ecmendenhall
Joined 15 years ago
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474
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Member since
Aug 16
http://e.cmendenhall.com
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Comment · 10 years ago
I work with a manual QA team who explicitly recruit testers on the autism spectrum. It's a great mission and they've done great work: http://www.businessinsider.com/startup-hires-people-on-autis...
Comment · 11 years ago
The Harold McGee article linked on the right mentions that the alkaline ingredients in ramen noodles are slightly different from baking soda:
>As for the particular alkaline ingredients that are added to noodles, Chinese and Asian alkaline noodles, in general, contain potassium and sodium carbonate, which are not the sort of things that we usually have lying around in our kitchens. They’re carbonate salts of those metals, sodium and potassium. They’re standard ingredients in Asia but not so much in the West.
>However, you can easily make your own version of them by taking baking soda and baking it at a low temperature—200°, 250°F—for about an hour. You take baking soda, sodium bicarbonate, and turn it into sodium carbonate just by that gentle heat. Now, that leaves out potassium carbonate, but I’ve found that when I’ve experimented with it, simply using sodium carbonate gives you most of the effect that you’re looking for in an alkaline noodle.
Would it make sense to prebake the baking soda? I'll have to experiment myself.
Comment · 12 years ago
You're probably using the right thesaurus. The default on Apple devices is the Oxford American Writer's Thesaurus, which is great at conveying little shades of meaning. I'm always delighted to find a "Word Notes" entry by an author I like. Try "bourgeois" for Zadie Smith or "feckless" for David Foster Wallace.
(Here's a list of all the word notes by author: http://lasersoptional.com/2012/08/21/it-was-wonderful-marvel...)
Comment · 12 years ago
Ah, right. That makes sense. If only it was mentioned on the download page!
Comment · 12 years ago
This bug was pretty serious. I'd better be extra careful and install and verify this myself.
Oh, good: there's a standalone installer available (http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1726). But the download is served over HTTP. Maybe I can just try the same URL with HTTPS:
$ curl --head https://support.apple.com/downloads/DL1726/en_US/OSXUpdCombo10.9.2.dmg
HTTP/1.1 302 Moved Temporarily
Server: Apache/2.2.24 (Unix)
Location: http://download.info.apple.com/Mac_OS_X/031-3279.20140225.Zzasf/OSXUpdCombo10.9.2.dmg
Okay, I'll follow Apple's instructions for checking the certificate fingerprint in the installer (http://support.apple.com/kb/ht5044). But that page (Last modified November 2011) displays a different fingerprint (9C864771 vs FA02790F)...and that fingerprint was also served over HTTP.
Gives up and opens the App Store.
Comment · 13 years ago
If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on an encrypted, backed-up, redundantly distributed hard drive — forever.
Comment · 13 years ago
I wrote my undergrad thesis on conspiracy theories (in Turkish politics)[1], but it includes a section reviewing academic literature on conspiracy theories and a lot of resources in the bibliography.
Karl Popper wrote briefly about conspiracy theories in "Open Society and its Enemies."[2] It was part of a larger argument about emergent vs. planned orders, but I think it's a very good point: many conspiracy theories arise "from the mistaken theory that, whatever happens in society – especially happenings such as war, unemployment, poverty, shortages, which people as a rule dislike – is the result of direct design by some powerful individuals and groups." It's simply hard for us to accept that improbable, harmful events are the result of lots of unplanned actions rather than one malevolent design.
[1]: http://arizona.openrepository.com/arizona/bitstream/10150/14... [2]: http://ovo127.com/2011/01/24/sir-karl-popper-the-conspiracy-...
Comment · 13 years ago
Money might buy "freedom from depression," but I suspect it does so by buying antidepressants and therapy.
I think Robert Sapolsky is on to the best explanation of depression: it's a disease rooted in biology and genetics, similar to (and exacerbated by) chronic stress. (Here's a lecture that I'm sure has been posted here before: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOAgplgTxfc). Reducing stress can alleviate the symptoms, but really effective treatments treat depression as a disease.
Comment · 13 years ago
This is interesting, but I think completion rates (and enrollments, to a degree) are bogus statistics. All the incentives are aligned toward signing up for lots of courses, with or without any intention to finish. I'm "enrolled" in 13 Coursera classes at the moment, but only active in two (and something close to this has been my moving average for the last six months).
The only cost to me is a few too many automated emails. And since course quality still varies widely, trying out lots of courses and sticking with the best ones is a good strategy.