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I think you misunderstand. They never hosted any content, they only linked to it. What we're saying is that the torrent database was upgraded from plain old filesystem storage of .torrent files to a more efficient/specialized database.


He's playing against the ridiculously bad AI in that video. Here's the more impressive "mortars only" style in the LieroX remake:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kx3ivYFY4ig#t=67

I had a couple of years at uni where we played this on LAN in one of the computer labs during every lunch break. We even made some maps!


>you're masking your origin IP to the remote address by trusting one of a couple hundred volunteer exit nodes

No! When using Tor, you are not trusting any single node, and that's the whole point. The exit node does not know your IP or anything else about you, and the other nodes do not know what server you're communicating with. And you should never send any personal information over Tor, such as your credit card, because the end server would be able to identify you and steal that information (and why would you trust the end server? The idea is not to trust anyone when using Tor.)


The Wikipedia article does a bad job on giving any larger perspective, that is, the fact that this is a drop in the ocean of hacking and cryptography wargames. [1]

[1]: http://www.wechall.net


It's huge. Normally, the curvature of the earth would make it impossible to detect anything at such distances. But the ionosphere's lower levels act like a waveguide [1], (and this tells you which frequencies you should listen on to take advantage of this).

The craziest phenomenon of this kind is whistlers [2]. Lightning strikes can be heard on radio at a point on the earth exactly symmetrical to the source, using the equator as plane of symmetry. In fact, the signal bounces around back and forth between the two points, following a line on the magnetosphere. The ones closer to the poles have longer paths, and their frequencies can get spread out over 3-4 seconds as they bounce around.

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth%E2%80%93ionosphere_wavegu...

[2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whistler_%28radio%29


Cool stuff. I'm partial to the theory that prior mass extinctions have involved a meteor strike causing a whistler like effect on the opposite side of the plane causing volcanic action. eg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_igneous_province#Meteori...

http://charles_w.tripod.com/dweber/antipode_theory_d.pdf


Maybe someone can help me understand this. On slide 39 of the first slideshow, it says :

"For any irrational power p, there are an infinite number of solutions to z^p=c, all lying on a circle."

This means that most of the solutions have an angle larger than a full circle, right ? But if complex numbers can be represented as the sum of the real and complex parts, how can their angle be superior to 360 degrees ?


Taylor series explanation: (simpler)

p irrational:

z^p = a1 z +a2 z^2+... =

    = a1 k1+a2 k2 +...
but there is 1 extra z'!=z which has the same value k1 for z'^2 as a solution z of z^2, 2 extra z' which have the same value k2 for z'^3 and so on. As long as mdc(a,b) is 1, for distinct a and b, z^b and z^b won't share all z' alternatives. You can then choose prime numbers s.t. you get infinitely amount of distinct solutions.

Exponential expanation: (more intuitive)

So we're taking roots of complex numbers: all z s.t. z^p=exp(a+jb). Without loss of generality, take z^p=exp(jb) instead, since exp(a) is just a positive constant. A trivial solution for that is simply exp(jb/p). But remember that for any x, exp(jx) = exp(jx+2 k pi) for integer k. For example, exp(jpi/6) can be written either as that or exp(j 13 pi/6) -- that's because exp(jx) is a sum of periodic components cos(x) and j*sin(x). So we can add new solutions of the form exp(j(b+2 k pi)/p), for any k, which may or may not overlap with previous solutions. But if 1/p=m/n (rational), you can set k=n to get back to exp(jb/p+2 pi)=exp(jb/p); otherwise, you get infinitely many solutions, since there is no k/p=integer. However, you can arbitrarily close by an approximation p~m'/n'; in fact, you get arbitrarily close to any other rational exponent exp(jq), so that the solutions are scattered everywhere.


  z = x + i*y = e^(a + i*b) = e^a*(e^(i*b)) = e^a(cos(b)+i*sin(b))
Both sin and cos are many to one functions. In the equation above, replacing

  b
with

  b + 2*pi*t
where t is any positive or negative integer, would result in the same complex number.


We've used the same number for those different rotations. That does not do anything directly about irrational power p.

If p is a rational number represented by m/n, then

    360 / (m/n) * m = 360n
So there are multiples of 360 that are divisible by m/n, and we can get a unique complex number from z^p.

Now p is irrational, what happens? According to what you said, there are so many different graphs that can not be merged into just one.


EDIT: So ... we can get FINITE complex numbers (or graphs) from z^p.

Now p is irrational, what happens? According to what you said, there are infinite different graphs that can not be merged into just SOME.


I am replying to the last paragraph of darsham's comment.


This is the 'collapsing' that he talks about. If one of the complex solutions had a magnitude of 1 and an angle of 395 degrees, e.g., it would be equal to a number with a magnitude of 1 and an angle of 35 degrees.


Thanks (and thanks to the other replies !). So a complex number has a single representation when using real and imaginary parts, but an infinity of representations if you use angle and magnitude (just add or subtract 2π radians). I guess that should have been clear from the article, I just needed to sleep on it.


According to Wikipedia :

"Like many claims in the cymatics community, the hypothesis that the carvings represent Chladni patterns is not supported by scientific or historical evidence.[citation needed] One of the problems is that many of the 'box' carvings are not original, having been replaced in the 19th century following damage by erosion."

Citation needed indeed, but there's no academic research about this extravagant theory anyways, and with my foray into the subject, I just found the patterns to be decorative geometric shapes with a coincidental resemblance to Chladni patterns.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cymatics


I know it's debated, but it wouldn't be the first time humanity rediscovered forgotten knowledge! What intrigues me about it is it still lines up with Occams Razor and the KISS principle, if mystics and academics of the day wanted to encode secret knowledge this would fit the bill perfectly at the time the original chapel was built.

I haven't looked I to the actual history as much, I ran across Rosslyn reading about art history and cathedral architecture and I spent a lot more time reading about Chladni patterns than I ever did about Rosslyn itself. Thought the link would be interesting in light of the original article.

Now what I am wondering is the shapes of these patterns on non-square and non-circular plates. I haven't seen many exotically shaped plates so it leads me to wonder if the patterns don't show up as well on other shapes. I'm curious from a visual perspective what 'patterns' occur in nature like some people obsess about relationships between made-up numbers ;)


The descriptions are wrong, the letters were moved right not left. Anyways, the new one is more balanced. Quite the zen garden.


Here's my explanation : assuming random distribution, the probability of finding a star at a given distance is proportional to the area of the sphere having that radius. So it follows a square law.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think any function with an increasing rate of change (ie. second derivative > 0) will yield a distribution with the same ordering of digits as Benford's if random numbers are taken from it.


The frame and rafters seem solid (as long as you don't stress it too much), but it seems inevitable that the roots of plants will pierce the plastic layer, and rain will drain though the roof.

I know it's heavy duty plastic, but the roots of small plants can crack rock.

It's hard to tell from all these 200x200px pictures, but is the plastic the first thing on the ceiling? If that's the case, you might patch it up as it gets punctured or replace whole sections of it. I'm very curious as to how the house and vegetation will evolve on the long term, because this is pretty much my dream house.

Edit: After looking at the rest of the website, it becomes clear that they know what they're doing. I'm still curious about the details.


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