Ninjaneered

I use a version* of a net-pot to flush out my sinuses after surfing. If I don't, especially if I surf in a red tide, I get a nasty sinus infection (surfers sinusitis or acute sinusitis). I even had sinus surgery to reduce my turbinates and increase my sinus ducts which helps, but still doesn't prevent the problem.

* I use NeilMed's sinus flush which basically is a sealed bottle with a straw I can use to force flush my sinuses, vs. just using gravity.

Good stuff, thanks for the h-index link, I'll take a look. I've seen something similar, SCImago Journal Rank, but I think that is only for the journal, not the individual. I really like the idea of moving away from the idea of a journal brand as the ranking of importance.

What would be a components of an "ideal" solution? I'd love to hear improvements or corrections to my assumptions.

1) Free to view all approved papers (possibly run by a non-profit and funded by grants around the world)

2) Establish reputations for scientists (giving scientists access to future grants)

3) Peer review handled autonomously (submitted papers are automatically distributed autonomously by the system to other scientists in the related field with a high enough reputation)

4) Easy searching for articles (articles have semantic structure, are categorized by author, title, subject, citations, etc.)

5) Removal of "scientific silos" (all articles published to the same site, categories define content rather than publishing brand)

Any chance you can post a link to what you are working on? Does it involve a PageRank like system?

For reference, I was a seasonal firefighter with Cal Fire (CDF at the time) for 6 years.

First off, if there is a fire burning on state land, federal land, BLM land, a national forest, a national park, etc. I'd call it a forest fire, it's just common parlance. To some that know better, I may use the term wildland fire. So, if it isn't a structure or vehicle fire, it's probably a forest fire. Specifically though, many of these fires are considered in the wildland–urban interface, that is where homes and wildlands meet or intermingle.

There is a problem happening and I'm not sure how to solve it. The amount of wildland-urban interface land keeps increasing. This land is much more difficult to defend against fire; structure protection is much harder than straight wildland fire management. We've aggressively fought all forest fires (see above), especially when there is a threat of homes being destroyed (again this is increasing due to the wildland-urban interface increasing). Forest fires are natural and should happen on a regular basis, when they do, they clear fuel from the ground. Note, some trees require this for seed release (serotinous cones), resprouting, and germination (fire activated seeds). When fires don't burn and the fuel loading increases (due to aggressive firefighting), a catastrophic fire can burn, one we can't easily put out. These fires burn so hot, they can jump into the tree canopy (crowning fire) and kill the tree, they can completely burn fire activated seeds and make them nonviable, and they typically burn much larger sections of land. This is all bad.

I'm really not sure how to deal with this. There are some steps homeowners in the wildland-urban interface (within 1/2-mile of the wildland) should do to protect their homes including defensible space, fire-resistant roofs and siding, enclosed eaves and vents, etc. These steps should be enforced through insurance company's policy (vastly reduced rates for "safer" homes, and no insurance or drastically higher for "unsafe" homes), keep in mind, these unsafe homes put firefighters at risk. Ideally we stop encroaching into the wildland, but I'm not sure how to stop that. But we do need to let forest fires burn more. We need to set more prescribed burns (controlled burns) We need to know that some will get out of control, but there shouldn't be any lawsuits for this, fighting fire is tough.

(I previously posted this on a CleanTechnica discussion)

I don't think climate change is the dominating variable here, like the article describes, the devastating fires are a product of our encroachment into forests and aggressive firefighting practices. If you have some references though, I'd be very interested in learning more.

Unless corrected by additional positional information (GPS, landmarks, etc.) inertial navigation is completely reliant on dead reckoning. Any system that uses this has cumulative error. I'm guessing (like you) that these "quantum compasses" provide a much lower error, just now sure how much.

The cumulative error always exists because any sensor introduces error (I'm ignorant of anything "quantum" though). This means if you have several inputs (velocimeter, accelerometer, gyroscope, magnetometer, etc.), you are introducing multiple forms of error, each with it's own error band. Interestingly, there is an algorithm called a Kalman filter that takes in all these inputs and can spit out a best estimate for navigation, it's pretty amazing.

Basically it uses dead reckoning then. Cool stuff! There are other velocimeters, accelerometers, etc. that do that as well, the important part is the amount of error that builds over time. I wonder what this "quantum compass" has for error?

Google Reader for sure. I use Feedly now, but it lacks the social aspect GR had.

If the article is correct and AI has a hard time generating or understanding optical illusions, could they be exploited to determine human from computer?

After typing that out, I'm not sure I could actually answer a question about the referenced optical illusion [1] in the article. For example, what direction is the full wheel in the upper-left turning? Who knows, but I have a headache now.

Edit: it seems this has been discussed before [2], [3], [4]

[1] https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/u2fqwmgguf...

[2] https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/116612/using-op...

[3] https://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=59240

[4] https://qz.com/1047988/amazon-amzn-has-a-new-captcha-that-yo...

Speaking of Wikipedia articles, have you checked out their "book creator" [0], it's a link on the left of every page? It has some significant issues [1] and as of now can't be used to download pdfs, it seemed to use an "Offline Content Generator" [2] that became unrepairable. I wonder if something like Percollate could be used as the backend generator for Wikipedia's book creator?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Book&book...

[1] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Reading/Web/PDF_Functionality

[2] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Offline_content_generator

I own a small start-up and struggle with work life balance. I'm a night owl and generally not terribly productive in the morning, but once I hit my stride in the afternoon/evening, my productivity continues to increase and I often find myself plugging away at 3-5am. I have found that it's in my best interest for throughput to continue when I'm "in the zone", but it does create some friction with the spouse.

I'm very interested in how to define the "enough work for the day" question. Or we could just listen to Dan Reeder: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNWhiXxdbWk

I do upload pdfs including bills and invoices (not paychecks since I don't have a use case for that). My wiki is private so it's only available to me. Plus I have extensions that allow me to render the pdfs nicely and index all the text in pdfs for easier searching.

I also host my own MediaWiki instance, complete with VisualEditor and a mobile skin. Out of curiosity, why are you not loading documents and images into your wiki? For images, I don't use it as an image repository, just for images of things specific to personal knowledge.

Cal Fire is unionized, Local 2881.

When I was a seasonal firefighter for Cal Fire (CDF at the time), every figherfighter had some level of union support, but there was "Full Share" and "Fair Share" options.

I worked as a seasonal firefighter for 6 years as I paid my way through college, at the time it was called California Dept. of Forestry (CDF) now California Dept. of Forestry and Fire Protection (or Cal Fire). I worked alongside the very hardworking inmate handcrews many times, their work like mine was difficult and risky yet we both chose to be there.

I made great money for my skill/expertise at the time, there isn't much I could have done with my summers that would have benefited me more, so there was a strong incentive for me to go back every summer, even given the inherent risks. I think an argument could be made that for many inmates, the benefit of a reduced sentence is similarly worth the risk, the payout in accrued daily/hourly time is just another bonus.

The article mentions not being able to be employed as a firefighter once they are released. This is (or at least was) false, there is (was) no requirement for an EMT and I personally worked with a former inmate as a firefighter and he's a captain now. I've talked to these guys/gals several times and they were all very happy and proud to be there, they had to be on their best behavior to stay and it was certainly a privilege for them.

Seriously though, these guys/gals work HARD! They are called handcrews because they use hand tools (chainsaws, axes, Pulaskis, McLeods, etc.) to cut fireline, this is by far the hardest thing I have ever done and they do it for hours in hot and smokey conditions. When we would see an inmate crew coming, it made our day and we were all very thankful for them.

Note, my hourly pay wasn't actually great, but during fires I racked up tons of overtime. It probably isn't too much different than locking an McDonald's employee in for weeks at a time, but having to pay them for the entire time they were there.

I'm a bit surprised not to see Excedrin mentioned anywhere. Perhaps it's because it has caffeine and reading some of the comments seems that caffeine (dependence) may be a trigger?

I'm not entirely sure if I get headaches or migraines, but whatever they are, they shut me down for hours and sometimes even a nights sleep doesn't clear them. Depending on the severity, 2-4 Excedrin will clear me up in about 30 minutes.

Did you try MediaWiki's Visual Editor?

Did you ever try Elasticsearch on your MediaWiki instance?

For just files (Word, Excel, CAD, pdf, PowerPoint, etc.) PDM/PLM software is amazing (some top products include Teamcenter, Windchill, & Enovia). They are tailor made to store the versions (including mark-ups) and provide workfows for approval, since they are born out of the need to store CAD parts/assemblies that have strictly defined parent/child relationships, they have no problems doing the same for more simple files.

For the "why" or "knowledge capture", I don't think you can do better than a Wiki and the dominant enterprise Wiki is most certainly MediaWiki. With extensions for improved searching, visual editor, etc., corporate wikis are more powerful and easier than ever to use.