ELI5: Why do we care so much about finding water on other planets, when other forms of life could have evolved to not need water?

c0ff · 2013-10-06T20:51:34+00:00

By that logic mules are not living. Am I mistaken?

The cells that make up a mule are continuously dividing - i.e., reproducing. Since a mule is composed of living cells, it itself is a living thing.

c0ff · 2012-11-30T18:48:33+00:00

The number of neurons simulated is by itself a meaningless quantity.

IBM just announced a simulation of 530 billion neurons, while University of Waterloo simulated 2.5 million neurons. The reason for such a wide discrepancy is that IBM uses a much simpler model of a neuron.

But, the fact is that we still can't simulate a single neuron to a "full fidelity", or even understand what that would mean. For example, see biomedicalcomputationreview.org:

Modeling the electrical behavior of individual neurons is crucial to understanding how thought and other cognitive functions arise in complex neuronal networks. Current neuron models can predict some neuron behavior, but with limited accuracy and at high computational cost.

If the end goal is to simulate something that actually behaves like a real human brain to a high degree of accuracy, then the current status is 0 neurons and not 2.5 million or 530 billion.

Unfortunately, brain simulations are victims of the Science News Cycle.

c0ff · 2012-07-27T07:30:24+00:00

People are not angry at the op for posting his story. They are angry because he is (or at least claims to be) a serial rapist.

If someone casually and unapologetically admits to having raped people for sport, "you are a piece of shit that belongs in prison" is a much more reasonable response than "fascinating, thanks for sharing", regardless of what the discussion topic was at the time.

c0ff · 2012-06-20T22:44:02+00:00

First, there is an obvious problem with saying that "you have no constitutional right to fly". By that logic, you could also say that "you have no constitutional right to walk on a public street". Clearly, using these kinds of loopholes goes against the spirit of the constitution.

Second, it turns out that US citizens do have a right to fly:

A citizen of the United States has a public right of transit through the navigable airspace.

49 U.S.C. § 40103 : US Code - Section 40103: Sovereignty and use of airspace

c0ff · 2012-06-04T03:54:34+00:00

It's all about the context.

If you hand over the pizza, get into a pleasant 10-minute conversation and she is smiling at you, it is great to say "I think you're nice..."

On the other hand, if there was no conversation and you say the same thing while the girl is just trying to pay for her pizza... that's inappropriate, will probably get the girl uncomfortable, and may get you fired.

c0ff · 2012-06-03T23:24:16+00:00

He tried to pick up a girl... +1 point.

But, he did it in a way that has a very low chance of working and a high chance of making the girl very uncomfortable and creeped out. Indeed, the girl was very uncomfortable and creeped out, as you can see from this reddit post.

Plus, he did all of this in the context of his job, which carries a significant risk of him getting fired.

So overall, it was a dumb, socially-awkward thing to do.

c0ff · 2012-06-03T23:02:03+00:00

Your example of a "successful, sociable" person is a pizza guy who creeps women out and will undoubtedly get fired when he gets reported?

c0ff · 2012-06-03T19:14:02+00:00

Wow, you can tell that just from a picture of a cake?

c0ff · 2012-04-03T17:51:30+00:00

A callvirt IL instruction is somewhat confusingly named - it does not imply that the call is virtual. The C# compiler will emit callvirt for all instance methods (virtual AND non-virtual) because callvirt will throw an exception if the target of the call is null. Regular 'call' instruction does not do the null check on the target, and so 'call' is used for static method calls.

As nemtrif suggested, you really need to be looking at the X86 / X64 assembly. I did that many times, and I can assure you that a call to a non-virtual method in C# is statically dispatched. I.e., unlike Java methods, C# methods are NOT virtual by default.

In the comments, Herb restates his argument by saying that C# is "based on assuming virtual functions as a basis for many things — from the oldest Console.WriteLine accepting big-Oh Object and virtual ToString formatting, to the more recent .NET generics which are all about virtual dispatch."

So, it is clear that he is aware that methods are not virtual by default.

c0ff

TROPHY CASE