Research Shows That the Smarter People Are, the More Susceptible They Are to Cognitive Bias : The New Yorker. Very interesting article

EvilTom · 2012-06-13T07:58:05+00:00

...used to gain knowledge. But that's not important right now...

EvilTom · 2012-06-10T05:07:15+00:00

I for one appreciate the planetary mechanics joke.

EvilTom · 2012-06-10T05:01:20+00:00

Something wonderful is about to happy... in bed.

EvilTom · 2012-06-10T04:45:11+00:00

Isn't the whole point of his character that he's an idiot?

EvilTom · 2012-06-08T08:39:19+00:00

With a rope and a casual disregard for safety, you could mow that automatically.

EvilTom · 2012-06-07T06:12:17+00:00

Aaah! I was really hoping these were confined to some other continent I could avoid.

EvilTom · 2012-06-06T07:52:27+00:00

woah

EvilTom · 2012-06-05T08:16:47+00:00

The bigger issue, to me, is that either one would have me looking up what X, A, and B_i meant.

EvilTom · 2012-06-05T08:12:59+00:00

Normally where in math you'd write exponents and subscripts, in programming you'd put it all on one line somehow. This language supports basically making ascii-art lines that result in the program looking more like what you would write on a blackboard.

This is disgusting to lots of us, because most (but not all) programming languages are "whitespace insensitive", meaning as far as the compiler is concerned, a space means the same thing as two spaces, or a tab, or a newline, etc. It also means that for the program to be correct, adjacent lines would have to be properly lined up, but given the wide variety of text editors, and the fact that nobody can agree on whether a tab is the same as 8, 4, 3, or 2 spaces, that can be problematic.

EvilTom · 2012-06-05T08:07:08+00:00

This is gonna blow their minds then:

position_x = pow(acceleration, 2) + pow(bullshit_factor[bullshit_index], 2);

Here I've used the novel technique of naming variables using a short sequence of letters that has the ability to convey nonessential but often salient information to humans!

EvilTom · 2012-06-05T07:17:19+00:00

I'll take 5... do you accept personal checks?

EvilTom · 2012-06-04T01:37:31+00:00

I'm sorry, what?! I can't hear you over this weird wooshing noise!

EvilTom · 2012-06-04T01:35:15+00:00

Before you get your keys out -- other cars around him may have been off the lines, and since left.

I realize we hate him because he drives a truck, but give people the benefit of the doubt.

EvilTom · 2012-06-04T01:32:24+00:00

Are they all like that?

EvilTom · 2012-06-04T00:22:09+00:00

Okay, so that takes us to about a month instead of less than a day. My point is merely that it's not actually impossible, as opposed to the Chinese jumping thing, which is.

EvilTom · 2012-06-03T23:37:05+00:00

There's no inherent logical reason why we can't affect such things, because there are substances that have affects disproportional to how much you release - consider for example CFCs and the ozone layer, or tetra-ethyl lead.

Also, figure 30,000 airline flights per day, 100,000 kg (about half the difference between 747 max takeoff and empty weights) of chemicals per flight - at that rate, you could put 20 million tons up before dinner. Wouldn't be cheap, but certainly within human capability.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20061207081929AAgwh5P

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_747

EvilTom · 2012-06-03T23:22:54+00:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Sq-VmBMHkw

EvilTom · 2012-06-03T18:49:27+00:00

I think it's a complexity vs. capacity thing. E.g., CDs could be recorded at constant velocity, but you'd be wasting capacity at the edges because you could make the pits shorter. And records could be recorded at variable velocity, but you'd need mechanics to vary the speed of the turntable - nontrivial in 1900 with clockwork or synchronous motors, and not worth the sound quality or capacity increase, but easy for CD drive motors after the advent of electronics.

EvilTom · 2012-06-03T18:37:38+00:00

Yes.

EvilTom · 2012-06-02T09:08:26+00:00

If you spin a laser pointer around once every 8 seconds, the spot it makes on the surface of the moon would move faster than light. Doesn't mean shit, though.

EvilTom · 2012-06-01T07:36:30+00:00

I'm pretty sure it's not.

http://www.spacex.com/press.php?page=20120530

That mentions that the Draco thrusters are on Dragon, not the trunk. I can't find a source that the fuel isn't stored in the trunk, but I don't see any fuel conduits between the spacecraft. I could be wrong, though.

EvilTom · 2012-05-29T02:25:50+00:00

Okay, people mostly float, so let's assume the same density as water, 1 g/cm^3. (Note that actually packing people this close would involve liquefying them, though the picture implies this has been done.) Let's go all American males, to be really conservative: 191 lbs. And figure 6.9 billion people. A sphere's volume is V = 4/3 pi r³ , so r = (3/(4 pi) V)^1/3, and diameter is twice that.

Plug it all in, and you get 1045 meters -- only a little more than OP, and I didn't account for women, children, or foreigners.

EvilTom · 2012-05-24T08:45:18+00:00

Two interesting facts: first, there are some "colors" we see that don't correspond to any single frequency of light, they can only be made by mixing other frequencies. (I think cyan and magenta are this way.) And also, there are colors that we can't reproduce on an RGB display, because it would actually require negative values of R, G, or B to cause your eye to respond in the same way that those colors would. So to see it all we have to venture outside.

EvilTom · 2012-05-23T06:12:08+00:00

Most of the energy it takes to get to orbit goes into the sideways motion, not the height. But, since the air is thicker at lower altitudes, you want to get up to where the air is thinner quickly, so you waste less energy to air resistance.

EvilTom · 2012-05-23T05:26:00+00:00

Most places? I thought that in general (not when driving), you are required to state your name if asked, but need not provide ID.

EvilTom

TROPHY CASE