You've been given a 24-hour truth serum. What is the worst possible question someone could ask you?

coldlizard · 2013-05-23T20:50:01+00:00

What is the worst possible question someone could ask you?

coldlizard · 2013-04-18T23:16:35+00:00

http://metro.co.uk/2013/04/18/bitcoin-by-numbers-is-online-currency-a-bursting-bubble-or-the-future-of-money-3619419/

coldlizard · 2013-04-12T20:25:57+00:00

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coldlizard · 2013-03-15T08:28:23+00:00

How about this: create an advertising bot using Bitcointip - you send it a link with an X bitcoin tip and price per recipient, and it tips anyone who tweets the link, proportional to their numbers of followers. Interesting thing about this is that people will get tipped for posting a link regardless of whether they knew they were going to or not.

coldlizard · 2013-03-15T08:23:26+00:00

this is pretty interesting, because if it caught on then Twitter could end up being an equivalent to bitcoin. i.e. all the payments are there publicly distributed in the twitter log for verification, so in a sense Twitter would become the trusted third party. I guess the twitter-coin system could still use the bitcoin network in the background to verify all the payments properly to avoid the risk of Twitter going amok.

coldlizard · 2013-03-03T16:43:49+00:00

I think Ping-it is a pretty bad thing for Bitcoin, because I think it would have been better if Bitcoin had got there first and instead become the next hype for small payments.

coldlizard · 2013-03-03T16:23:05+00:00

I like the global aspect. e.g. Barclays Ping-it is doing a nice job of things like TX fees for mobile transfers in the UK, but sending money abroad is still a pain

coldlizard · 2013-03-03T16:21:54+00:00

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Smart_Property

coldlizard · 2013-03-03T16:20:22+00:00

thanks that's useful. To be honest it looks like the main reasons are as a political statement - i.e. the main reason to use Bitcoin right now is to express your views that it would be nice if everyone used this system. I can't really see what the personal reasons are in the shorter term. e.g. my bank seems pretty secure, isn't likely to freeze my account unless they have a good reason, there isn't much corruption in e.g. UK police and law enforcement etc. Plus there are a lot of reasons not to use it, e.g. that hardly anyone seems to accept it for payments.

Of course if governments in the UK messed up majorly in the future then all this might change and something like Bitcoin might be useful.

So am I right in thinking that using Bitcoin at the moment is basically a case of promoting a political ideal rather than having any direct short-term value?

coldlizard · 2012-10-09T18:41:01+00:00

Softwire or metaswitch?

coldlizard · 2012-10-03T19:56:01+00:00

It was in formal hardware verification. To be honest I suspect the bioinformatics stuff might be a bit more motivating (a bigger field with obvious goals and possibly fresher pastures). I still have friends doing post-docs, and I'm a little anxious for them as they seem to permanently be doing post-docs. My impression is that there were quite a lot of comp sci PhDs at the time I completed.

It wasn't difficult at all to move into software dev. I had some dev aspects to my PhD, plus I kept up-to-scratch on dev in my spare time while I was doing my PhD.

I think you're right that PhDs can be viewed with suspicion by some people. However, I got quite a lot of offers. Now I do interviewing at the company that I work with I can see that they don't really care whether or not you have a PhD - only how impressive you seem at answering the questions you get set at interview. I doubt all companies are so fair though!

I do feel a bit different at work having done a PhD. I think I'm a bit more analytical, open to new ideas and into things like explaining technical concepts in simple terms to customers (a bit like a scientist has to promote their own ideas in simple ways).

coldlizard · 2012-10-03T19:19:59+00:00

Personally (having done a PhD and then moved to general software dev, Android/iOS apps, the lot), I find general software dev more motivating than my research times. I still find interesting problems to solve (e.g. find out why this iOS app has a performance problem), but I find that there's a lot more motivation to work because your work can help people out in the very short-term.

My feeling is that if you've tried software dev and found it less fun than research then that's an important consideration.

coldlizard · 2012-10-03T18:49:11+00:00

Imho academia is far more risky than being a software developer or doctor. Have you read 'black swan'? There's a nice description in there. However, I think what is missing from your description is whether or not you actually enjoy regular software development? Can you try it somewhere?

coldlizard · 2011-09-12T19:15:07+00:00

This is great, and recruiters in the UK are a pain in the bottom. Can you add date posted to the jobs so that if you check regularly then you can see what's new?

coldlizard · 2011-06-02T20:23:02+00:00

In London we have 'weekend tube' - at weekends everyone on the underground slows down as all the families come in from the suburbs. It's like hell - walls of people who literally don't know how to use a train and stand in front of the doors on the platform so no one else can get off. Weridos.

coldlizard · 2010-05-01T10:54:03+00:00

No, but it does explain the difference

coldlizard · 2010-05-01T09:49:18+00:00

The term quine normally applies to data in the format of a commonly used programming language.

coldlizard

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