Viewing profile — michaelf

Seriously, I think "Always Sunny" explains it best (i.e., because of "the implication") https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yUafzOXHPE

Similarly, The Paris Review was founded by CIA agent (and novelist and National Book Award winner) Peter Matthiessen[1] as a form of "cultural propaganda"[2]. [1] https://en.wikipe…

Can anyone hazard a guess as to how Linus was able to measure the cost of a page fault and an iret so precisely? What tools and techniques might he have used?

The author references the work of Barbara Frederickson, a psychologist who had a very popular theory on "Positivity Ratios", a theory that was in part justified by misuse of differ…

"La' Intensity - A Talk with Silvia Vidal" A beautiful and inspiring 13 minute video on the experience of making solo expeditions in the mountains.

Ditto. It seems very weird to put the word "experiences" in quotes. It makes it seem as if the writer is using it sarcastically, or is in some way disclaiming what they are writing…

Crystals are actually a major portion of the study of solid-state physics: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid-state_physics#Crystal_str...

Is it also the case that all transcendental numbers have approximations of unbounded quality? Or only that Liouville numbers have approximations of unbounded quality, and therefore…

FYI, I was about to join up, but I declined because it wanted my contacts. For the most part, contracts are signed by relatively new contacts (people not yet in my address book). E…

I can't agree more. When I was a freshman, I was required to do a work study as part of the deal for my loans. I didn't want to do it -- my course load seemed hard enough -- but I …

I'd think that a huge benefit "gamification" is that it allows students to learn at their own pace and without much teacher guidance. Kids figure out how to play Portal and Civiliz…

Is this the first step in YC pivoting away being a "seed investor", where the goal is to pick winners? Does PG see the future of YC as being an alternative to post-graduate educati…

I agree. If you exploit a site and then say "will you pay me for security audit?", then that's extortion.

That story was posted on April 1st in 2009, and isn't hosted on BBC's website. There isn't even a first name given for the researcher (only "Radio astronomer Dr. Venn"). Looks sket…

One of the most thought provoking books I've ever read is "A Terrible Love of War" by James Hillman. This books explores the topic of the linked article from a Jungian point of vie…

I know there are lots of anti-patent folks on HN, but if anything deserves patent protection, digital fountains certainly do. This is useful, novel, and certainly non-obvious stuff…

This video made me curious about what a magnet factory would look like and I found a really great video that goes step by step through the process at a neodymium magnet manufacture…

> Particularly if those financial services are extractive in nature? Could you elaborate on that sentence? What do you mean by "extractive"? In the context of natural resources, I …

With regard to your suggestion that Apple is the offensive party in patent disputes, it's important to remember that the roles of offense and defense are reversed when you enter a …

“In most people’s vocabularies, design means veneer. It’s interior decorating. It’s the fabric of the curtains and the sofa. But to me, nothing could be further from the meaning of…

If you google several of the names from the article, you'll find that many of those engineers are still working on NeXT R&D, although under different product names (OS X and iOS). …

> NO, ideas by themselves are meaningless. Take it from a guy who loves coming up with new ideas but isn't so good at the execution part Maybe off topic, but this reminded me of a …

Most likely, DigitalOne doesn't have support staff sleeping in hammocks at the colo. If you were an admin, logged in remotely (from switzerland, say, where DigitalOne is headquarte…

Looks like I need to update my bookshelf. Thanks for the recommendation.

A great place to start is "Applied Cryptography" by Bruce Schneier. http://www.schneier.com/book-applied.html Edit: Note, this really barely scratches the surface for building secu…