Bill de hÓra › Likes

Nassim Taleb would be proud. =) - Darren

Bet you are pleased to have that behind you; great to see Alan Turing -http://tinyurl.com/no85d4 - on the front cover. Seb. - Seb Schmoller

What is new in the third edition? - Brandon Smietana

Brandon: I think if you value your time at about $5/hr or more, you should buy the third edition. What's new: http://aima.eecs.berkeley.edu/3rd-ed... - Peter Norvig

I'd hope there'd be some kind of strategy to it! Though, if I were to take the "obvious" path, it's because people want less computer for their computing these days. And, as the video says, more people are spending more time in the browser, so...! why not just rid of all the other stuff that gets in the way? - Chris Messina

Google Chrome runs web pages and applications with lightning speed. Chrome OS runs them even faster. Faster means more users on the web. More users on the web means more users using Google. That's a pretty simple, and highly effective, strategy. - DeWitt Clinton

Well, I think the coupling of Chrome OS to specific hardware reqs is one of the more interesting things here. It gives Google a "hand to reach out into reality" in a way that it only previously had with Android/G1 devices. - Chris Messina

(As always, speaking for myself, not Google) I assume the coupling to hardware specs is the only reasonable way to guarantee sane behavior. Encouraging people to install it on arbitrary hardware would open it up to all the problems that any non-Windows OS (and sometimes even Windows) has on arbitrary hardware -- driver hell and unpredictable performance. Very similar to Apple's approach, but without the overpriced hardware. - Joel Webber

I wish. - Kevin Fox

Woooohooooo. Damn. - Fossil Huntress

Nice ;) - niniane

WOW! - Carlos Ayala

I just got vertigo, tipped forward and smacked my forehead into my monitor. Thanks, Kev. - Mark Novak

I think that may be the flu more than the pic, Mark. ;-) - Kevin Fox

LOL @Mark. - Admiral Anika

Dazzling Scenic Picture. Not recommended for people with Vertigo - Acharad-Sami-

GAH. Clicking away from this! *vertigo in full effect* - tinypants - Hagitha of FF

WHOA that is scary and cool all at the same time ... just stunning! - Susan Beebe

just added this to "things I must see IRL before I die" list. - FF's Bubba of Arizona

Neat. So where is this? - Kekoa Proudfoot

Coooool !! - Keiko Yamada

What if... - Ozkan Altuner from iPhone

Seems like Huangshan to me: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... - Yinhaiming

Amazing, indeed. - Onur Kabadayi

Gorgeous! Do you know where is it? - Nicolas Dufour

I need to go there. - Parvez Halim

i would poop my britches. - Joe Silence is silent

Amazing! Do you where in China? - Frank Da Silva

/r location - Chris Hofmann

better than any roller coaster.. - \(*_*)/

Woah... crazy! :D - Joel Lovato

I'm guessing it's the only lift mentioned on Wikipedia for China: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... "access to mountain tops of Zhangjiajie National Forest Park in Hunan, China" a few pics via Bing: http://www.chinatravelca.com/uploads... , http://www.chinatravelca.com/uploads... , http://www.chinatravelca.com/uploads... - Andrew C

i'd do it in a second. - T. Brent, technopeasant

I wanna ride!! - nakachi

What if they took the gondolas off one day a week and turned it into a zipline? - Kevin Fox

I'm wondering where the gondola locates in China? - Xitong Liu

Oh my, that's crazy. - Amit Patel

"In continental Europe a big part of an estate (often around half) is reserved for the surviving children of the deceased and must be equally divided between them. ... Finally, “clawback” laws in many countries stop parents from dodging forced heirship by giving assets away while they are still alive. This applies to gifts made in the last years of life (two years in Austria, ten in Germany), or much longer: in some countries, no time limit applies." - Paul Buchheit

I bet the Europeans think it's crazy that we reserve half for the IRS :) - Private Sanjeev

I thought only millionaires had to reserve half for the IRS. - Gabe

As of 2009, it's 45% for estates valued at over $3.5MM, with exemptions for small businesses and farmers. It affects less than 1% of the US population at present. It's set to revert to $1M in 2011, but there's pretty much no chance that Congress will let that actually happen. - Joel Webber

@Sanjeev: In Europe the inheritance tax rates vary, but can be similar to the US, and the exemption limits are often much lower: "[2007] France if you are inheriting from a spouse you receive up to €76,000 tax free. Anything above this limit is taxed at between 5 and 40 per cent, depending on the size of the gift. But the rate for non-relatives is a hefty 60 per cent, with no... more... - Simon

Like the Apple Store? :) - Ray Cromwell

Please allow 6 to 8 weeks for delivery - Charles Ying

You've obviously never worked for a large company. - Glen, Bespectacled Elder

You would be amazed how many large corporations still do this. - dthree

First off, it doesn't matter what the developer wants; decisions are made by the product manager and reviewed by the higher product review board and the VP of product. Then the UED team gets involved and the design has to be done, redone, pitched, explained, and revised. The change also needs to make it onto the next quarter's roadmap, where it can be evaluated in light of other... more... - Glen, Bespectacled Elder

I'm not ignoring the fact that corporations go through a lengthy process to ensure the quality of their products. Of course Facebook does this too, and so do I personally. The point is, we are the ones who are qualified to determine when the app is ready. Apple is just a middleman, and they have a very limited ability to test the quality of our app. - Joe Hewitt

A couple times Apple has caught bugs in our app and notified me of it, but they have also missed huge bugs that went through. The app on the store right now is orders of magnitude more buggy than the one sitting in the review queue. - Joe Hewitt

I can only assume the review process is there for Apple to test compliance with their terms of service, and any bugs they find along the way are incidental. Thank goodness the web doesn't have a terms of service and a review queue. - Joe Hewitt

With 40 apps per day per reviewer, I'm surprised the approval process works as well as it does. - PXLated

Has any other company ever been faced with as many apps in such a short period as Apple - Just curious - PXLated

If we developers always programmed everything to be perfect before releasing it, nothing would ever get released. ; ) - John Wang

it would look like an MMO they release half broken stuff every two weeks like clockwork - Robert Higgins

Your question mentioned nothing of Apple and the App Store. I was merely responding to the question asked. Specifically, if, each time a developer wanted to change their site, it had to be approved by a committee with a 2-week delay, it would represent a vast improvement in the speed of delivery of site changes and probably a corresponding decline in the quality. Apple imposes their... more... - Glen, Bespectacled Elder

Sorry, Glen, the context in almost all of my tweets relates to iPhone development :) - Joe Hewitt

Of course, Apple can do whatever they want, and I can go elsewhere. I am making suggestions on how they can improve their flea market and prevent people from going elsewhere. I believe the web has set the precedent that big platforms like the iPhone can thrive even without a centralized quality control bottleneck. - Joe Hewitt

But Joe, the iPhone isn't like the web as a whole - it's more like gaming platforms and probably more open then they are. Will be interesting to see what happens on Android and if in fact it is more open, and if so what kind of chaos may ensue. - PXLated

Are you serious - "prevent people from going elsewhere" - Where? And pass up the iPhone audience/marketplace? Even if Android is a success, developers won't leave iPhone in spite of all the bitching. - PXLated

The iPhone is not a "gaming platform" until they tell me I can't develop anything but a game for it. A significant chunk of iPhone apps, mine included, are basically iPhone-optimized websites written in Objective-C. I admit that I don't see anyone, myself including, abandoning Apple over this issue, but I do believe that the quality of apps on the platform is being hurt by it. Just because other platforms are even more restrictive, like Playstation or some mobile platforms, is not an excuse. - Joe Hewitt

It's not an excuse but none is needed, Apple developed a platform and set the rules just as the gaming platforms did/do. I'm personally not sure the (overall) quality is being hurt either. - PXLated

In fact, maybe Apple should be a lot more restrictive - 65K apps probably confuses the hell out of many users. Maybe they need a rating system and then start eliminating the poorly performing apps. Get it down to a reasonable (best of breed) 5K ;-) - PXLated

"Apple developed a platform and set the rules" - well there's a news flash. I don't think anyone needed to be informed of that. I think Joe's just trying to make the point that centralized control isn't necessary for the good apps to rise to the top. Would you consider the web to be a success if there were 65k sites (please don't get pedantic and point out that sites aren't apps; the argument holds for any reasonable multiplier)? - Joel Webber

"Get it down to a reasonable (best of breed) 5K" - And exactly from what larger pool would you take that best of breed? If the breed's too small, you can't *have* a best-of-breed. The web's an unholy mess, but its size and chaos are precisely what makes it successful. People still manage to find the good stuff. - Joel Webber

It would look like the website where I work.... - Don Schuetze

What would the web look like if a developer could be shut down for an alleged ToS violation? Like FaceBook? - Kevin Marks

That's a lot better than how web applications ship. Please allow a few months before we change it. - Burcu Dogan

Apple is famous to put limitations at the beginning and then drop them ( remember drm?) I am pretty confident that the approval process will be easier and quicker in the near future. - funkyboy from iPhone

You would have [insert any corporate review process here]. For significant changes, this is understandishable. However, it gets insidious when everything looks like a nail ... even if it isn't. - Joe D'Andrea

so the girls are wearing glasses over their contact lenses? good grief - ௸ (k2g)

Many pictures on the site have the girl's nose or mouth inexplicably covered. - Gabe

Gabe, that was really strange. - Admiral Anika

never knew how big of an issue this was until i heard about "the operation" that's kept on the hush - Cee Bee

k2g ♥ (*´ｪ`*), the contact lenses are not prescription so the girls with glasses over the lenses are wearing the lenses for looks and the glasses for correction. - Rochelle

Do some of those pics seem a little photoshopped? like, the whole thing is kinda artifacty, except the eyes are like super sharp and saturated? Odd..on the other hand... it kinda does work on me. :) - felix

@felix: Actually, some of the lenses are designed to look that way. They have sharp flecks and bits of white & color to make your eyes look more sparkly. But yeah, I'm sure there is Photoshop in there. I can't believe the 3rd pic is a guy, he is too pretty. - Jess Lee

I'd love to see this in real life. :) - felix

That guy isn't half as pretty/girly as some of the Korean/Japanese male pop/rock bands I've seen. Especially in J-Rock. It's amazing how Anime/Manga has become like a cultural virus/meme, literally dominating certain standards of fashion and beauty. It seems the eyes mimic children, whose features are larger in proportion to their head, and fashion tends towards Victorian childhood. :) - Ray Cromwell

誰ですか？ - share2torrent

seen this first hand. will again soon (travelling through Japan and S'pore in less than 2 months). creepee! - Joe Silence is silent

But wai? - Pete Delucchi from iPhone

I am so disturbed by how much I want these contacts. - Heather

so the idea is a phisical alteration IRL in order to be similar to a manga cartoon? omg. out of the blue, the future suddenly happens - Alberto D'Ottavi

suddenly is often how it happens. - Joe Silence is silent

Have you tried the new Placebo XR extended release caplets? - Jim Norris

First thing. There is a natural reason for depression. Second. Just the diagnoses and the that something is done is talking steps in rignt direction. What's more interesting is why one gets depressed. Its the brains way of saying that we need to change something. That we don't have balance. Most meds try to make ppl cope and keep status quo. Ie undoing and avoiding change. This is probably not helpful when they need a break. - Jonas S Karlsson from Android

This is really a fascinating read. I expected to see more placebo in nervous-system disorders, but was surprised to see things like Chrohn's disease listed as well. The real takeaway from this article for me is that it will always be difficult to separate variables in research on humans, because there's no escaping the giant feedback loop among the world, the brain and human culture. - Joel Webber

On the other hand, it's also exciting to think of the opportunity that may exist here -- if the placebo response can really be this effective, understanding the neural and biochemical pathways involved could lead to more effective therapies, both at lower doses of drugs, and eschewing drugs altogether when we can find other ways of triggering the response. - Joel Webber

Think for a minute about what the placebo response is. It is partly a reflection of "things will get better anyway." The rest of it is "someone is ill whose body had all that was necessary to heal itself." So if placebo becomes more effective, either (a) the spontaneous recovery rate is going up -- which I don't think it is because diagnoses require persistent symptoms -- or (b) more... more... - Daniel Dulitz

His books are wonderful as well! His brilliance spanned a much larger realm than just physics. My favorite is "The Pleasure of Finding Things Out." - Mark "Godt Nyt Ǻr"

AWESOME!!!! - Jeannie Choi

Unfortunately those are only available with Silverlight… - Mathieu

I wish they'd make video podcasts of them available. Would be great to watch 30 minutes every day on the bus. - Thaths

Ha, maybe on Zune. - τorƍue

Thaths: have you looked on YouTube? I'm pretty sure they've been up for ages. - Gabe

The lead researcher on the World Wide Telescope project showed us this a month ago when I was visiting Microsoft Research. I kinda forgot about it, cool stuff. I need to watch. - Cornelius Toole