DarkTree

I would say the moon landing garnered public attention that had much different incentives than other industries, like nanotech. The moon landing was not just about advancing technology, but also overshadowing Russia's first entry into space with Sputnik, and showing our superiority.

Even so, getting to the moon was not something that public attention and funding just 'made happen'. Luckily, it happened to coincide with the invention of microchips and computer power shrinking down enough to fit in the nose of a shuttle. All of this required incremental progress that wasn't always in the limelight. Sure, the actual moon landing phase was, but not everything leading up to it.

Also, I would say Tesla is very much in the spotlight and making progress because of it, as one example.

This is a good write up, but as I was reading it I started to realize the brilliant marketing behind it, and potentially why I buy some Apple products. I wouldn't buy the mouse because Apple made it sound perfect. I would buy the mouse because this article makes me see how much effort Apple puts into making their products the best they can be. Whether or not they are actually the best products is almost irrelevant after eliciting that emotion.

of course there is, you just don't hear about it. Incremental progress is not always news-worthy, but it certainly matters and is happening all of the time.

Pretty harsh statement for Musk to make, although I think he was trying to strike a bigger point: his company has put extreme effort and talent into building the best electric car ever, and it almost insulting that another company thinks it can just build one on the side. However, that other company also happens to be the largest market cap. company in the world, so I don't think it's anything to hand wave.

In the end, I think this statement was another way for Tesla to draw top talent. Musk statement boils down to, "If you are the best, come work for me, and if you're not the best, go somewhere else". Pretty effective marketing if you ask me.

I can see that. I'm on the east coast so I don't have that exposure, but I've seen the demographic of gym climbers change over time. It's a shame though, because outdoor climbing is why I love it. It's more challenging, you are often camping in nature, and it takes you to beautiful scenery almost always.

Yeah I'd also be surprised if many programmers weren't climbers as well. Those two activities are basically my favorite two things to do, and I believe they complement each other very well. Much like programming, it gets harder the better you get at it.

For the unfamiliar: Anytime you are getting belayed with a rope, you are not bouldering. All but the very top picture are considered "top-roping". Bouldering problems are much shorter (generally under 20ft) and require you to exert a shorter, but greater amount of effort when compared to roped-climbs of a similar grade of difficulty. It's similar to comparing a sprint and marathon.

I'm kind of playing devil's advocate here, but I think there are some key differences with your analogy.

The goal of colonizing another planet would give a small subset of people the ability to continue living if the people on Earth were to destroy themselves. This is a hypothetical situation that -if it happens- will kill off almost everyone, dragging hopes, dreams, money, infrastructure, standards of living (basically everything that makes life enjoyable) with it. So if that is destroyed, why does it matter if humans continue living as a species? Especially on an extremely harsh planet.

Your analogous examples differ because all of those things -medicine, quality of life, children, even sustaining our environment- help us now. We do those things to make our own lives longer, improve our own children's lives, and make our quality of life greater, not some hypothetical future civilization away from Earth. You're right that humanity's best interest is survival, but I think way more people are concerned with their own survival and I think that's where the true incentives for those examples lie.

You're right, there are certainly many mental factors that contribute to weight gain, such as hunger, willpower etc. that vary from person to person. However, as far as actual physical weight gain (controlling for height and muscle mass), the dominating factor is calories in vs. calories out.

For people like you who are tall and skinny and it seems impossible to gain weight, you are either not eating as much as you think you are consistently (i.e. not correctly tracking your calorie intake) or you are grossly underestimating how many calories obese people consume on a daily basis.

Just eating at McDonalds 1-2 times a day doesn't mean anything if you are just getting a burger, but if you get three burgers, a large fry and large coke on a daily basis, that is going to make a difference.

Along with mental factors, poor dietary upbringing, as well as horrible (and consistently changing) nutrition advice are strong contributors to problems with weight gain.

My issue with getting better at vim is that I've gotten to the point where I'm comfortable moving around text, copying/pasting, and everything I would normally do with a mouse. I know vim is so much more than that, but it's one of those things where "you don't know what you don't know" and because of that, I don't have the incentive to continue learning. Hopefully this post will inspire me to incrementally advance my vim usage.

"Even a fleck of shed paint a tenth of a millimeter across carries as much kinetic energy as a rifle bullet when it's traveling at orbital velocity"

Just wow.

I wonder how many shining examples of - successful people who originally quit something with nothing lined up - it will take before people stop making such naive blanket statements such as this. Does her risk of failure increase by just up and quitting? Oh heck yes, but does that mean it's 100% dumb and irresponsible in every context?

You have one life to live and if you don't love what you're doing (she doesn't) and has the skills to do something else (she probably does) and has the guts to change her situation (she does), then in my opinion, she is making the smart and responsible decision.

I live in Baltimore, and the only thing I can think of that the OP is referring to is the fact that it is extremely risky to get anything delivered to your place while away. If something is sitting on your front stoop, it is very likely to get stolen, even in the nicer neighborhoods. However, I don't see this being different than any other city.

It's the result of a large culmination of factors. For one, it's largely an incremental process. For example, someone didn't just build the first personal computer out of thin air. There was electricity, then transistors, then microchips, etc. all 'invented' by different people but each previously needed for the latter. Secondly, in order for incremental processes to happen, there needs to be large knowledge-sharing so that people know what's possible and can build on top of previous advancements. The 20th century brought rapid globalization, long-distance communication, and now the internet, which have all rapidly increased the dissemination of information. Lastly, the population has been steadily growing, and if you believe that the more people there are, the more inventions there will be, then it makes sense that they have increased over time.

I would love this so much if I could figure it out. I'm a javascript programmer, but haven't done much with Python. I'd like to write a small, arcade-style game with python though. Does anyone know anything else like this? Is PyGame fun to work with?

I don't think the parent was commenting on how the other students would be more affected by this incident, but will affected simply by attending a school with horrible administration. He, on the other hand, has been invited to places like Facebook by Zuckerberg himself because of this incident. Not the worst outcome.

I'm going to start taking clocks to school.

How do helicopters handle in high winds? I'd assume most rescue situations, such as rough seas and high-altitude, mountainous areas would also be very windy. I'm curious how the helicopter would hand landing on a 20 degree incline if the wind were to suddenly blow it a different direction before touchdown.

The woods = death

Lovely - All your worries and obligations no longer exist

Dark - When we imagine the absence of life it's like the absence of light, darkness

Deep - Death is deep because it's irreversible and never-ending

Like all literature, it is easy to draw different meanings from the same words, but most of the suicidal undertone is simply in the last stanza:

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep, But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep.

The narrator has been traveling far to fulfill the promises he made to others. He's looking at the lovely, dark, deep woods and thinking how peaceful they are. The woods are a metaphor for death, which is dark and lovely because you don't have to worry about life's hardships. The miles are not distance, but a metaphor for time. The narrator decides he has to continue on, because he cannot sleep/die before fulfilling his promises to those he made them to.

Frost was an amazing writer whose poems beautifully described rural settings. But I think because of his brilliance, it is likely that his poems had deeper meaning than their face-value imagery. But it's also possible that they were one-dimensional, I just doubt it.

Similarly lost in meaning is Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" which is a beautiful poem, but many people don't see the suicidal undertone. I've had it memorized for years and only just learned about this.

What are everyone's thoughts on natural disasters being overall beneficial for the environment?

Just because forest fires occur naturally, and would spread naturally without human intervention, does that necessarily mean they are beneficial for the earth?

If humans didn't try to put out forest fires, and perhaps by chance many lightning strikes caused fires all across the northern west coast within a small timeframe, would this still be a net positive for the ecosytem?

I don't know enough about the equilibrium.

This doesn't make sense. Just because a symbol could potentially be in use does not mean that not having it is a violation of free speech. Where is the symbol with a guy standing on a table mooning his boss? Sure, someone could make that, but thinking that the absence of this symbol creates a "huge free flow of speech rights issue" is ludicrous.

The perk of a beta is getting to try it first. The purpose of a beta is for Apple to get test-users that are willing to provide feedback that they can use to perfect the official release of the final version. The final version is the only one that is going to have all the 'perks'.

As a lot of people have mentioned in previous discussions, Soylent isn't about being the best, it's about tradeoffs like most things in life. 60% daily value of fiber isn't optimal, but it could be more than you are getting on average now.

um.. yes? I can't imagine getting an iphone every year when you can just get one every 2 years for a third of the price.

Anyone recommend any of the R books listed or know of any great R books for purchase?

far past that. The discussion is now, what framework do we build react apps with. And if you're answer is Flux, you're wrong.

Yep. I'm the exact same way as you. Forget bong rips like my friends; I'll panic. I inhale and exhale immediately. The worst part of it is that not a single one of my friends shared this trait with me, so I thought I might be abnormal or something, and I was always known as the 'light-weight' when it came to smoking.

I just graduated from college and I was one of those kids who started smoking both cigarettes and pot in 6th grade because I hung out with older kids that I wanted to be like. I quit cigarettes my freshman year of college and rarely smoke pot (I prefer drinking for socializing).

What surprises me was how many of my friends started smoking cigarettes at college. While part of me understands that college is the first time many kids are let loose and free to make decisions about their bodies, I assumed that age, experience and knowledge would override the desire to smoke cigarettes at least.

Not to mention this was a wealthier, liberal arts school, which seemed even more out-of-place, especially from my different environment growing up.

Still, the frequency of pot smoking was much higher than cigarettes and bled over into the female circles, whereas cigarettes rarely did.

Overall, the trend I witnessed is that, at a young age, people were more likely to smoke pot and cigarettes, in contradiction to when I was in college, where many more people smoked pot.

Despite this being anecdotal, I am curious what factors (age, generational differences, education) have the strongest influence on this trend.