CraigBuchek's comments

Here's my answer on HOW to contribute to Open Source, if you're not a programmer:

http://www.granneman.com/techinfo/linux/contributewithoutcod...

Ooh - if I click that up-arrow icon, do I get to upload a version of the kernel?

Another possible explanation is that interstellar travel is impossible. Perhaps there's too much debris between star systems, and it's not possible to create materials strong enough to make a spaceship that can withstand a collision with the debris at the speeds required.

This doesn't quite explain the lack of communication signals. But if nobody can colonize the galaxy, then there would be less sources of signals.

BTW, the Wikipedia article on the Fermi Paradox (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox) does a very good job of detailing all the possible explanations.

I was listening to a talk on The Singularity, and it occurred to me that that might be a good explanation of the Fermi Paradox. (Which is similar to the author's idea, but a bit different.) Basically, our minds are likely to "merge" with the Internet, allowing us to tap into the internet as our personal and cultural memory storage system. But we cannot extend Internet access into outer space, due to latency and the inability to make copies of the entire Internet locally. So the future "us" would be tied to the planet in order to have access to our memories, which would be very difficult for us to live without.

I used to be a lot like that, and I worked on changing it. So that's my number 1 piece of advice -- work on changing what you want to change. Work on the big things as well as the little things.

I used to put my head down when passing people, to avoid eye contact. Silly as it sounds, I was able to help with that by humming the Argent song "Hold Your Head Up" in my head when passing people.

Another thing I did was to put myself in situations where I HAD to interact with other people. Sometimes this worked, and sometimes it didn't. I found that bars didn't work -- I'd mostly just stand there by myself. Then I'd go home and feel like a failure. (Note that I felt like a failure for NOT putting myself out there and talking to people. To me, that's more regrettable than anything stupid I might have done.)

Joining some clubs where I had an interest helped a lot. At first I just took it in. Then I started offering input during discussions. Eventually, I got to the point where I gave presentations in front of the group, and even larger groups. Now I also run the group (a local LUG). I wrote myself some tips on giving presentations, as well as for others, to share what I learned. My best tip to stop being nervous in this situation is: "Remember that the audience members are just like you, and are interested in what you have to say."

Leverage what you're good at to improve the things that you're not good at. For example, as I said, I was terrible at bars. But I'm good at writing -- and conversation once I know people. So I found that online dating worked really well for me. I got to meet people, but only after I got them interested in me from our written exchanges. At this point, I'd be more comfortable talking to them in person.

Another thing you can do is latch onto a friend that's more outgoing. Make sure it's someone who won't push you out of your comfort zone too far too fast. But have them take you places where you can meet people. They can introduce you and get the conversation started.

Eventually, you'll get to a tipping point where you realize that "failing" isn't so bad, and that "failures" are just learning experiences. Then you'll be able to say "what the heck" and not care so much about what other people think.

Good luck!

I think the point is that negative mass might be an explanation for dark matter and/or dark energy. Scientists don't really have any explanation for what either of those are -- they're really just "fudge factors" to make the theories fit our observations. To fully understand things, we need to figure out why we need the fudge factors.

+1 for FlySpray. It's PHP-based, and pretty easy to install and set up. It does take a few minutes to set it up to add your desired Task Types (TODO, Bug, Feature Request, etc.) and Categories. But once you've done that, it's quite easy to use, and looks pretty good too.

This is the advice I've seen from just about every financial adviser, for anyone not near retirement age.

Another nice thing about a Roth IRA is that you can withdraw all the principal (the part you already paid taxes on) early with no penalty. (Actually, you can withdraw the interest from individual accounts -- you just can't withdraw more than you put into ALL your Roth IRAs.) Although my bank seems to not understand this very well, and the government forms aren't very clear on it either.

Why don't critics of global warming ever present any evidence? That's how scientists do criticism. Any criticism of scientific findings without evidence is useless. Of course, the critics know this, and know that criticism without evidence cannot be refuted.

If you think that there's some sort of conspiracy going on, which is more likely -- energy companies making billions of dollars, or scientists making millions of dollars -- to be spending their money more effectively to change people's minds in order preserve their future profits?

Let's say 9 out of 10 doctors told you that you've got an 80% chance of dying if you don't change your diet. Would you think that those 9 doctors are conspiring against you? Or would you change your diet? That's pretty much the situation we're in here. (Except that the 1 doctor who disagrees also does a lot of work for the snack food industry.)

Does anyone ever live on the water in the Bay Area? I saw some houseboats in Oakland when I was there last, and thought that it might be cool to live on a boat actually on the bay.

Setting the threshold at 2 seems a bit high to me. It basically requires that (on average) at least 1 person upvotes every comment you make. That's unlikely to happen in a nested thread of back-and-forth conversation. And it's less likely to happen for people that are a little late to the conversation but still have some valid input. I tend to fall into the latter category -- I'm often reading posts that are several days old in my RSS reader.

Setting the threshold around 1.5 might work better. Or perhaps whatever threshold might allow 75% or 80% of readers/contributors to vote.

Not quite Comp Sci, but I like to listen to NPR's Science Friday podcasts. I have to rewind a bit once in a while if I have to pay attention to traffic, but it's nice to be able to listen to them, instead of "wasting" time listening to the radio.

Ditto. Pretty simple to install and configure. Looks decent, and works for me. Has some minor issues, and could use more integration with other tools. But only took a few minutes to set up on my LAMP server.

Sounds like a good idea. I know that there are several non-profit organizations out there that help people apply for free medications. Basically, each pharmaceutical company offers free medications for those in need (partly due to government incentives), but you have to go to each company to apply. So the non-profits help you find the right forms and fill them out. The one I've worked with is http://freemedicine.com/.

The health insurance problem is most certainly a moral/ethical problem. The problem is that insurance companies are rewarded for denying care to insured, when working (as most are) as a for-profit company.

I've been using Komodo Edit a lot lately. The nice thing is that I get the same editor in Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. And the snippets are nice, similar to TextMate.

My pseudo-code looks a lot like a mix of Python and Ruby. One thing I like about Python is the forced indentation, which allows skipping any closing braces or "end"s. But Ruby tends to be closer to the way I think of OOP, and is closer to English.

I've also been known to write out in mostly English sentences as comments, then fill in the code that implements that explanation.

> OneApp’s very minimal on-phone footprint of just 150 KB makes installing it quick and easy. OneApp will launch only the parts of a mobile app that you want to use; that cuts down on additional installation time

Can the OneApp developers please spend some time working on Microsoft Office? Please?

So long, and thanks for all the fish....

Perhaps you missed the part about CodePad compiling/interpreting the input. It's not just another pastie site.