok, so the assign statements are more like buffers, or D-latches with permanent enables (and yes, they are asynchronous. the always statement is clocked, though). To make it non-reactive, you would need to multiplex, or place it in a conditional block.
    I guess hardware is always reactive, you just get to decide what it is reacting to and any one point. Reminds me of a micro architecture lecture where someone asked what happens if you don't put a value on the opcode port...

    From the article, I think the idea is to enable hardware-like features to programmers.
    It's not clear (and other posts are clearly as confused about this) whether reactive programming is meant to be a language-level paradigm (which IMHO would be interesting and useful) or some kind of 'philosophy' like agile.

    If the latter, then I guess it would be about creating frameworks, which would get seriously messy, or some kind of meta-programming.

    For C++, I think Qt-style signals and slots is the best you're likely to get, since you don't need to care how the event loop and triggers work, you just 'emit' in the right places and 'connect' up whatever object you'd like to change accordingly.

  10. Re:Marketing 101 on How Reactive Programming Differs From Procedural Programming · · Score: 1

    Using someone else's framework, I have to fix my bugs, and someone else's bugs too.

    The motto of NIH!

    Yes, you get buggy frameworks which are to be avoided. There are also many quality frameworks and toolkits available.
    If it is commecially supported, then it is someone else's task to fix any bugs you point out.
    If you built the thing from the ground up, then it's all on you (and you probably took years just getting there.)
    If it is open source, then realise that you are benefitting from everyone else's contributions and thus stop whining and go ahead and fix someone else's bug.

    Rome was not built by one man. :)

  11. Re:I thought that we were supposed to be pro-activ on How Reactive Programming Differs From Procedural Programming · · Score: 5, Informative

    The point of new paradigms in programming languages is to make the complexity of the expression match the complexity of the idea being expressed, not the complexity of the (platform specific) implementation.

    Crappy illustration:

    C++ - Event-trigger
    vector triggers;

    void add_trigger(Trigger * t);

    void reactive_variable::modify_value(int new_value)
    {
    // event
    this.value = new_value;
    // trigger
    for (i = triggers.begin(); i != triggers.end(); i++){
    i.react(new_value);
    }
    }

    // actual code you want to get around to actually writing
    int main()
    {
    reactive_variable a;
    Trigger *b = new Trigger(COPY_VAR);
    a.add_trigger(b);
    Trigger *c = new Trigger(ADD_VAR, 1);
    a.add_trigger(c);

    a.modify_value(2);

    enter_event_loop(); // some routine that modifies a continuously

    return 0;
    }

    Incomplete, inelegant and probably buggy, but you get the picture.

    Verilog - Reactive
    assign b = a;
    assign c = a+1;

    inital a = 2;

    always @(posedge clk)
    a = count(input);

    Easy to understand whats going on and spot errors. 'b' will always equal 'a' and 'c' will always be one more.

  12. Re:Let all of them spy.... on Senator Bernie Sanders Asks NSA If Agency Is Spying On Congress · · Score: 1

    It's the new rock, paper, scissors :)

  13. Re:Article needs fixing on UK Introduces Warrantless Detention · · Score: 1

    Or minipax.

  14. Re:RSA sold you out on Reuters: RSA Weakened Encryption For $10M From NSA · · Score: 1
    Sold us out to criminals (who can use the same weaknessess) as well.

    Or am I missing something?

  15. Screenshot, please! on IE 11 Breaks Rendering For Google Products, and Outlook Too · · Score: 1

    I'm hardly going to install Windows 8.1 just to see how IE11 renders things...

  16. This is a already a field of research: ICmetrics on Sensor Characteristics Uniquely Identify Individual Phones · · Score: 1
    This paper explains how these principles can be used for key-generation.

    Interesting how this provides potential for both security and privacy invasion.

  17. Re:Regular Expressions on What Are the Genuinely Useful Ideas In Programming? · · Score: 1
  18. Re:Difference? on Man Trying To Fly Across the Atlantic On Helium Balloons · · Score: 1

    Exactly my thoughts. (transatlantic in 1944)

  19. Users hate big, unexpected changes. on Yahoo! Sports Redesign Sparks Controversy, Disdain From Users · · Score: 1

    News at ten.

  20. Re:Stolen or copied on Urban Terror Code Stolen · · Score: 1

    It's shorthand for "You stole credit for my idea!", which makes sense

  21. The point of this exercise: on UK Government Destroys Guardian's Snowden Drives · · Score: 1

    all reporting on the Snowden leaks is already being edited and published from locations other than the UK

    The UK government wants to stay in the US's good books.

    The leaks are being reported on, but not in the UK's jurisdiction.

  22. Re:Start Button in 8.1 is useless. on Microsoft Reacts To Feedback But Did They Get Windows 8.1 Right? · · Score: 1

    You press start and type "cmd". Typing on the start screen initiates a search. Alternatively press win+s to open the search panel, and type "cmd". Alternatively right click on the start menu and click run, then type cmd.

    Thanks. Just what I've always wanted in a modern GUI - more typing.

    You have a problem with pressing just four keys to reach the *command line*? Don't do it, you're really not gonna like what happens next...

  23. Re:W3C in charge of gaming? on Console Manufacturers Want the Impossible? · · Score: 1
    W3C moves at a snails pace, because stability is in the W3's (as a whole) interest.

    Nobody is suggesting that the W3C should abandon their current work to reguate gaming consoles, just that unifying the console world might be a good thing.

    If the big companies agree, they might set up a consortium which meets the needs of the industry, which would presumably include keeping things cutting edge - but this could be accomplished by planning forward compatibility into standards, and/or bringing out a new set of standards every couple of years.

    Committee's don't have to be slow.

  24. Re:About to change on Console Manufacturers Want the Impossible? · · Score: 1
    The workflow for writing embedded software for microcontrollers, such as a PIC16/18/24/33, is often C -> compiler -> decompiler -> ASM (for optimisation) -> assembler.

    Important and frequent optimisations in assembly often get injected into the C code directly. I agree that if you don't work in embedded systems, you will not meet many assembly-trained programmers, but embedded software is a huge market, and this is where optimising C programmers usually start out.

  25. Re:NRA sedition on "Terrorist" Lyrics Land High Schooler In Jail · · Score: 1
    No, but it might stop efficient, automatic firearms which do not present a risk of blowing off the holder's hand with every pull of the trigger from being common-place.

    A person with nothing but an improvised shotgun is capable of murder, but incapable of a massacre.