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pa5tabear

165 karma · joined August 7, 2013

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pa5tabear··on Why Wait? the Science Behind Procrastination
Do you think you can attribute the relaxation more to the breathing or stretching component?

I've been doing casual meditation (mostly just mindful breathing) and I wonder if I'd further benefit my mind from Yoga. I already do intense cardio and resistance exercises from other activities.

pa5tabear··on Swift is Open Source
I recognized the name Catmull from Steve Jobs biographies... lo and behold you're talking about the Pixar President Edwin Catmull.
pa5tabear··on The Future of Dieting Is Personalized Algorithms Based on Your Gut Bacteria
The keto (short for ketogenic) diet is a popular name for this. You only eat proteins and fats as your macronutrients (with room for 20g or less of net carbs per day). You have to consciously choose to avoid carbohydrates, which can be difficult. But the energy/mood stability and quick weight loss are undeniable positive results.
pa5tabear··on Why the Internet of Things Is Going Nowhere
Doesn't the industrial/building automation industry already have solid solutions for your fridge example?

Many buildings already have sensors wired in to PLCs and it's easy to network with the PLC to record and display the signals (for which there are many existing "dashboards" - HMI packages of varying cost and ability).

I don't think it would matter much who owns or maintains the server if you're using a PLC to aggregate your signals onto the network. Many companies are paranoid and would want an in-house server. But it wouldn't be much different to use a cloud based instance.

It's true that existing automation hardware and software are obscenely expensive compared to consumer tech, to the point where renting/subscription might make sense for certain use cases. The systems sufficiently complicated, though, that independent professionals usually manage the setup and maintenance.

pa5tabear··on Hiroyuki Nishimura, founder of 2channel, has taken ownership of 4chan
It's a test that university graduates in the traditional engineering disciplines (civil, mechanical, etc.) usually take in the USA. After 5 years of work experience, you take another test, then your state's licensing board gives you a stamp and the credential "Professional Engineer" (P.E.). You can then take on liability for project documents that you stamp, so you charge clients/employers more money.

It's mainly useful if you work for a consulting company.

pa5tabear··on Marijuana tax take nearly double expected in Colorado
I think you're very wrong about educational funding. There's a high correlation between a schools relative wealth and its relative academic success in each state (mainly tied to property taxes). Yes, I'm sure there are exceptions, and yes there's lots of room for systematic improvement. But more money could absolutely make a difference at the underperforming schools.
pa5tabear··on Michael Crichton and Computers
Prey

"The book features relatively new advances in the computing/scientific community, such as artificial life, emergence (and by extension, complexity), genetic algorithms, and agent-based computing."

pa5tabear··on For only the second time in our history the ownership of The Economist changes
The first issue from 1843 can be viewed here, and Incognito mode can be used to (mostly?) bypass the article viewing limits:

http://www.economist.com/node/2002191

pa5tabear··on How Not to Die (2007)
Not dead according to this month-old article.

http://news.sys-con.com/node/3350225

But they do seem to have fallen off that billionaire trajectory.

pa5tabear··on To help poor people, give them money
Some poor people are just born into bad situations and stay that way. You can't extrapolate your limited experience onto all of them.
pa5tabear··on To help poor people, give them money
>>>And logically, if the poor as a group were good with money, they wouldn't be poor.

Give poor people a reward/goal within reach and then see how they do.

I know working on long projects can be very draining because weeks can pass by and I'm still very far away from the goal of project completion.

Poor people's lives are like that. They have to jump through more hoops and exert much more discipline for their life to get better.

pa5tabear··on Ask HN: Do you use Vagrant or Docker for active development?
That's a tasty sounding software stack
pa5tabear··on A Profitable and Legal Way to Game the Stock Market
Don't the top hedge funds consistently outperform the market?
pa5tabear··on Square Will Name Earvin “Magic” Johnson to Board of Directors
Most NBA players actually come from middle or upper middle class backgrounds.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/03/opinion/sunday/in-the-nba-...

pa5tabear··on Show HN: My Property Tracker, with automated data entry
So am I understanding correctly that "market research" means selling data mining insights to advertisers? Do you expect this to be a significant portion of revenue?

(I don't have a problem with this- I'm just curious.)

pa5tabear··on Evan Spiegel Reveals Plan to Turn Snapchat into a Real Business
>Spiegel seems like a really cool guy with a heart in the right place and is probably a genius.

What do you base this opinion on?

I guess he might be cool but I don't think the press about him indicates genius or a rightly placed heart.

pa5tabear··on Yellen cites 'potential dangers' in U.S. stock valuations
Time to rebalance into bonds?
pa5tabear··on Talking About Money
I'm curious about the endemic reasons.

Overall, is it that being closer to the product feels better? And did you really shake all the "weird feelings"/impostor syndrome about charging a high rate?

pa5tabear··on Ask HN: What are you doing to look after your posture?
I'm in my early 20s but I had major back pain for about 6 months. I thought it was caused by my limited flexibility and trying to lift too much weight at the gym without maintaining proper form. My lazy posture didn't help the healing process, of course.

These are easy actions that I think helped me:

-Using a standing desk is probably ideal, but sitting with good alignment is better than bad. I put reams of paper under my monitor to raise it up and I really like this chair (often on sale for under $100): http://www.officedepot.com/a/products/604924/WorkPro-1000-Se... This chair is rated at 8+ hrs/day, and locks to support a range of spinal angles such as this "optimal slouch": http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/6187080.stm

-Be careful with compound weightlifting like squats, kettlebells, deadlifts etc. Using bad form (curved back) will increase the force on the edges of your spinal disks by a factor of 2-3. Trying to lift too much weight compounds this. Both lead to injury.

-Make flexibility a priority over cardio or strength. Do back/hamstring stretches a few times a day until you reach a good level of mobility. I've had the "upward facing dog" yoga pose recommended among others. The therapist I saw also recommended doing "neural glide stretching" where you push for a few seconds, release slightly, then repeat.

pa5tabear··on Elon Musk's first wife on what it takes to become a billionaire
Biggest examples in what way?
pa5tabear··on Ask HN: What startups were refused from YC but became successful?
Did you intentionally mix serif and sans-serif fonts on your website?

It made my amateur design hackles stand up.

pa5tabear··on How AeroPress Fans Are Hacking Their Way to a Better Cup of Coffee
You don't think pressure matters when plunging? I've speculated that a faster plunge might extract more solutes from the coffee grinds due to greater liquid penetration into the coffee grounds from higher pressure.
pa5tabear··on Andy Hertzfeld's take on the Schlender-Tetzeli bio
Is it known that Apple leaders endorse the contents of Becoming Steve Jobs?

Perhaps Apple chooses to promote the work for the publicity despite its angle on Jobs' career stages. They might dislike the Isaacson biography now but they promoted it plenty when it came out...

pa5tabear··on The gamble on Tesla’s gigafactory in the Nevada desert
Is the work-life balance working for a facility like this as bad as it is for the more design-oriented engineering at Tesla?
pa5tabear··on Why Nobel-Winning Scientists Are Getting Older
Yes, but perhaps computers can also accelerate the rate of learning in the right hands. Especially as we become better at interfacing with them, the knowledge of the cloud can be viewed as an extension of the mind and only the most key concepts need be learned in detail.
pa5tabear··on Poor Kids of Silicon Valley
How do you propose we fix the education system?

The largest predictor of educational success, like you said, is money. You can try to equalize, but the rich will always find ways to spend more money on their children's education.

I don't think there is a solution as long as America's rising inequality continues.

pa5tabear··on We need more STEM majors with liberal arts training
>>STEM has low standards and anybody can decide to be a biologists on a whim

I'm not following... what do you mean by biologist? As far as I've been informed (perhaps biased by the difficult job market of recent years) it is VERY difficult to find actual jobs doing meaningful biology work.

pa5tabear··on For Dave McClure’s New 500 Startups Fund, U.S. Institutions Shy Away
What's the effect you're talking about? I assume they favor diversification and therefore cause lower overall variation in the performance of companies invested in?
pa5tabear··on Ask HN: How to use small chunks of time productively
Keep different lists for tasks requiring different levels of focus and/or prep.

My job has a mix of rote work and analytical work so I try to switch between them to maximize my focused time without fatiguing too much.

pa5tabear··on Rejected for a Job at the Container Store
Yup. It gets a bit annoying when people try to figure out why they didn't get the job.

The answer is always that someone else was preferred over you. You usually can't know if your interview performance was a determining factor.

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