21 APR 2014 by ideonexus

 The Terran Computational Calendar

Synchronized with the northern winter solstice, the terran computational calendar began roughly*10 days before the UNIX Epoch. Each year is composed of 13 identical 28-day months, followed by a 'minimonth' that houses leap days (one most years and two every 4th but not 128th year) and leap seconds (issued by the IERS during that year). Each date is an unambiguous instant in time that exploits zero-based numbering and a handful of delimiters to represent the number of years and ...
Folksonomies: standards timekeeping
Folksonomies: standards timekeeping
  1  notes

Zero-based, resets off the winter solstice, begins 10 days before the UNIX Epoch.

11 FEB 2014 by ideonexus

 The Curse of the Gifted

When you were in college, did you ever meet bright kids who graduated top of their class in high-school and then floundered freshman year in college because they had never learned how to study? It's a common trap. A friend of mine calls it "the curse of the gifted" -- a tendency to lean on your native ability too much, because you've always been rewarded for doing that and self-discipline would take actual work. You are a brilliant implementor, more able than me and possibly (I say this a...
Folksonomies: education talent gifted
Folksonomies: education talent gifted
 2  2  notes

Because some people grew on their own talent, they never learned to appreciate the reasons for overhead.

Eric S. Raymond writing to Linus Torvalds.

A summary of points from this conference session about portraying scientists in fiction and getting science facts right:

  • Hollywood blockbusters carry so much weight, need to get more science into this medium
  • Scientists need to be telling their own stories. There are only about 120 books about scientists.
  • What does it mean for a story to accurately portay science? Getting scientific facts right? Or scientists reacting in a way scientists should react? Believes stories are about people, making them more important than the facts.
  • Star Trek: Starhip Mine: “terrorists steal MacGuffin juice from the warp core” Barrion sweep on the enterprise, but barrions are in all atoms. LOL Cats as up and down quarks. Maybe the Barrions in ST were exotic sub-space barrions. We can use the episode to teach proper science.
  • 2012 had a ridiculous premise, but the scientists were awesome.
  •  Michael Crighton: Climate Change book was silly, Andromeda Strain was silly
  • Jennifer: Percival’s Planet, example of good science story about the discovery of Pluto
  • Science presented without scientific process is just magic.
  • "Tron Legacy" was awful, but for me Tron, had Unix commands, mentioned genetic algorithms, I got much more enjoyment out of the film than the average viewer. Would including something about the game of life or evolving programs through natural selection make the film more interesting? The screenwriters were obviously familiar with the concepts, why did they shy away from giving the film more depth?