Amit Patel

What causes nearsightedness? It doesn't appear to be genetic. Spending lots of time outdoors while growing up seems to greatly reduce the chances of being nearsighted. - Amit Patel

My optometrist was very impressed that my myopia is getting better. He thinks it's because I take off my glasses to read, but now I think it's because I spent a lot more time outside than others. - Piaw Na

How multiplayer competitive games vary based on whether they're skill-based or luck-based, and whether they're played with strangers or with friends. - Amit Patel

Interesting... - .LAG liked that

“No pain, no gain applies to happiness, too, according to new research published online in the Journal of Happiness Studies. People who work hard at improving a skill or ability, such as mastering a math problem or learning to drive, may experience stress in the moment, but experience greater happiness on a daily basis and longer term, the study suggests.” - Amit Patel

"And what’s striking is that you don’t have to reach your goal to see the benefits to your happiness and well-being." - Clare Dibble

I wanted to use Flash 10's drawTriangles() API but it seems to be slower, and the output quality is worse, than Flash 10's other new graphics API. - Amit Patel

Athabasca Falls in British Columbia, Canada. - Amit Patel

Big waves coming up this weekend, between San Francisco and Santa Cruz. - Amit Patel from Bookmarklet

Looks like I missed the biggest waves, 35-43 ft last night (!!?). - Amit Patel

What's in Flash 10.1? Better error handling, microphone access, GPU acceleration, better video streaming, peer to peer networking, reduced cpu hogging on busy pages (example: not activating Flash until it's visible on screen, shutting down running Flash programs) - Amit Patel

Here's a blog post that has a little bit about plugin performance: http://webkit.org/blog... - Amit Patel

Stamen Design creates some neat visualizations. - Amit Patel

This was quite beautiful. A lake, mountains, and a glacier. And the next morning, sunrise reflecting off of the glaciers behind Lake Louise. - Amit Patel

“It sounds like a cop-out, but the future of schooling may lie with video games” - Amit Patel

At Yoho National Park in Canada. - Amit Patel

How popular Facebook games work and why they're popular. via nelson - Amit Patel

"At the demonstration non-lethal lasers were used, but they did present a video showing a mosquito bursting into flames and falling to the ground when hit by a laser. Not only can the system target a mosquito, it can also differentiate a male from a female – the females being the only ones that feed on blood and spread disease." - Amit Patel from Bookmarklet

WANT! - Private Sanjeev

"Lab Rat points out that bacteria armed with antibiotic weapons can even create collective “hunting parties” to bring down prey. One species, called Myxococcus xanthus, actually hunts in swarms, forming large groups to attack other bacteria and overwhelm their defenses." - Amit Patel from Bookmarklet

I notice the article quotes a blogpost from my friend Iddo Friedberg. :-) - Ruchira S. Datta

“Learn what you can do if you experience one or more of these issues with the hinges on your MacBook Air.” - Amit Patel from Bookmarklet

Apple has had hinge problems before the Air. I had an iBook that had a lot of problems with the display cable passing through the hinge, so it would only work when the screen was at a certain angle. I had it repaired under warranty and it happened again. Naturally, this started happening right after I told someone that this computer (my first mac) had given me less trouble than any PC I'd ever owned :) - Ben Darnell

This class provides a simple info box that will help you monitor your code performance. - flash memory and frames per second display - Amit Patel

Library for cross-platform Flash mousewheel support. Uses some ugly hacks as far as I can tell. - Amit Patel

‘ In fact, unlike Jeanne, Susan is a lifelong sun worshipper. In addition, Susan began smoking in her late teens, and although she stopped for six years in her 20s, she averaged a pack and a half a day for 16 years before quitting in her late 30s. Jeanne never smoked. Over time, it seems, these habits have made a remarkable difference in the way they look. Now, “Susan looks ten years older than I do,” Jeanne acknowledges. ’ - Amit Patel from Bookmarklet

Interesting bit: "According to the research analysis, every 10 years of smoking resulted in a perceived extra 2.5 years of age." (Trying to dig up the original study now to see if it actually did prove that.) - Stephen Mack

“Computer chassis are typically equipped with many case fans, some are designed for exhaust and others for intake. When intake fans’ combined airflow is greater than exhaust, a positive pressure is created inside the chassis. Conversely, when the airflow is greater for exhaust than it is for intake, a negative pressure is created.” - Amit Patel from Bookmarklet

The page has some good diagrams. The positive pressure seems to be better for dust but from what I've read elsewhere it's worse for cooling. - Amit Patel

While touring Canada's Banff/Yoho National Parks, we went to Emerald Lake. It's very pretty. It's glacial fed, so the water is silty instead of clear. But the big surprise here was that this is the site of the Burgess Shale! It's an incredible fossil site that led to the discovery of the creatures of the cambrian explosion (500 million years ago), my favorite time period in the evolution of life. The animals were odd — five eyes? spiny legs? This was before the common forms today (like two arms, two legs, one head, two eyes) beat the competing forms. The site is up on the mountain in the distance, and was unfortunately closed when they designated it a heritage site. - Amit Patel

Theory is that omega 3 (leaves) is “springtime” food and omega 6 (seeds) is “autumn” food, for storing up fats for winter. We now eat lots of seed/grain based food, so we end up storing too much fat in our bodies. Hm... - Amit Patel

"FlashSort sorts n elements in O(n) time. Flash-Sort uses a vector L(k) of length m in a first step for the classification of the elements of array A. Then, in a second step, the resulting counts are accumulated and the L(k) point to the class boundaries. Then the elements are sorted by in situ permutation." - Amit Patel from Bookmarklet

“Today the Google Maps team is rolling out a number of refinements to the look and feel of our maps, the biggest such changes since we first launched about 4.7 years ago. In that time we've been steadily adding details like walkways, address labels, bus stops, new country coverage, and improved satellite imagery, but the look of the map hasn't changed much.” - Amit Patel from Bookmarklet

"We're going to extract the DNA from a pumpkin." – using household materials and chemicals - Amit Patel from Bookmarklet

I'm amazed that one can extract DNA without specialized equipment. Thanks Simon! - Amit Patel

"DNA dissolves in water, so it stays in the juice. But when we float some alcohol on top, the DNA comes out of solution, and precipitates into the white goo we see at the bottom of the alcohol layer." That's not really an explanation though, why does the DNA come out of solution? - Benjamin Golub

25k 3d library for Flash 10 - Amit Patel

"The Alcubierre drive, also known as the Alcubierre metric or Warp Drive, is a speculative mathematical model of a spacetime exhibiting features reminiscent of the fictional "warp drive" from Star Trek, which can travel "faster than light" (although not in a local sense - see below)." - Amit Patel from Bookmarklet

Amit, you might like this book http://www.amazon.com/Secrets.... It's based on a really cool ether-based formulation of physics. - Private Sanjeev

That book looks scary ;) - Amit Patel

“It's a TARDIS! It's bigger on the inside! It's two feet tall (quarter scale)! And aside from the lights, everything you see is edible. Click for lots more detail and in-process shots.” - Amit Patel from Bookmarklet

“Review: "I've spent hours trying to write this review; trying to figure out how I'm going to preserve my precious journalistic integrity while reviewing Jesse Schell's The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses. I've been looking for ways to pan it, to do what all good critics do: critique... I can't. This is unequivocally the best book on game design I've ever read." - James Portnow, Edge Online(http://www.edge-online.com)” - Amit Patel from Bookmarklet

Also there's a Kindle version! Though at $44 it's the most expensive Kindle book I'd own. I think I'd spring the extra $10 for the hardcopy. - Kevin Fox