News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

zeynel

zeynel on Hacker News

Re:Inventor Trains Crows to Find Money on Thursday December 25, 2008 @03:00PM (#409731)
Very interesting. Thanks for the TED link. But is there a reason why he is not showing an actual crow dropping a coin in the box? All he shows is a drawing and then he describes what happens.
Re:Seth's Blog: Gravity is just a theory on Wednesday December 03, 2008 @03:33AM (#384172)
I think Seth Godin got it right. Some of the comments here also prove how much Newton is a brand around which a perfect marketing campaign has been formed. I wrote a post about this:

http://science1.wordpress.com/2008/12/03/the-greatest-market...

Can sorting be compared to matrix computation?

Posted by zeynel on Saturday November 22, 2008 @01:55PM
from the self-post dept.

I have a question about two articles recently on HN. In one of them a physicist says that"There is no computer on Earth that could possibly store such a big matrix in its memory"On the other Google says that they sorted "1PB (10 trillion 100-byte records) on 4,000 computers" in six hours.I know one is talking about matrix computation the other sorting. But is there a way to compare these two to...

( Read More... | 2 comments | on HN )
Re:Gmail's New Default Theme is a Step Backwards for Usability on Friday November 21, 2008 @04:18PM (#372339)
How did you go back to classic permanently? I click "Older version" and it goes to classic mode for that session but every time I open it I get the new version.
Re:Ask HN: How do you write a book? on Sunday November 16, 2008 @03:42PM (#366273)
Thanks everyone for great advice! This was very helpful

Ask HN: How do you write a book?

Posted by zeynel on Saturday November 15, 2008 @07:26AM
from the ask-hn dept.

What is the best way to organize a complex or chaotic topic into an organized whole? I'd be grateful for practical solutions people actually used to complete a book. Thanks.

( Read More... | 26 comments | 33 points | on HN )
Re:Chandrayaan 1 captured by Moon on Sunday November 09, 2008 @02:52PM (#358458)
There's more info about Chandrayaan on this blog with a nice picture of earth

http://onionesquereality.wordpress.com/2008/11/03/chandrayaa...

Re:Prometheus: 2000 year old programming code on Saturday October 25, 2008 @03:47PM (#343749)
#Skimming the article, it is sounding a #little bit like "intelligent design", #when it talks of "programming" humans.

Well, I am really disappointed that the article sounds like "intelligent design." That may be due to my inarticulateness. I have no intention of advocating "intelligent design."

I am just curious to know if there is an academic or scholarly field where people study programming outside of computers, more specifically, programming humans.

#In a sense, natural selection programs all #organisms by allowing only the fit variations #in a given generation to survive, promulgating #the "fit genes" forward, but "design" or "program" #are terms in this context to be used metaphorically.

But it seems to me that "natural selection" is a term that needs to be used metaphorically as well.

In the article, the Prometheus story is not metaphorical. It is a real story written by a real person. I am trying to understand if humans reading the Prometheus story can be considred to be programmed in analogy to computer programming.

So when I read a Sunday paper supplement about discounted items and I go buy one, am I being programmed? What is the scholarly field that studies such programming?

Re:Prometheus: 2000 year old programming code on Saturday October 25, 2008 @10:57AM (#343576)
I just posted this to ask people here if it makes sense to talk about programming anything other than computers and if not what kind of science investigates this subjects. Thanks.