ealloc

6 ms·

61.
by ealloc 12y ago
It's wrong, the molecules are many orders of magnitude smaller than is possible to see. The main black widow venom is alpha-Latrotoxin ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latrotoxin ), which is a 130 kDa protein accordin
62.
by ealloc 12y ago
It is my understanding that rodents run a lot while foraging. I've heard, for example, that wild hamsters run 4-10 miles at night while foraging.
63.
by ealloc 12y ago
Such a creature is called a "musimones", as I recently learned from reading "Natural Magicks" by Porta, an endearingly incorrect popular science book from 1584. I quote his discussion of these creatures below. The rest o
64.
by ealloc 12y ago
Bohmian Mechanics is an interpretation of Quantum mechanics which does not have any "true" randomness. It is effectively a hidden variable theory consistent with quantum mechanics. So at least some physicists do not believe in t
65.
by ealloc 13y ago
I signed up before they had ID verification about two years ago, and deposited a little money. Then a few months later I'd had my fun and I wanted to take my money back, but discovered they wouldn't let me withdraw unless I provid
66.
by ealloc 13y ago
That may be impossible - it depends how far back the problem goes: If someone stole some money three weeks ago and spent it, then any transaction descending from that original bad transaction would have to be invalidated too. This could con
67.
by ealloc 13y ago
I'd argue it's not the miners with the power - it's the people selling goods. A seller has to decide whether to accept a payment, and the seller's choice of blockchain (for verification) is what matters - even if only a
68.
by ealloc 13y ago
There are 3 main proofs (I know of) that the Earth orbits the Sun: 1. Stellar parallax: Stars will appear at slightly different positions in the sky due to the changing position of the Earth during its orbit. Many astronomers from the 1500s
69.
by ealloc 13y ago
> as the market for cotton cloth matured in the mid-20th century, further automation no longer generated such increases in demand and new technology slowly eliminated jobs in the textile industry. This seems to be a counterpoint to his t
70.
by ealloc 13y ago
I wonder how biased it is, and what lengths they took to make it unbiased.
71.
by ealloc 13y ago
In physics, if you randomly divide a fixed amount of energy among n particles, you will obtain a boltzmann (exponential) distribution of particle energies, such that a small number of particles have very high energy and while many have only
72.
by ealloc 13y ago
It sounded pretty sincere to me. He's not the type to say things he doesn't mean, nor the type to apologize just because of public pressure. He was being a bully, and I think better of him now that he recognized it.
73.
by ealloc 13y ago
On the scale from "totally fictional" to "totally non-fictional", Ivan Denisovich leans pretty far to the non-fiction side since much of it is directly based on the author's real experiences, so much so that it&#x
74.
by ealloc 13y ago
I read that book. It left me convinced that I couldn't learn anything at all from those fictional war stories since I couldn't distinguish the truths from the half-truths, and it was a turning point in my literary life as I realiz
75.
by ealloc 13y ago
For comparison, here's one of many online tables of "Global Warming potential" (GWP) for different chemicals: http://unfccc.int/ghg_data/items/3825.php A 100-year GWP of 7000 seems typical for the t
76.
by ealloc 13y ago
"head" and "worker" is also used in some contexts.
77.
by ealloc 13y ago
b is ruled out to a "reasonable" person because the Earth is not an inertial reference frame, but is clearly the 'rotating' frame, while the Sun is (approximately) stationary. This is confirmed through the phenomena of s
78.
by ealloc 13y ago
Interesting. Only 2 photosynthetic molecules are known so far in all branches of life, chlorophyll and rhodopsin, so the existence of another photosynthetic pathway is pretty surprising! I hope it's not another case of hype followed by
79.
by ealloc 13y ago
Re: the last part about etched semiconductors: Keep in mind that the size of a magnetic grain (which stores 1 bit, roughly) is about 8nm. Compare that to the current cutting edge lithography scale of 14nm, which is the size of the semicondu
80.
by ealloc 13y ago
Interesting idea. I though it was going to be more like the 'cooling glove' [1] which actually cools you down, rather than just making you think you're cooler. Hairless skin on the hands and face has blood vessels close to th
81.
by ealloc 13y ago
Isaac Newton - Introduced a world-view which arguably led to the industrial revolution and most modern science. James Bradley (1693 - 1762)- "The inventor of Modern science", for his development of the modern scientific method. h
82.
by ealloc 13y ago
As I understand, the issue is not so much getting the position data, but getting the data quickly (with low latency) to reduce mismatch between the rendered position on screen and the user's actual position. The Rift has special 250
83.
by ealloc 13y ago
This result is right in line with the observations of people studying the evolution of lactose tolerance [1]. Lactose-tolerant middle-easterners (who had long been eating lactose-free fermented milk, until they developed lactose tolerance)
84.
by ealloc 13y ago
So this means the FBI now owns 600,000 bitcoins (5% of all bitcoins)? Probably more, since they also control the (presumably large number of) bitcoin stored in accounts on Silk road. Seems like this could lead either to the legitimation or
85.
by ealloc 13y ago
This explains it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curie_temperature In the ferromagnetic phase, the atoms are magnetically aligned and their magnetic fields adds up. If you increase the temperature past a certain point t
86.
by ealloc 13y ago
It may not be strictly necessary, but it's a great educational and exploratory toy. The main draw for me was unsupervised exploration. The calculator is simple enough that you can figure out how to program yourself (with the manual), a
87.
by ealloc 13y ago
Depression is not "sadness without cause". It is a mental condition thought by some to be best described as a chemical imbalance in the brain, and often does have a very clear cause. Head injuries, drugs, and other physical injuri
88.
by ealloc 13y ago
Fascinating, an analog computer. Reading about it on wikipedia, it seems analog computers have been almost completely forgotten in the digital age. It makes me wonder what kind of analog computer would be possible now with 21st century tech
89.
by ealloc 13y ago
I use parallel all the time for embarrasingly parallel scientific computations on a cluster. It is very easy to use and elegant, and it's one of the programs I'm most grateful for. Recently the developers fixed a major bug for me,
90.
by ealloc 13y ago
The more obvious conclusion, to me, is that people prefer energy-rich foods after expending more mental energy. Our brain is a major energy sink, as it consumes about 20% of our body's energy. I'm pretty sure that after I've

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