Disqus - Latest Comments for logicalextremes

Re: Oh, FriendFeed is now Facebook’s “official” R&D department!

logicalextremes — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 17:50:21 -0000

One more item for #6... + Facebook does not allow pseudonymous accounts, FriendFeed does. Google does. Twitter does.

Re: ZumoDrive is going to change EVERYTHING

logicalextremes — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 22:19:01 -0000

"The FUNDAMENTAL problem is that I want everything in The Cloud. Everything." - Wow, that's pretty scary. Hard drive space gets cheaper and more reliable by the week. Services like this strike me as Thin Clients 3.0, solving a problem that doesn't really exist on a mass scale (though certainly there are niches of users that it works for). It's one thing to want to back up in the cloud, but I would never want to accumulate more data than I could store (and reliably back up) on local physical media.

Re: How To Type ♺ On Mac, And The Reasons Why Not

logicalextremes — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 15:46:44 -0000

I think it encodes as one byte, I managed to get 140 of them into Twitter and through to FriendFeed... http://friendfeed.com/e/fd205492-60e7-c48d-c6ea... But I agree it's not universally compatible, so should be used with caution.

Re: Fred Wilson Dot VC

logicalextremes — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 17:51:37 -0000

I don't disagree with the anti-consumer aspect of exclusivity (all carriers are guilty of this), but... Warranty and insurance don't cover negligence, only defects. But the Apple Store may be lenient, it's worth a try. But if not, ATT is telling you wrong. Even if you are within your current contract, it should definitely be at the subsidized price if the contract is getting extended. I've done this, push back.

Re: Dominiek - web, technology and startups

logicalextremes — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 19:56:22 -0000

Privacy is only dead for those to choose to have none...
http://logicalextremes.blogspot.com/2009/01/pri...

Re: No More Laptops or Work in My Bedroom

logicalextremes — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 21:31:54 -0000

That's a good idea. I usually fall alseep within a couple of minutes, but I've read a lot of articles that suggest a pre-sleep ritual, including distraction-free relaxation. Came across this also... http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/2198316.stm ...I always thought music would be a distraction to sleep, but maybe I never tried the right kind.

Re: The question is wrong

logicalextremes — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 21:31:59 -0000

But in your new 3-child problem, the game has ended once you give that information. There are no more unknowns. It's a different class of problem.

In the original problem, we are told only that of two children, one is a girl. The other is still a mystery, and has a 50% chance of being a boy and a 50% chance of being a girl.

Re: The question is wrong

logicalextremes — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 19:01:51 -0000

The simpler, intuitive to some, way to think about the problem is that children ARE like coins... successive children are independent events. It's irrelevant whether one is a girl or not. The odds of any given child being a boy or girl is 50%.

Re: The question is wrong

logicalextremes — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 17:19:17 -0000

Paul, you are absolutely right of course. 50% is probably the most acceptable answer because people should be able to assume that all known information has been presented in the problem, and it has not been rigged in some arbitrary way. The rigged problem is essentially similar to the Monty Hall problem http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Hall_problem where motivations and asymmetric information come into play.

Re: louisgray.com: 5 Questions and Answers to Better Understand Blu-ray

logicalextremes — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 22:36:55 -0000

Good additional detail, Phil. I think the takeaway for most consumers is that it's not a simple yes-no answer. The last couple percent of video quality improvement to be extracted from a standard DVD depends on the specific TV, DVD player, and Blu-ray player combinations being considered. But in practice, they will all look about equally great to 90% of the population.

Re: louisgray.com: 5 Questions and Answers to Better Understand Blu-ray

logicalextremes — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 22:30:43 -0000

480p (progressive) is the best a conventional DVD will do, but older players without a digital output will be sending this to the TV on an analog component (or, worse, composite) connection. This analog connection is generally inferior to an HDMI connection (one factor is that it goes from digital data to analog signal, then gets converted to digital again in the TV). But newer DVD players with an HDMI connection should give comparable performance to a Blu-ray player (with an HDMI connection), with regular DVDs. The settings on the player and the TV can be optimized to take advantage of whichever has better scaling hardware.

Re: louisgray.com: 5 Questions and Answers to Better Understand Blu-ray

logicalextremes — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 20:45:45 -0000

I question the "boost" in resolution that a Blu-ray player can give to a traditional DVD. There are only so many bits there (480p) and a player can't create data from nothing. DVDs really do look pretty darn good on a large HDTV, particularly via a digital (HDMI) connection. I'm not aware of anything a Blu-ray player can do to improve traditional DVD output quality that a good modern DVD player can't do. It comes down to which chunk of hardware has the best algorithms, and most consumers have little desire or knowledge to get to that level.

Re: WHAT SHOULD WE DUMP CABLE TV FOR? BOXEE | My Philly Network

logicalextremes — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 16:27:37 -0000

Also on the waitlist, but the email said it might be weeks :-( Thanks! [email is my disqus name at gmail.com]

Re: Favorite Films, One Letter at a Time

logicalextremes — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 15:42:39 -0000

I organize many of my DVDs chronologically, some by genre, director, studio, or grouping (e.g., trilogy). Movies I've seen at the theater I have in simple chronological lists by the year I saw them. Picking a best of by alpha I think would require a good alpha database like you have. I'm looking for a good way to database the movies I've seen (something in the neighborhood of 4000) and movies I want to see.

Re: Quiz: Guess the Horror Clips

logicalextremes — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 01:14:11 -0000

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.

Nice montage, BTW. The accompaniment was very well done.

Re: Coming to a Podcast Near You!

logicalextremes — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 01:40:30 -0000

You guys have a great group rapport, and the range of topics keeps things interesting. Nice job!

Re: Internet fallout from the crashing market (Scripting News)

logicalextremes — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 15:12:33 -0000

Yahoo Mail Classic (free) unfortunately doesn't have POP, IMAP, or bulk forwarding. So you're left with either individually saving or forwarding, or upgrading to Mail Plus ($20/yr) and POPing everything. Maybe someone knows a way to script Yahoo webmail. iPhone will download messages from a Yahoo webmail account.

Re: Internet fallout from the crashing market (Scripting News)

logicalextremes — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 13:18:47 -0000

Good time to backup your user-created content from all of your services [and, put in place a system for keping it regularly backed up]. Some services are great and will export nice open formats. For others, the best you can do may be to save complete HTML pages.

Re: louisgray.com: Five Creatively Obnoxious Things to Do With Social Media

logicalextremes — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 10:50:26 -0000

An Eliza bot auto-replying to Disqus could be comical. I've done that as an IM away mechanism before.

Re: Logical Extremes - Q. How long did the Great Flood last? A. We know...

logicalextremes — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 21:51:41 -0000

Turns out this was just a bad attempt at satire...
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/09/ther...

Re: Matsie For the Tumble! - Possible mock up for SMAT! logo.

logicalextremes — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 22:09:42 -0000

SMAT! could become its own verb too, great for branding... Digg this, SMAT! that!

Re: Fred Wilson Dot VC

logicalextremes — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 21:56:02 -0000

Although Palin hasn't converted her personal beliefs into policy, she has said "I am a proponent of teaching both... both sides of the subject – creationism and evolution" later amended by saying "I don't think there should be a prohibition against debate if it comes up in class. It doesn't have to be part of the curriculum." [ http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/sliming... ]

The fundamental problem is that there are not two sides on this issue in a science class. Discuss creationism all you want in a college comparative religions class (I doubt there are (m)any in public schools). 42% of the US population believes that humans and other living things have existed in present form only (no evolution of any kind, including divinely guided) - That's a frighteningly high level of scientific ignorance, and unless we correct it we will continue to lose competitiveness globally. [ http://pewforum.org/docs/?DocID=215 ]

There is no provable mutual exclusivity between science and faith, but faith has absolutely no valid place in science class or government policy.

Re: Logical Extremes - My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2008-9-7)

logicalextremes — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 15:20:44 -0000

Interestingly, I've been listening to my last.fm Recommendations station all morning, and it's been playing a lot of stuff that's almost nothing like any of these.

Re: Thanks Google Now I’m Going To Hell

logicalextremes — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 20:10:25 -0000

Definitely. Among the many other improvements, Chrome makes site-specific browsers obsolete. It may negatively affect Firefox and Safari adoption some in the near-term, but Safari should be helped in the long-term. It may even largely obviate the desire for runtime environments like AIR (I really hope it does).

I've had issues with the productivity of web apps since the beginning of the web, but at least there's a ray of hope now.

Re: Fred Wilson Dot VC

logicalextremes — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 13:15:32 -0000

I don't doubt that there are illegal immigrants serving prison sentences in the U.S for felonies, but that does absolutely nothing to prove the specific assertion of "over 30,000 Americans being killed by illegal aliens since 9/11 on our own soil".

I don't want to take up any more space in Mr. Wilson's fine blog on a debate that is tangential to his post and is going nowhere. I'm easy to find on the Internets, and we can continue this elsewhere if you wish.