kellishaver

I wonder how much more weight/space not having large solar panels gives them for scientific equipment. I assume it's a not-insignificant difference.

I'm very excited/nervous. I haven't felt this way about a space mission in a long time. My daughter (she's 10) made me promise to wake her up for it.

Same here. I tried low-carb for a while and while it was effective for weight loss, I found it very difficult to stick to. I know for a fact, though, that my body responds poorly to too many carbohydrates, so regulating sugars is important if I want to lose any weight (and probably also to stop myself from winding up diabetic).

I switched to intermittent fasting and I am losing weight and have more energy while having no problems at all sticking to the routine.

I skip breakfast, have a low-carb/high protein snack around 2pm and a normal dinner sometime between 6-8pm. So it ends up being about a 16-18hr fast. On Friday and Saturday, I'll relax the rules and have a larger lunch or maybe a midnight snack, since I tend to stay up later those nights.

That's awesome, fascinating stuff - thank you!

That's fascinating. It makes sense, in an odd way. His eyes are still functioning, but the brain can't process the incoming data, so things get remapped to areas of the brain responsible for other types of functions.

I have a bit of the opposite problem. I have a mild form of Charles Bonnet syndrome. The visual hallucinations I experience aren't extremely frequent or complex. I may have one every few days to every few weeks, and they usually only last for a couple of seconds. Mostly I just see abstract shapes (usually the same shape - kind of a glowing horseshoe). Once or twice, I have seen chairs.

Here's a great TED talk on it: http://www.ted.com/talks/oliver_sacks_what_hallucination_rev...

I really wish I could just subscribe to iPlayer. I don't want to subscribe to a cable or satellite service that I wouldn't use (and then pay extra for BBC channels), and I like a lot of their content. I'd gladly pay the BBC money for easy, legal online access to it.

I built Happy Docs a while back for documenting APIs. It's still a work in progress. It mostly gets used for internal projects, so there isn't a good public example yet that showcases all of the features, but it includes a query tool (a bit of a work in progress), several authroing/editing tools, collaboration, and a few different export formats.

http://happydocs.net

I'm guessing I have smaller hands (female) which I suppose could make a real difference in how it feels to hold/use the device and is probably at least part of why I find it more comfortable to use than the iPad.

I feel the exact opposite. I've had an iPad for a couple of years, and the Nexus 7 for a few days now. I always loved my iPad, but after just a few days with the Nexus 7, I vastly prefer it. The 7in form factor feels much more comfortable to use, while still being big enough to be practical (vs. the smaller form factor of a phone). I'm also loving how customizable Android is. Even just being able to set up a home screen that provides some useful information via a couple of widgets, instead of just a collection of icons is a bonus.

I love this font. Someone on here recommended it to me last year when I was in need of a fixed-width font that looked decent at larger point sizes (I was dealing with some cataract issues at the time).

This isn't entirely related, but it's an interesting story, so I think I'll share, anyway.

From my personal experience, even restoration of previous eyesight can be pretty unnerving for a bit.

I spent much of last year losing my vision as a cataract in my only eye got progressively worse. I put off surgery as long as possible due to a high risk of complications that could lead to total blindness. By the time I was ready to have the surgery, I couldn't see to do a lot of everyday things, like cook, watch TV, etc. and had a lot of colorblindness and diplopia (sometimes seeing as many as 8 'ghost' images when looking at an object).

The sudden improvement in my vision after cataract surgery took probably two weeks to fully adjust to, mentally. I actually had a bit of paranoia for a while, because I would see things in my vision that I wasn't used to seeing and it would trigger some sort of panic response. I hadn't been totally blind prior to the operation, but suddenly there was all of this detail that hadn't been there before (or that I hadn't seen in months, anyway).

I'd look at something and it was blue or had texture or cast a shadow. It made it very hard to concentrate. Everything was a distraction.

I remember that I had a mild panic attack one day shortly after surgery when we stopped for lunch. We were seated next to a window in the restaurant and it was very windy and cloudy outside. The wind blowing the clouds around was causing shifts in lighting coming in through the window and it was just too much sensory input for me to handle.

This is so very exciting. For the longest time, treatment of eye diseases has gone a little like this:

Refractive errors? Wear some glasses, contacts, or have LASIK

Corneal diseases? Tricker because you need a donor, but corneal transplant.

Glaucoma? There's a handful surgeries for that depending on type, and a plethora of drugs.

Cataract? I'll take an interocular lens, please.

Partially detached retina? There are moderately successful surgeries to reattach it, rates of success depending a lot on the health of the retina.

Retinal diseases? Sorry, you're screwed.

My left eye was removed when I was in my teens, and the retina of my right eye is damaged fairly extensively due to retinopathy (from being born 2mo premature). It's lead to various complications over the years, as well.

My biggest fear is going blind. I nearly am, and I think I still have a little PTSD from the last round of eye problems.

Now, 576 greyscale pixels isn't much, but it's only going to improve over time.

It's really exciting to think that people in my situation, and possibly even myself someday, will not have to face the prospect of total blindness from retinal disease.

Making friends as an adult can certainly be difficult, although I do think some of it may be self-inflicted. I find that I definitely am one to prefer quality over quantity, so a lot of times, I just don't go looking for new friends. The last time I did, I happened to get lucky. The last new friend I made was almost exactly a year ago, but in that year, he's become one of the best friends I've ever had.

He's an HN regular, so maybe he's reading this and will chime in and offer his view on the subject. :)

For me, there are all sorts of practical reasons, but a lot of it just boils down to the fact that there aren't a lot of people around me that I share common interests with. So most of my lasting adult relationships have started as online acquaintances that grew into real, meaningful, "offline" friendships (that's also how I met my husband 16yrs ago).

I can't decide if this is good or bad. I don't participate in a lot of FB groups, but I do a lot of politely keeping my mouth shut in other forms of online communication. I think I would feel like I was being put on the spot to say something, particularly in a small group.

A lot of times, I'm not going to lie and agree with that thing someone said, but I also don't want to invest the energy into arguing it with them, either... especially when it's someone who's clearly just looking for accolades and doesn't seem open to criticism.

If the other person knows you saw their message, then there's the potential for them to perceive your lack of response as rude or a show of obvious disagreement.

In huge groups, it wouldn't be an issue, but in smaller, more intimate communities, it could get awkward.

That's what I meant. I just kind of articulated it poorly, my apologies.

Yes, but on the site, they make a clear distinction between parametrized queries with PDO and other types of input filtering. I misunderstood and thought you were referring specifically to the latter.

If a library works like it should, then you may never have to look at it - that's great. But if you're working on a team, you'll have to read and understand other people's code all the time, and even if you're not, someone, somewhere, is going to eventually want to make that library do something different.

I agree that, of the two, good test coverage is more important than pretty formatting, but a good code style is going to make the code easier to debug when those tests fail and easier to extend when the library needs to do more. It's a simple matter adopt a coding style that works and stick with it, so there's really no good reason not to do it.

By comparison, it does seem like a trivial thing to obsess over. There are a number of coding styles which are all fine in their own right. I think people should worry less about the specifics and more about the overall intent-to write consistent, clean code. How many blank lines you have after block of code or where you put the opening bracket doesn't really mater in the end, as long as you follow the same structure across the whole code base.

With parametrized queries, that becomes a non-issue, but I still see no point in cluttering the database with data that's just going to be filtered out at some point - might as well filter it before it goes into the DB to begin with. The exception, of course, being those rare cases when some users need to see the filtered data and others need to see the raw data, but even then, you likely won't want to allow everything.

Right. I think the main take-away from it is to be consistent and make sure everyone on your team is on the same page about the coding style. I see the PSR as a basic set of good recommendations, rather than something that must be followed. It's a good idea to follow it, but at least follow something.

My only complaint with it personally is that I Can. Not. Stand. putting opening brackets on their own line.

My first real experience with learning to program anything (other than tinkering with some BASIC as a young kid) was scripting objects in a MUD. This was, I guess, the mod-90's, text-only equivalent of SL.

You could even attach HTML to them and view said HTML by tacking the object ID onto the MUD's web site address. That's how I built my first web site; editing some markup attached to an object on a MUD server, over a telnet connection.

My next big step up was the mIRC scripting language. You could make GUIs!

I don't think my exact model is made anymore, but it's extremely similar to this: http://www.amazon.com/White-Frosted-Glass-Steel-Fighter/dp/B...

I've had it for about 5 years now. I like the size of it and it's surprisingly sturdy, but I'm not overly fond of the glass top, because it's so hard to keep clean.

Nice, very smooth and fun. If you're going to require signup, perhaps at least integrate some way to share/tweet scores and view the leader board without having to go through a round of gameplay first.

I used it for free for a long time (longer than I care to admit) but by the time I did pay, I was so in love I would have happily spent 2x on it.

I modified this a while back to work in normal mode, for anyone who's interested.

https://gist.github.com/2996448

It was the one feature in Sublime that was missing for me, and the one I needed most at the time (cataracts suck).

I had the same experience. I don't make my email address public, but I do have it visible to friends - sharing contact info among selected groups is one of the few things Facebook is useful for. When I checked earlier, my real email was hidden from everyone and my friends were only seeing the @facebook.com address.

As someone with one eye, severe retinopathy, glaucoma, and an artificial lens, news like this excites me to no end - not for me, of course. It's probably too late to do anything about my damaged vision.

My eyesight has been fairly stable for most of my life, but I've had 8 eye surgeries over the years, there was a 6mo period back in 2008 that was pretty frightening, and I spent all of last year slowly going (more) blind and seriously thinking I would permanently lose my vision.

I've dealt with my poor vision quite well, I think, but watching it deteriorate to the point where I couldn't do things like cook dinner or walk down the street without a cane, and the thought of losing what's left was so downright awful that I think I've actually suffered some PTSD from last year's ordeal. Some nights, despite the fact that my vision is much better than it was (as good as it has ever been, though I am still legally blind), I sleep with a light on, because waking up in total darkness is terrifying.

I'll be glad when these worries are a thing of the past.

> I've read about the iBGStar a few times, but I really can't understand why they use the 30 pin connector instead of bluetooth. It seems unnecessarily limiting

Not to mention the fact that many diabetics need to check their blood sugar several times a day, which could introduce a lot of wear and tear on both the glucometer and the iPhone.

I remember when these machines cost several hundred dollars, were difficult to calibrate, and about the size of a netbook, but most glucometers these days are small and can be purchased for as little as $10.

The ability to record and track blood glucose levers over time is a "nice to have" feature, but this data could also easily be stored on the device and transferred to a computer later via a bluetooth or mini-USB connection.

I have friends with kids who have been held back, but these are usually kids who have some form of diagnosable developmental delay, not just an average kid not doing well.

This isn't really "the same thing" it's "some things that all fall into the same 3-5 categories."

I got into the habit of wearing the same thing everyday last year, when I was dealing with some pretty serious colorblindness (corrected now, thankfully). I settled on a dark grey shirt, a light blue shirt and black pants.

Not the fanciest of clothing, but I generally don't need it to be all too often.

I haven't diversified now that I can see colors again. This is easy, comfortable, and requires no tought.

The author, I think, takes a pretty big leap in concluding that the test is being used as a teaching tool, rather than a testing tool. Stating that the students are now stuck learning about microscopes through the test, rather than actually using microscopes seems like quite a stretch to me. Of course kids still use microscopes in school and do lots of hands-on learning. Both types of learning are essential and both are practiced. Does our education system focus too much on testing and not enough on hands-on learning? Maybe, but I think that still varies a lot from school to school, so it's hard and perhaps a bit unfair to make overall assumptions.

However, it does illustrate how the test is a poor evaluation of reading comprehension.

The problem I see is that it's not necessarily a reading comprehension question. It's a question about microscopes. If you don't happen to know anything about microscopes, then the answer is clearly there in the text and, at that point, it's about reading comprehension, but if you do, reading the text is completely unnecessary. So then it remains a question about general knowledge of microscopes, not reading comprehension.

Here's another example... My husband got into IT when he was young and never finished his degree. He's now decided that he wants to go back to school for a related, but different-enough field that he needs that piece of paper and additional training. Because it's been over 20yrs since he's been in school, and he's never attended school in the US, at the age of 40, he found himself taking the ACT a couple of weeks ago.

The "reading comprehension" portion of the test was full of paragraphs about various topics that anyone with an average amount of general knowledge would know and so, being pressed for time, he simply didn't read half the material. He got a perfect score on this section of the test.

That clearly demonstrates a level of intelligence on a variety of topics, and probably indicates some good deductive reasoning as well, but it doesn't show how well his reading comprehension is at all.

Now, he's 40, not 12, but the ACT doesn't look that much different than any other standardized test and it is (along with the SAT) a sort of be all and end all of evaluating a high school student's academic performance.