zalzane's comments

zalzane | 10 years ago | on: Twitter Falls Below IPO Price as Concerns Mount Over CEO, Growth

imagine if snapchat announced that they would start living and dying on their core business rather than try to expand

now you have a bunch of investors who are upset that they invested in a company at a 16 billion dollar valuation that has jack diddly squat for income and has no promise of some magical "over the horizon" way to monetize

zalzane | 10 years ago | on: War in Space May Be Closer Than Ever

I honestly think a space race to Mars is a huge waste of time and effort. Literally the only reason to establish a colony on Mars right now is research, and that can be performed cheaper by robots.

I think the Moon would be a much better prospect. Lunar regolith can be refined into silicon, oxygen, iron, alumnium, and other metals. With hydrogen and a few other key metals imported from Earth, the Moon could become the center of space manufacturing for satellites, spacecraft, and other products that require an ultra-clean environment during manufacturing.

If a space war means putting mass into LEO/GEO is much more expensive because of armoring, mining the moon for resources becomes that much more appealing - especially considering it costs 1/20th the fuel to put an object in LEO from the Moon than from the Earth.

zalzane | 10 years ago | on: History's Worst Software Bugs (2005)

it wont, but the vast majority of errors with math formulas are along the lines of adding velocities with positions, raising something to the wrong power, using a multiply instead of an add, putting a parenthesis in the wrong spot, performing equations in the wrong order, etc.

all of those can get caught with type checking, but it isn't perfect

zalzane | 10 years ago | on: History's Worst Software Bugs (2005)

>"a formula written on paper in pencil was improperly transcribed"

offtopic, but a unit type would have prevented that. i had no idea how many errors i was making in my math programs before i started using F#'s type checker to make sure all the types lined up properly.

zalzane | 10 years ago | on: Tell HN: Hello

> This place is overwhelmingly full of smart people, and I sometimes feel out of place!

Rule 1: Don't confuse intelligence with experience.

Technological and critical thinking skills can be learned by everyone given enough time and effort. A lot of people dismiss any possibility of becoming technically minded by saying "only smart people can do that", even though they have the potential to gain the same skills.

zalzane | 10 years ago | on: The town that banned Wi-Fi

in the article it says they don't want to submit to testing

> None of which gets round the core issue: if EHS is real, I asked Diane, then why has it not shown up in formal experiments? “I encourage scientists to go to where we are and measure the environment,” she replied. “Don’t try to pretend that you’re God and expose us to different frequencies in a lab. That’s like taking someone and breaking their legs and asking how much it hurts.”

zalzane | 11 years ago | on: The cold fusion race just heated up

>Scientists have never been allowed to examine the E-Cat, details of the supposed physics have never been revealed, and even the identities of his US business partners were only discovered by online sleuthing.

for fucks sake, why even publish such a bogus article

zalzane | 11 years ago | on: NASA’s Orion Spacecraft Splashes Down in Pacific After Test Flight

when talking about space travel, speeds and distances aren't relevant the same way they are planetside. in space travel, it's all about who's gravity well you're stuck in, and how much delta V itll take to transfer to a different gravity well.

if we're talking about probes, the delta V aspect becomes a lot more fun when you consider the web of gravity slingshots that can be pulled off to up your dV

zalzane | 11 years ago | on: A Minecraft world that has been played for 3.5 years

Pretty big world, but it doesn't even compare to 2b2t in scale.

For those who havent heard of it, 2b2t is an anarchy survival server that's been around for about the same period of time, 3-4 years, with no resets. Virtually the entire map from the spawn point to 5km from spawn is a desolate wasteland littered with ruins griefed bases, castles, and megastructures.

With the introduction of the hunger system everything got a lot more interesting, requiring new players to make a mad scramble from spawn and try to find some source of sustenance. It's not uncommon for new players searching for food to duck into a 2-3 year old base that's been long abandoned but has a few precious pieces of bread left in a chest.

Typically players will build their bases anywhere between 10-500km away from spawn, and when they do, they build some of the most impressive bases I've seen in the game. One favored hobby of many regulars is to go hunting for these gems that have usually been abandoned years past.

Google it and you can get a good idea of exactly how old the map is, but the pictures really don't do justice to the absolute carnage of spawn.

zalzane | 11 years ago | on: Nexus 6

ive got a droid maxx with a 5 inch screen, and it's a bitch to fish it out of my pocket when its got its silicone protector on.

also i miss being able to share my phone pocket with my wallet

zalzane | 11 years ago | on: The iPhone 6 Review

I honestly can't figure out which is more entertaining - reading that kind of vitriol directed towards apple, or watching apple fanboys defend their idol every time they do something wrong.

You tend to get so much of the latter on HN, so reading that guy's comment is almost refreshing :)

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