thalur's comments

thalur | 15 years ago | on: Inspired by XKCD:903, Wikipedia steps to philosophy

I don't think it works correctly though... it uses "Author" as the first link whereas the first link in the text of the article is "webcomic" ("Author" is in the summary pannel on the side)

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Xkcd

thalur | 15 years ago | on: Amazon.com Now Selling More Kindle Books Than Print Books

I can only speak for myself, but the arguments you list aren't things I would really consider at the time of purchase: I've never yet wanted to buy a book anonymously using cash, though I won't rule out wanting to do so in the future; the lack of/limited lending is a concern, but if the cost of the book is low (e.g. ~£1 like a lot of self-pub books are) then I would be happy to buy a copy instead of borrow one, and if I'm buying a book (of any sort) the lending potential of that book doesn't figure into my decision at all anyway.

thalur | 15 years ago | on: Anarchism, Capitalism, Altruism : Why do I open source?

There are a lot people who do open source stuff and make a big thing out of it ("I think a github link is more important than a CV" etc.) to the point where those of us who don't, the silent (majority?), may feel we are somehow lesser programmers as a result.

thalur | 15 years ago | on: Kindle and Nook readers bash high e-book pricing with angry one-star reviews

I was thinking of reviews along the lines of "I'm sure this will be great. 5*" I'm not sure if I've seen any like that on Amazon though, now that I think about it.

thalur | 15 years ago | on: Kindle and Nook readers bash high e-book pricing with angry one-star reviews

I have no probelem with people leaving 1* reviews without reading the book, just like I have no problem with Amazon removing those reviews (and only those reviews). Yes they are annoying, but they are also one of the few visible ways to protest. While "not buying the book" will probably be effective in the long term, an indivudial non-purchase isn't going to be noticed by anyone.

A similar situation to this frequently arises when big games are released on Steam. Amazon then gets flooded by 1* reviews from people who can't get Steam to work properly on release day or something.

I also find the opposite very annoying: when fans rate something as 5* before it's even released.

thalur | 15 years ago | on: Java vs. Scheme in Education

"When you buy a car, do you insist that it has manual windows and no power steering?"

But when you are learning how a car works and trying to build one, you would start off with one with manual windows and no power steering.

thalur | 15 years ago | on: Deaths per unit of energy for various sources

The outcome in Japan may have no impact on the statistics, but it will have a massive impact on the opinons and beliefs of the human decision makers. Waiting for it to resolve will allow calmer heads to prevail.

thalur | 15 years ago | on: Dirty Percent

I may be wrong, but I thought the choice between DRM or not for books was up to the publisher and not Amazon?

thalur | 15 years ago | on: Warn HN: How to accidentally, irreversibly nuke your Facebook account

I'm not sure your example works because one would not normally expect a person to be turned into a cake, so the "give you a cake" reading is going to seem much more plausible.

If the button said "Make myran a genius", what would you expect to happen?

thalur | 15 years ago | on: How My Smart Phone Contributed To Getting Me Out Of A Speeding Ticket

Some GPS units can measure speed by doppler shift. However, I wouldn't be surprised if the receivers in smartphones can't.

thalur | 15 years ago | on: Last.fm co-founder: Apple just fucked over online music subs for the iPhone

I was wondering if there might be a way around that rule by claiming that what you sold in-app was a different product from what you sold out-of-app (e.g. on your website), but I'm not sure it would really work.

E.g. you sell the in-app "iPhone exclusive" version for $x and the out-of-app "everything except iPhone" version for ($x * 0.7) and then provide a "works on iPhone for no extra cost" special offer.

thalur | 15 years ago | on: Middle-earth according to Mordor - The Lord of the Rings retold

Given that they mostly appear to grow up in racially homogeneous surroundings, can you really tell which attributes are genetic and which are environmental?

thalur | 15 years ago | on: Space Stasis (Neal Stephenson)

8) Expansion (possibly covered by 5) 9) to preserve the Earth: if we can move the bulk of the human population off planet before we totaly destroy it, we could turn the Earth into a planet-sized nature reserve.

thalur | 15 years ago | on: Time Investment

Ah, I miss-wrote. I meant "arranged" by the author when I said "done" by the author. As you and the other commenters say I meant an author can go out and find an editor/proof-reader/cover-artist etc. and pay them directly for their work. I've written enough reports to know full well that an author can't proof read his/her own work.

thalur | 15 years ago | on: Time Investment

"Their other services (editing and packaging) do have value, but not nearly enough to account for their customary share of the gross."

And, as I understand it, these things can be done directly by the author. So a lot of what is left is the publisher takes on the risk - they pay for the editing, the artwork, the printing, the marketing etc up front.

thalur | 15 years ago | on: Time Investment

This topic comes up in a lot of his other blog posts. He cites both never-published-before authors, and already published authors using pen names being successful.

However, I don't really see how an unknown name can become successful without self-promotion just by putting a book "out there". They would have to get insanely lucky and get a high profile review without soliciting it.

thalur | 15 years ago | on: Clever Algorithms: Nature-Inspired Programming Recipes

Have you considered selling it on the Kindle/iBooks/B&N etc?

thalur | 15 years ago | on: My Favorite Chart on Earth

The graph is titled (roughly) "500% rises follow inflation". It could just as easily be titled "500% rises are followed by inflation" from the same data.

thalur | 15 years ago | on: Piracy Doubled My App Sales

How did you get the figures for the number of pirates? Is it the anti-piracy code you added reporting back to you?

thalur | 15 years ago | on: Watch a swarm of flying robotic drones construct a tiny building

Depending on which waveband you use, different vision tasks become a lot easier. It looks to me like all the sensing is done by the room, not the quadrotors, hence why its all room-mounted.