Chris Granade › Likes

Rob Carlson points out that lawyers for Myriad Genetics have argued that they should be able to patent substances like lithium and, one presumes, the rest of the periodic table. - Michael Nielsen

You Are Here - Chad Orzel

"So who exactly is Josef Oehmen and why did he write about the nuclear accidents in Japan? Oehmen agreed to tell New Scientist his side of the story – and it suggests that a minimum of research by the mainstream journalists who quoted his essay could have established much earlier that it was not the definitive account they thought it was." - Chad Orzel

But... but... but... When do I get to panic? - Chad Orzel

A foolproof strategy for making money, that I am sadly far too ethical to use. - Chad Orzel

Oh, this is just absolutely fantastic --- it's the _very first_ article in the very first journal ever, by Henry Oldenburg. 1665. And, guess what? It's behind a #?@!)%$ paywall. Well done, folks. - Michael Nielsen

The alternative sources of these early Phil. Trans. journals include the Internet Archive (http://www.archive.org/search...) although it's difficult to navigate through their interface and I think a lot are only abridged versions. The other is the Internet Library of Early Journals... more... - Dan Hagon

A rather nice description of Orwell's great book: "1984 may be the most successful memetic engineering project in history. He developed viral antibodies for totalitarianism and then injected them into our culture. It worked so well that people say "Orwellian" to mean "totalitarian-esque" in the same way they say "Kleenex" to mean "facial tissue"" - Michael Nielsen

Anonymous: "So why can't you sell this information to the FBI like you intended? Because we're going to give it to them for free." - Michael Nielsen

I knew there was a reason I didn't read Harpers... - Chris Granade

Awesome. - Michael Nielsen

The C64 was my first introduction to computers, as far back as I can remember. - Mr. Gunn

"Lukas, it seemed, had served mixed drinks with the best of them at the Paris Ritz, the Waldorf-Astoria and everywhere else on that circuit. But he’d jacked it in and taken up a defunct lease in the City, to follow a vision; the vision of bringing the crude pseudoscience of bartending together with the noble art of homeopathic medicine. The cocktail he had painstakingly constructed for me had been made from a base of gin, mixed with gin from a bottle which had once contained a drop of vermouth, and stirred assidously over gin from a bottle which had once contained a sliver of ice. Lukas had been up all the night before, pouring and re-pouring the gin, to ensure that these original ingredients had long since been rinsed away." - Chad Orzel

That's brilliant. Thanks for sharing it! - Chris Granade

are we there yet? are we there yet? - Christina Pikas

Not offhand. Not 100% sure whether it was Brand or Minsky. I've heard one of them quote the other on it. - Michael Nielsen

Of course, all of mine (that isn't work product) is on my blog and so CCZero already. But this is a neat idea. - Bill Hooker

There's plenty of controversy about the new full body scanners that the TSA is installing at airports, and plenty more about the way some TSA agents are handling those that choose to opt out. The heart of the matter comes from the fact that the TSA often doesn't understand that it is in show business, not security business. A rational look at the threats facing travelers would indicate that intense scrutiny of a four ounce jar of mouthwash or aggressive frisking of a child is a misplaced use of resources. If the goal is to find dangerous items in cargo or track down Stinger missiles, this isn't going to help. - Chad Orzel

But they don't force you to get there early - Fleagle

They do if you want a good seat. especially for a popular movie on opening night. - iTad

But no one forces you to go on opening night. See where I'm going here? There's always a choice. No one's FORCING you to do anything. - Fleagle

Most adorable research video ever. - Chad Orzel

"This manifesto is dedicated to one of the most important numbers in mathematics, perhaps the most important: the circle constant relating the circumference of a circle to its linear dimension. For millennia, the circle has been considered the most perfect of shapes, and the circle constant captures the geometry of the circle in a single number. Of course, the traditional choice of circle constant is π—but, as mathematician Bob Palais notes in his delightful article “π Is Wrong!”,1 π is wrong. It’s time to set things right." - Chad Orzel

"Before the First Person Shooter There Was the Second Person Thinker" - Michael Nielsen