parallel

It's for phones. They scroll well vertically and fingers are fat.

Yeah, I was just talking about the easier concept of x^0. Going the other way, 0^x it makes a lot less sense to me. I know that for all positive x, 0^x = 0. That it pops up to 1 at the origin means the thing is not smooth so drawing lines isn't going to help us.

Plotting z = y^x could be interesting but we're going to see asymptotic behaviour at x = y = 0 (when going in the x direction). So no easy wins there.

> How would you explain to a 10-year old why 3^0 = 1

You draw the line 3^x. It "passes through" 1 when x = 0. So don't think about the point, think about the line. It's not rigorous but it's intuitive.

http://fooplot.com/index.php?q0=3^x

edit: added link and fixed typos

This article is not about how to break a caffeine habit. It's about the benefits of only taking caffeine occasionally.

ok, thanks for the clarification. I was confusing the The Met with the City of London Police.

I've also heard this about large maglites. In fact they are often carried by being held near the globe end with the body of the torch resting on the shoulder. This allows the torch to be swung down onto a victim's collarbone breaking it and disabling that arm. (Apologies for the gruesome detail.)

The city of London has it's own police force called the Meltropolitan Police (the Met). This is a different organisation to the normal English police. I think the Met carry guns but the normal police don't.

Rome has a similar thing with the Carabinieri, I understand these guys are part of the military.

Agree, but perhaps without the "be a man" part. The offer to to do "anything we can" comes across as an offer to do what is asked, so a passive stance. "We're here to help" is not the same as "we're helping by doing this."

Is this sort of thing an issue in other countries. I'm a tech founder in Australia. I don't think we have the same level of anxiety about being sued for unknowingly breaching a software patent. Can anyone comment on this? Is our patent system different or can we expect to see our industry similarly affected in the future?

Few downvotes there. Like to hear why people disagree or if I've said something clearly wrong.

Note that my comment was specifically about criticism of the design being familiar and not innovative. I'm saying these things are ok if the design works well.

"Newer isn’t better. Better is better."

Sometimes it takes courage to put forward a design that doesn't have the glamour of the new. Things that work well can often be boring.

EDIT: quote is from http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2803681

Right, I didn't realise that mechanism existed, thanks for the heads up. It makes sense, removing the opportunity for slippery dealings with preferential treatment of some debt over the rest.

As I understand it you default on a loan, you don't default as an entity. So it's doesn't really make sense to talk about Greece defaulting without saying which loans they defaulted on. Hence the "kind of"/"selective" etc.

I read this as Greece defaulted on kind of all it's loans, so defaulted on some and not on others. The others may have been renegotiations, longer terms etc.

The story here is, 'hide complexity'? Or perhaps 'Focus on the details of user experience'?

I love the reference to "all of this business at the top". Perhaps there's a design principle in there. If a user is ever referring to "all this business..." then you've gone off track.

Yeah - this works well and there are no catches. The data is in a few human readable files and there's a path in the config file (.taskrc) pointing to the directory where they live.

So you just move the data folder to your dropbox and edit your .rctask file accordingly. Of course you need to do this for every computer, so it makes sense for the few machines that you usually use but you don't really get the available-anywhereness of an online app.

Somehow, no idea why, that seems really appropriate.

I'm a big fan of taskwarrior, a CLI todo list for linux. I find I use it more than web based ones as I'm always in the console so there's little mental mode switching to use it. Basically not having to go to a browser or touch the mouse makes all the difference.

I'd love it if someone made a todo web app that could sync with taskwarrior. You then get the online slick interface of the web app with the low friction accessibility of the console interface when in the zone at work.

Yeah, fair comment. The art is deciding if there is sufficient room for improvement or if a novel approach will work. If I were splitting hairs I'd say we agree in that if the "right" solution isn't there then we don't have a solution.

I didn't say stop improving on solutions that miss the mark. I just think there is a lot of unexplored territory for software developers. People like to solve problems they have and understand. To do list apps are the classic example for developers. I'm just saying there's a lot of opportunity out there if you step outside your comfort zone.

All I know about this app is that it's a web based todo app. I was clear on this so to pick me up on it is a bit out of line. A better response would be to point out how it improves on what's already available.

My plea to the HN community; stop solving the same problems. If you really want to make something that people want then find something that people don't already have. This may be outside you area of immediate experience.

(Note - this comment was made without seeing the app - getting 502.)

I think we agree, but to elaborate; The point I'm making is that this shouldn't be the case (and needn't be a joke). I've raised funds from "friendly" sources a few times. In each case it's been made clear that the investor should be doing so doing so to make money. If they lose their money it's because they invested poorly, and it was their decision. They are asked to weigh up their other investment options such as the stockmarket and property and make a call.

If friends and family want to 'help out' then investing is probably not the vehicle. They should lend money. There's will be less upside for them but the debt will stand if the venture fails.

"We raised from nearly every friend and family member we could get excited about our idea. The joke is, if Earbits fails we won’t have a friend or family member left."

Something is very wrong here. If people invest in anything they must take on the associated risk.

The statement is a little misleading. He's not saying you can't have a function that grows faster than e^x as you certainly can, for example the the gamma function.

I think he's saying that for a process where the rate of growth depends on the current "population" such as interest in a bank or splitting bacteria then exponential growth is limit.

Perhaps this would be more intuitive if shown graphically. Something like; draw a curve where the gradient is the value. As the value goes up, so does the gradient, so does the value and so on. What you have drawn, e^x is the function where the value is the gradient - exponential growth.

Part of the reason for this is that the center of the galaxy is in the South, at about 30 degrees. So many astronomically interesting things are in that direction. Obviously not the case for a solar system object like an asteroid however.

So, a question for you epochwolf. Why would you not say these things to people face to face?

I don't think the concept of contributing anonymously is necessarily a bad thing. Your online personality might be polite and contribute positively where as your real world personality might very shy and unable to participate in discussions at all.

That idea was from a concept I came across somewhere on the web; "No one wants to read your s--t" . I think it's something of a mantra in the advertising world.

It struck me at the time as I was working with a CEO who thought length == quality in communication, both writing and discussions. I think that he wrote things for his own gratification, it probably gave him a feeling of productivity. Sadly a lot of what he wrote wasn't read, or not a carefully as it should have been. It takes effort and generosity to write for the reader.

Yeah, I take the point. I wouldn't like to lead a work life where my only motivation comes from artificial rewards or motivational hacks. If there is no intrinsic motivation in the work then something fundamental has gone wrong, like career choice.

However, we are human, and the most suitable work for an individual is still work, parts will be more painful than others. It's these parts where there can be, let's call them "disciplines" that will help.

Perhaps "hack" isn't the right word but there are techniques or tricks that will result in higher productivity.

One technique I use is to think about how I would tackle a task if I were to do it. So you start to break it down, think about the first step, and what would follow. Pretty soon what was an really objectionable undertaking seems achievable and I launch into it.