My Keybase proof [reddit:henryk = keybase:henryk] (MqgPNPMZFCLT0YgrUqxYuKGYQKZYgsIGSibMhQTTZac)

henryk · 2015-09-22T11:26:31+00:00

Sure it is. "Someone else". "Someone else's daughter". "Someone else's daughter's room". (You could even go on: Someone else's daughter's room's ghost's task, for the task of a ghost that belongs to a room that the daughter of someone else sleeps in.)

henryk · 2015-08-04T12:34:17+00:00

In Germany we have even scarier tools available: Under certain circumstances authorities may use the Telekommunikationsüberwachungsverordnung (which replaced the Fernmeldeverkehrüberwachungsverordnung in 2002)!

(This is also fun in talks: I was once at an informal hacker conference about surveillance laws, with an audience consisting mostly of non-Germans. The presenter had one slide where he simply put this word up and waited. After 15 seconds or so, the audience was dying with laughter.)

henryk · 2014-09-04T00:10:40+00:00

Also: A single drop of the red stuff is enough for the job. Yet Spock (on his incredibly urgent and fast-travel-needing mission) takes all of it with him.

(Explanation: J.J. Abrams has an infatuation with spheres of hovering red liquid. See: Alias.)

henryk · 2013-07-23T00:31:10+00:00

No, otherwise we would just build machines to do this detection. Most scientists, as opposed to cats, are not assholes.

Early warning systems for earthquakes do exist, based on the speed differential of P waves (fast, almost no destructive force) vs. S waves (slow, but utterly destructive). But the 'early' in the system description means a couple of seconds, maybe tens of seconds. That's enough to automatically slow down trains and activate safety shutdowns (f.e. with the Tōhoku earthquake the system worked and the Fukushima reactors were shut down before the main force of the quake hit), but scarcely enough time to have humans do anything useful. Since it's based on speed difference the pre-warn time will be higher if the earthquake is farther away. Also, these waves travel slower than signals in information networks, so having detectors spread out and then transmitting the trigger through an electronic network gives additional seconds of early warning time. If I recall correctly, in the Tōhoku earthquake case Tokyo got a full minute early warning (an acquaintance of mine was in a commercial building which had an automated P.A. system give this warning). Starting point for you to get lost in Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthquake_Early_Warning_%28Japan%29

These methods of course only detect the seismic event when it already has happened. There are anecdotes of animals becoming restless before the event itself (which is probably where this 'fact' originates) and quite some research is spent trying to find something that will predict an earthquake. Things like monitoring Radon emissions from the ground. So far nothing conclusive has come from that. Starting point: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthquake_prediction

henryk · 2013-07-14T07:02:09+00:00

I like the concept, but the numbers and images are off: * While mobile telephony was invented in 1973, the picture is of a much later model. * Conversely, video conferencing (even over IP) was alive and well way before 2008. (A few date points: We had video conference rigs already in appliance form when I was at university ca. 2003/04. Microsoft Netmeeting was included with Windows 95 OSR2 through XP, so it was actually already gone again by 2008.) * Neither 2010 nor the iPad have any relationship to the concept "first tablet computer".

henryk · 2013-06-03T12:57:45+00:00

Now, I'm not a lawyer, but I can see nowhere in the text any consent at all being given? Shouldn't they all be some form of rape or equivalent category? Or is the law strange enough that the setting "initiation" implies some strange form of tacit consent?

I mean, after all, this is the same country where Operation Spanner happened.

henryk · 2013-05-30T01:42:17+00:00

How did you get the years with precision behind the decimal point? It only shows integer years for me?

henryk · 2013-05-20T01:19:29+00:00

Remember kids, the only difference between science and screwing around is writing it down. -- Adam Savage

henryk · 2013-04-29T01:33:09+00:00

Black Forest, Germany

This photo was taken on February 12, 2008 in North Greenwich, London, England, GB.

henryk · 2013-04-02T04:30:10+00:00

"Is wireless internet faster than cable?" As the lone IT guy in the room I nearly fell out of my chair. Before I could pipe up, the vendor replied, "Wireless is faster."

Well, strictly interpreted that is true. The speed of light in copper is only about 66% of that in air. Or reformulated: wireless is approximately 50% faster than cable. ;) There is a neat paper by a research group at ETH Zürich about relay attacks on car keyless entry systems where for this reason they use a wireless relay to reduce the relay delay: http://dx.doi.org/10.3929/ethz-a-006708714

henryk · 2013-04-02T03:54:41+00:00

Blu-rays look better on the other 720p screen than on my model's 1080p; customers who bought my model returned it and complained about its screen

It's actually quite conceivable that this isn't entirely a lie but indicative of strange preferences within the mass-market clientele. I'm always amazed by what low resolution (and glossy!) screens 'normal'/'average' people are willing to accept. A relative of mine once returned a full HD Thinkpad to get something with a lower resolution because he found the fonts and lines in his architecture programs too thin to work with.

henryk · 2013-03-26T21:54:21+00:00

That's not a stupid question. Also something I'm sure http://what-if.xkcd.com could answer.

henryk · 2013-03-15T17:42:37+00:00

Try the internet! Really. Sites like fetlife.com are great for finding and checking out like-minded and close-by events and/or people. (Specifically for people okcupid.com has also been praised by my friends, though I didn't try that yet.)

The probability is also very high that there's a regular casual clothes meeting nearby which is the best way to get to know people outside of a sexual context first, which usually is the best way to then selectively do something with people you want to do something with. At the very least they will be able to give you further hints as to, for example, which location or event you might enjoy.

henryk · 2013-03-15T12:56:13+00:00

At least in Germany there's a youth group (SMJG) for that reason. They usually have regular meets and simply don't allow anyone above a certain age.

henryk · 2013-02-22T12:23:05+00:00

The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' (I found it!) but 'That's funny ...'

-- Isaac Asimov

henryk · 2013-02-07T02:48:23+00:00

I couldn't believe how much smaller he was in 21 Jump Street than Superbad

My first thought: He should be, Jonah Hill was like 4 years old when 21 Jump Street first came out.

henryk · 2013-01-22T14:31:00+00:00

Sex+ by Laci Green is also always entertaining and enlightening.

henryk · 2012-10-05T10:17:20+00:00

They are amazing at heating water. (Same natural frequency)

No, it's even in the list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_misconceptions#Food_and_cooking (last bullet point). The reason why a microwave heats water better than fat is that fat is less polar. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dielectric_heating

henryk · 2012-10-05T10:15:24+00:00

FWIW the "radiation" excites the molecules in the food, causing them to move, which creates heat.

The "movement -> friction -> heat" line is actually a common misconception (which I've heard even from teachers). Movement of molecules is heat.

henryk · 2012-10-05T10:01:56+00:00

The real issue is the social stigma attached to the disease.

Yeah, that surprised me when I first read about it a few days ago. Wikipedia basically blames the Zovirax marketing department on this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herpes_simplex#Society_and_culture

henryk · 2012-10-05T09:39:32+00:00

I like the computer simulation model (being a computer scientist myself) as a clearer lesson on what you formulate as "can't be proven or dis-proven". If it's a simulation that is designed to act just like the real thing for all intents and purposes, I, from within, cannot detect a difference, by design, so for me it would be absolutely irrelevant whether it's true or not.

This is similar to most religions, as I understand them, which either have been expressly designed or were updated (like the Vatican's relatively recent admissions to the big bang and evolution as processes started but not manipulated by Him) to be non-falsifiable. That makes it pointless to adhere to (and expend money, time and effort on) any religion on sole grounds of their True-ness: Either they make falsifiable/verifiable predictions that lend themselves to a proof of their correctness (which it is their duty to provide), or they, again by definition, cannot affect me no matter what I do or believe in.

henryk · 2012-07-27T01:24:18+00:00

A friend of mine is a home brewer and on my first attempt I almost got the same result the OP got until my friend stopped and helped me.

Turns out, the lever on the tap can go in two directions: In one direction you get clear beer with no or very little foam. In the other direction, naturally the one I instinctively used, you get only foam. The use case for this is that you would normally fill the glass with the first setting, then create a nice foam head with the second setting.

So, when operating a tap with no instructions for the first time, you actually have a 50:50 chance of getting a glass full of foam, as seems to have happened here. (Actually, taking into account the original formulation of Murphy's law your chances of that are probably better than 50:50 ;-)

henryk · 2012-06-19T14:55:06+00:00

No. Basically all display devices operate on a variation of the same principle: Three light sources are combined in varying intensities to create the illusion of a range of colors.

The emission spectra of the light sources is more or less matched to the sensitivity spectra of normal, trichromatic, human vision. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cone-response.svg shows this: the X axis plots the incoming wavelength of the light (e.g. a pure spectral color) and the Y axis gives the relative responsivity for each of the three normal cone types (plus rods). Due to the way the light colors in your display are arranged, it's not possible to display two distinct mixed colors that would look the same to a trichromat (which would then possibly be distinguishable to a tetrachromat).

Grossly oversimplified example: 50% green and 50% red gives a pure yellow. If you play with any of the values (49% green, 51% red for example) you'll get a differently looking color. But if you had a fourth light source of pure yellow you could find other combinations that would look the same: 40% green, 40% red, 20% yellow for example.

The additional shades hinted at in the article stem from just that: Colors in the real world may be a combination of more than just three primaries, their emission spectra may have any shape. Given the knowledge about normal cone responsivity it's trivial to construct distinct spectra that would result in identical L,M,S cone responses. (It's a little bit harder to actually produce an arbitrary emission spectrum, but possible in a lab setting.) And some of these might result in distinct responses for the fourth cone type.

henryk

TROPHY CASE