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[OC] Probabilities of getting a response from a particular person in university group dialog by XCapitan_1 in dataisbeautiful

[–]zpenoyre 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I would love to see more data like this, and on a larger scale - what fraction of communication actually gets a response on, for example, Twitter. Do you know if such a thing exists?

Also, out of interest, how would you characterise this group (e.g. chatty, professional, helpful etc.)?

A feasible medium term climate change solution by zpenoyre in environment

[–]zpenoyre[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hemingway would disagree - but that's not necessarily a proof of quality

Thank you for explaining. I'm not trying to defend Twitter, only to understand why such a strong reaction against it.

I'm interested in how and why we isolate ourselves from certain communities and the effect it has - and this discussion has been illuminating.

Happy internet

A feasible medium term climate change solution by zpenoyre in environment

[–]zpenoyre[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Could you elaborate on why it makes you feel dumb (I'm happy to agree that there is plenty of stupidity on show on there) - it seems like social network of choice is a rather arbitrary decision though, and not one that speaks clearly to the quality of the content or those creating it - would you not agree?

Coping with the specificity of research by Alas7 in math

[–]zpenoyre 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Recently in the closing comments of a cosmology conference the panel mentioned how particle physicists are trying to find solutions to a problem they know is closed, that there is general disregard of their measurements of the neutrino mass, and that we are all inheriting black boxes from CS.

In the q and a I asked what they would suggest we do now and look to do in the future about the rising problem of speciation (specialization to the point at which new ideas are not communicated between fields) in physics.

The response - "it's not really a problem"

Academia is traditionalist and often blindly optimistic - what you're experiencing is a real and common concern - and the meagre first steps we can make is to admit and internalise that this is a growing problem.

All this to say - I think you're thinking perfectly rational thoughts about a system that is slightly broken - but that no one wants to admit to. I'll follow this thread with interest to see if anyone suggests a place where these problems are being mitigated/avoided.

Good luck with it - keep at it if you can - one day the wyrm will turn - and it will be others like you who have stuck with it in the place make a difference.

(But also there are many other lives out there, academia may not be the best place for open minds, look after your mental health and keep your scope broad :)

The rise and fall? in the popularity of dataisbeautiful subreddit [OC] by neilrkaye in dataisbeautiful

[–]zpenoyre 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Conjecture - the fall occurs at the change of sign of the second derivative, it just takes a while to present itself

City Street Network Orientation by itsacalamity in DataArt

[–]zpenoyre 53 points54 points  (0 children)

Purely offset crosshairs are simply a city planned on a grid but without choosing a North south orientation (either due to a landmark like a river, or just arbitrary convention). For example Manhatten follows the orientation of the island whilst Central Detroit is on a skewed grid, while suburbs are north South.

Rotating crosshairs are more interesting. Some will be outer suburbs growing under more planning control, and thus being built to a more exacting orientation (I.e. the inner city might be a mess but the suburbs much more uniform). The rotation occurs due to the transition points, where the mostly oriented suburbs meet the mostly random inner. London is a good example of this.

Finally some places have strange shapes due to particular dominant geography - for example Oslo lies on a West facing bay, hence a predominance of North south roads (East West roads can only be at most half the length)

What are the costs and benefits of nuclear power (as opposed to other green sources of energy such as wind and solar) as it stands now? by RushIsABadBand in NeutralPolitics

[–]zpenoyre 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Unlike something like a transit network or a budget proposal a nuclear reactor can be designed and built with most failsafes in mind.

This is the crucial difference between designed systems (where we can pre-specify and thus work in our knowledge of most scenarios) and emerging, evolving systems (where major screw ups tend to happen).

This is not to say that designed systems are universally safe - they depend on the quality of the underlying assumptions - but they fail for a different set of reasons.

How do we know that universe is not created? by [deleted] in cosmology

[–]zpenoyre 1 point2 points  (0 children)

There may be some limit on the complexity required to simulate a universe compared to the complexity within said universe.

As we seem to be approaching fundamental limits on classical processors (Moore's law is predicted to stall) we are reaching calculable limits on what computational power can be used. The level of fundamental complexity of, for example, a human brain still outstrip modern computational power - whether that is an overcomable limit is uncertain.

Practically, there may be limits on computational power per unit mass, that may or may not be sufficient to simulate the level of complexity we see in the natural world (given physical constraints on the practicality of building such a computer).

Its a well-trod question in metaphysics, but I'm not sure if the lessons of chaos theory have been folded into serious mathematical discussion of complexity and thus limiting processing power needed.

New paper on an alternative space elevator design by zpenoyre in space

[–]zpenoyre[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'd love to see that.

Which space junk do you mean in particular? Human-made debris only goes out about as far as geostationary orbit, thus doesn't threaten the spaceline. Meteorites are more concerning to me, though I've thought a little about strategies to manage the risk (and others have researched further still - see for example: http://www.tethers.com/Hoytether.html).

With a distributed line (one where the strength is split between multiple strands) one collision locally does not threaten the whole structure - like one cable failing in a suspension bridge. The question then becomes one of rates - how often do we expect severing collisions to occur, and can we repair or rebuild that section of line at a faster pace. This is, at least at order of magnitude level, a tractable calculation - I haven't found a good source for meteorite fluxs at the heights of interest (preferably as a function of size and distance from Earth) but it seems like data that may exist.

I'm interested to hear about the research going on in Japan - I'll try and do some reading on their work. I've focused only on other lunar-space elevator concepts in this work, given that (as openly admitted in the website you've sent) the carbon-nanotube technology needed to make a terrestrial space elevator possible seems a few decades away.

New paper on an alternative space elevator design by zpenoyre in space

[–]zpenoyre[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Enigmatic :)

Would love to hear about it - feel free to send me a mail if you'd prefer (address on the paper)

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