ahains | 8 years ago | on: The cost of higher education for students on the edge of poverty
The one that drives me crazy is comparing an ongoing expense to the price of a latte each day.
ahains's comments
ahains | 9 years ago | on: Let’s Talk About Self-Driving Cars
Rather than a fallback driver having to physically enter the car, maybe they could take the drone pilot approach and control it remotely. There would be the latency to overcome, but the built in crash avoidance might be good enough for a relatively short/slow distance to exit the exceptional situation.
ahains | 10 years ago | on: Study is forcing economists to rethink high-deductible health insurance
and the name of the company in the episode is Smart Shopper, and a quick google search appears to the website to be https://www.vitalssmartshopper.com. Unfortunately their list of U.S. states doesn't include where I live.
ahains | 10 years ago | on: Literary Magazines for Socialists Funded by the CIA, Ranked
How about movements that direct money towards smaller or local entities? It's hard for me to imagine the eat local / farmers market movement as being quietly backed by corporations.
ahains | 10 years ago | on: Japan Building Giant Battery Systems to Store Solar Power
I love the simplicity of water / gravity energy storage. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-storage_hydroelectricit...
It obviously requires the right kind of terrain etc, but it is very very cool.
ahains | 10 years ago | on: The Story of Microsoft's Minecraft Buyout
I have to admit that I don't really understand the spirit of some of the commenters here that feel that the rank and file employees were wronged.
Every year my company has to decide how much bonus and equity to give me, if any, and I have to decide if I want to continue to work for them. If the work is interesting, my skills are growing, and the compensation is adequate, then I'll probably continue to stick around. If other companies offer me a sufficiently better gig then I'll leave.
ahains | 10 years ago | on: One year with the Truly Ergonomic keyboard
It looks like the author's name is Pete Egoscue
ahains | 10 years ago | on: One year with the Truly Ergonomic keyboard
The keyboard is a Kinesis Freestyle 2 (also referenced by other folks in this discussion). I find the regular one with the 9 inch cord is too short for the separation I need, so I have the 20 inch cord option. Come to think of it, I would be totally screwed if these went out of production, so I'm going to go order another one right now to keep as a backup. The trackball is a Logitech Cordless Optical Trackman, which is no longer made, and I wish I had a few of these stashed to use for backups.
ahains | 10 years ago | on: One year with the Truly Ergonomic keyboard
This is my current keyboard/trackball setup. I have been tweaking my configuration for a number of years and this is the most comfortable option I have found for my particular body ratios. I think the best layout may vary somewhat from person to person.
https://plus.google.com/107061065248858824293/posts/S7X6x9kA...
ahains | 11 years ago | on: Spiders Ingest Nanotubes, Then Weave Silk Reinforced with Carbon
This is SO cool. I'm going to start adding nanotubes to my morning coffee so I can write the unbreakable codez!
ahains | 11 years ago | on: GraphQL Introduction
FYI - I enjoyed a podcast recently on GraphQL/Relay -
http://devchat.tv/js-jabber/152-jsj-graphql-and-relay-with-n...
ahains | 11 years ago | on: More U.S. citizens have been killed by police than by terrorists
I totally agree with the point that the total number of murders from terrorists has not been that big in the grand scheme of things (not to make light of it). However, this kind of statistic is often used to justify a claim like "you are more likely to be killed by a cop than a terrorist," and I think that point of view is ridiculous. Surely some significant percentage of people killed by the police directly caused the showdown that killed them. I believe my personal likelihood of being killed by a cop to be very low because I plan to never endanger the life or limb of the police or innocent folks around me.
ahains | 11 years ago | on: Lessons in Electric Circuits
For the basics, I have had a lot of fun playing with the online circuit simulator at everycircuit.com.
I just received an email from them yesterday that they have an Android game Circuit Jam for electronics puzzles. I haven't tried it so I can't yet comment on how good it is, but I intend to check it out with my kids.
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