Hacker News: ursablanco

New comment by ursablanco in "The quest for freedom and safety: Why I donated $100,000 to YesOn19"

ursablanco — Sat, 30 Oct 2010 00:53:41 +0000

well, of course recent research has linked the highly modified strains of marijuana (ie, very high THC, reduced companion and modifying compounds) with schizophrenia and other disorders. This has fatal consequences, as I can attest to. See: http://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/natureofthings/2010/downside...

New comment by ursablanco in "Super-Soaker inventor may have solar-powered fuel cell breakthrough"

ursablanco — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 01:27:20 +0000

At a guess, it doesn't need to create a full-on plasma, just needs a lot Hydrogen ions hitting the membrane. A small amount of ionization will suffice - sort of like 'micropayments' or a long tail phenomenon.

Because that's what the membrane filters do. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proton_exchange_membrane http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proton_conductor Mainly they work on size - small versus really small.

Again, at a guess, it doesn't need to cool the other side - it's not a temperature gradient, it's a concentration gradient. And since the ions are being reacted back to H2 at a brisk rate, it's not a big problem. The more thermal energy you could maintain in the ions the better, because they wouldn't need as much heating once they'd been recycled.

It has a whiff of perpetual motion machine to it. Maxwell's Demon, I think.

New comment by ursablanco in "Countries ranked by ease of starting a business"

ursablanco — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 04:52:40 +0000

I agree, in Canada it seems trivial. Perhaps the study presumes some lower level of capacity, literacy or computer ability.

The numbers for 'enforceability of contracts' and 'paying taxes' are absurd. Puts the rest of the results in doubt.

New comment by ursablanco in "The Evaporative Cooling Effect in Online Communities"

ursablanco — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 03:39:46 +0000

You wouldn't be the first to twig to the idea that democracy is not the way to achieve the best of something - but that's not its intent - its intent is to provide some degree of fairness. And even then, it's willing to trade fairness for everyone for merely a guarantee of fairness for a majority.

If you locate a reputation system that produces better quality or decently filters better quality, please brag about it, I'm sure you'd have a success on your hands.

New comment by ursablanco in "What a scientist didn't tell the New York Times about his study on bee deaths"

ursablanco — Sat, 09 Oct 2010 19:53:24 +0000

And his particular domain is exquisitely narrow ... as further evidenced by the breadth and depth of his ignorance. Sorry to rant, but there's a guy that gets on my nerves.

New comment by ursablanco in "What developers think when you say "Rock Star""

ursablanco — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 23:35:55 +0000

Yup. Partially finished code - the main use cases covered, the fun and satisfaction drained out of the project. Now that I hire, I wouldn't ask for a rock star since it doesn't actually convey any of the qualities that we're looking for.

New comment by ursablanco in "What makes the US health care system so expensive"

ursablanco — Sun, 03 Oct 2010 19:00:50 +0000

It's a silly thesis. For one thing it confuses cause and effect.

For another, compare the per capita GDP of Norway, which is higher than the US's and Norwegian health outcomes, which are also better.

I'm left wondering; what about the current situation so appeals to the blogger that they attempt to make it an inevitable outcome of being a really rich country.

New comment by ursablanco in "Hunter S. Thompson's brutally honest Canadian job request"

ursablanco — Sun, 03 Oct 2010 17:39:21 +0000

The Sun has a long history of establishment suck-holing and sucking-in-general that continues into the foreseeable future. There's not a chance that Thompson worked there.

New comment by ursablanco in "Live stylesheet editing"

ursablanco — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 07:03:09 +0000

It would have been more interesting if the first thing I did wasn't to change em's to px's. Apparently I can't read 2px text.

New comment by ursablanco in "iOS developers: Are you shocked by how vengeful users can be in the app store?"

ursablanco — Sun, 19 Sep 2010 22:01:21 +0000

Why should users feel so upset about a free app they downloaded that they would take the time to write a negative review, a review they probably didn't read before downloading themselves?

My guess - because, when a user goes through the process of evaluating a for-pay app and then deciding that they want to pay for it, they're saving face by not critiquing the app if they decide that it's not what they wanted. If they evaluated it, paid for it, and realized that it was a mistake, they're basically saying "Oops. I'm an idiot and I just wasted five bucks."

New comment by ursablanco in "Beautiful and simple sparklines with source code"

ursablanco — Sun, 12 Sep 2010 06:12:18 +0000

I'm sure there's great uses for these things, but currently they're a solution in search of a problem. This is wishful thinking:

"The last data point, annotated with text and a dot tells the reader the value, allowing them to intuitively set the scale for the rest of the graph."

If the HTTP return codes is the killer application for sparklines, I couldn't say. I'd have to wonder, though, if this were a mission critical issue: Would you do the same thing?

New comment by ursablanco in "The Physics of a Fighter Jet Rainbow"

ursablanco — Sat, 11 Sep 2010 21:42:19 +0000

That it's being viewed through a polarized filter is key. If you were to view this unaided, you wouldn't perceive the colours.

My guess is that this caused by internal reflections in a slew of similarly sized water droplets. Much like a rainbow, except that this is backlit.

New comment by ursablanco in "How to keep someone with you forever"

ursablanco — Sat, 11 Sep 2010 08:20:48 +0000

sounds like democracy