zipdog

4 ms·

1.
by zipdog 12y ago
Not just OSS, though, if you read the history of new products or discoveries the same pattern regularly occurs.
2.
by zipdog 12y ago
Samantha was an obscure name until 1964: http://www.babynamewizard.com/archives/2010/7/samantha-the-u...
3.
by zipdog 13y ago
Its not a parody, but it deliberately uses the form of the Daily Mail. However, instead of delivering the ephemeral and trivial content of the DM, it uses that form to deliver content (intended to be) more potent. I think one reason for usi
4.
by zipdog 13y ago
Good point. I was thinking in terms of workforce, influence and global reach, but Goog and Apple have that too. (Made edit to original)
5.
by zipdog 13y ago
As there's more choice, people seem to be more interested in what others are doing, so when something gets some traction it can grow very big very fast. (And this game had some help at the start, it seems). If it wasn't Flappy Bir
6.
by zipdog 13y ago
Harmful to a few internet companies, but beneficial to other US companies. The leaks have identified that the NSA conducts industrial espionage to the benefit of US companies. That said, I disagree with the grandparent's point that Cor
7.
by zipdog 13y ago
I don't think there is a necessary contradiction in "favoring access" to government-promoted or funded arts and sciences, as well as "favoring access" to full disclosure of surveillance programs and desiring effecti
8.
by zipdog 13y ago
It would be interesting to know what the questions were (or even what genre) - to get a better sense of the significance of getting them right. Unfortunately there is no indication in this article, or the abstract of the paper, and the jour
9.
by zipdog 13y ago
What is more troubling is not that so few of these results results are reproducible, but that it appears almost no-one is trying to reproduce the results of earlier studies. The ability of the scientists who wrote the paper to even get acce
10.
by zipdog 13y ago
Cornering the market in a useless item in order to drive up its price? Reminds me of the time Porsche cornered the market in VW shares and squeezed the short-sellers: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/transport/32...
11.
by zipdog 13y ago
I agree. But I think countries can be a useful proxy if they aren't all, say, Western European, or Carribean. The big culture zones IMHO are Americas: North, Central, South and Carribbean; Africa: Southern, Western, Eastern, Northern; Eu
12.
by zipdog 14y ago
I've been with an EA studio for the last five months and met with people from a dozen other EA studios and like you toxic is not a word I would use to describe the EA I have seen. Quite the opposite
13.
by zipdog 14y ago
Research indicates its may not be a placebo, eg: "Gluten Causes Gastrointestinal Symptoms in Subjects Without Celiac Disease: A Double-Blind Randomized Placebo-Controlled Trial" (The American Journal of Gastroenterology 106, 508-514 (March
14.
by zipdog 14y ago
I like DFW's quote. I also like a point made by Nick Hornby in 'A long way down' that sometimes it is not because they don't want to live anymore, its because they want to live so much, but are being prevented from living by things beyond t
15.
by zipdog 14y ago
The "long tail" on tools is very true, and something that took me a while to learn. I used to think I could get away with a smaller toolset of more general tools, and to just 'wing it' by using them creatively to solve the problem. But tool
16.
by zipdog 14y ago
Yesterday a friend explained the physiological reasons behind 25 minute breaks: basically the muscles (including eye muscles) go into a different state of relaxed-tension and its generally not good for them to be in that state while the bod
17.
by zipdog 14y ago
There's two big problems I can see with your argument that we need more consumption. But first, I agree that consumption is one of the factors that has helped raised the standard of living worldwide. The first problem is the broken windows
18.
by zipdog 14y ago
I find this an appropriate comment by Hofstadter, in the Intro to 'Godel Escher Bach', on the gender of the Tortoise: The Tortoise turns out never to have been attributed either gender. But when I first read it, the question never entered m
19.
by zipdog 14y ago
Trustworthy and Automatic (for the link shortening) do not combine well. At least the bit.ly service means that the traffic can be gathered and analysed (and presumably those links disabled) to get data about spam clicks.
20.
by zipdog 14y ago
The hwy exit differs from place to place. In Canada there's an angled edge to indicate which side the exit is on. But I'm guessing that most places have some system that subtly indicates which side, excepting, as you say, older signs
21.
by zipdog 14y ago
The oceans are already absorbed enormous amounts of atmospheric CO2, and it's messing up marine ecosystems by changing pH levels, among other things. It's a major cause of coral loss and possibly of jellyfish population growth. The reason I
22.
by zipdog 14y ago
There's been a variety of papers using MRI scans to show the brain restructuring itself during learning. This takes time. Mathematics and CS deal with abstraction upon abstraction, as well as counter-intuitive systems (negative numbers, unr
23.
by zipdog 14y ago
One of the difficulties for a society with large numbers of unemployed is that the consumer and media culture creates aspirational needs: people want stuff, and since its not being given to them and they can't earn the money to buy it, they
24.
by zipdog 14y ago
I tried that experiment, and the first couple of years it was about 50/50, but most recently almost everyone who posted did so on the FB birthday date. I think theyv'e come to rely on the Facebook reminders. It was also interesting to see t
25.
by zipdog 14y ago
I think Nascar uses this system to discourage undervaluing entries: owners declare a value for their car, and Nascar has the right to buy the car at that valuation. They would only do this if the car was under by a significant margin, so th
26.
by zipdog 14y ago
I recall a successful 'highest prime' search using a system that checked numbers of the form 2^n - 1 (or something like that)
27.
by zipdog 14y ago
When Google did a massive analysis of hard-drive failures they also didn't publish manufacturer names, because they felt that it would tarnish the company name when it might just be a production run
28.
by zipdog 14y ago
You mean like if http://www.factcheck.org/about/ was instant?
29.
by zipdog 14y ago
We know that, and they know that, but its still crucial to keep up the mechanisms of being honest,etc. Consider the jewellery chain in the UK that sold cheap junk. Customers knew it, and the company knew, but everything was profitable until
30.
by zipdog 14y ago
In Sweden there was a 30th February 1712

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