Yeah, but in our modern world it isn't sunlight but rather electrical lights (and curtains) that control our sleep cycle. Adjusting to sunlight only makes sense for the very few who actually work outdoors and not in in an office with artificial light.

I would love to. Care to share some interesting links?

Do you not have faith in duct tape? Enough duct tape can stop anything!

I thought the main point of the copenhagen interpretation was the instrumentalist approach. That is, the mathematical description should not be considered a description of reality but just a tool for calculating probabilities of real events. So, these supposed issues with 'conscious observers' do not apply. There is no real wavefunction and no real collapse. It's just a mathematical description.

But, even if you take a realist approach to the standard QM theory and argue that the wavefunction is real, conscious observers are still not required. It is a well known and tested fact that you do not need a conscious observer to collapse a wavefunction. Take your classical double slit experiment, put a measuring device by one of the slits to force a collapse of the wavefunction (and thus no interference pattern). Now, put a piece of tape over your measuring devices display so no conscious observer can see it. The result doesn't change.

Yes, a philosopher or someone taking the collapse notion a bit too seriously would argue that the entire system (detector, double slits, measuring device etc) is in a mixed state until the observer checks the output on the detector but that is quite a stretch. (See the whole Schrodingers Cat debate)

All measuring devices are huge from a quantum mechanical standpoint. We can barely make calculations on large objects like molecules (and that with rather heavy approximations) and measuring devices typically consist of lots and lots of molecules. It is currently quite impossible to write down a quantum mechanical description of even a simple experiment with a simple measuring device. If we could, maybe we would see that the that the addition of a measuring device causes a mixed state to evolve into a pure state, just by the laws of QM. No conscious observers would then be necessary and the 'collapse' would be just a consequence of the theory. However, making those calculations is way too complicated and far from what we can currently do.

So, neither the instrumentalist or realist interpretation of standard QM theory requires conscious observers.

Could this really be that great? I remember how difficult quantum field theory was and I have always wished for an easier way to do it (so I could actually understand more of it). But, if these methods have been around since the 80s, why haven't I heard about them before?

So, first stop Wikipedia

"When the volume of the amplituhedron is calculated in N=4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory, it perfectly describes the scattering patterns of subatomic particles."

OK, sounds good.

"Since the N=4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory is a toy theory that does not describe the real world, the relevance of this theory to the real world is currently unknown, but it provides promising directions for research into theories about the real world."

Oh, crap. So, it's just another toy theory with promising properties which has not been applied to the real world yet? That's not very interesting since there are plenty of such toy theories. It would be really cool if one of them turned out to work for the real universe as well but that seems to be a very hard nut to crack. I personally hope Lisis E8 theory would be the right one just because Lie groups are fun and the pictures are pretty.

It reminds me of this:
http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21583974-top-musicians-are-judged-much-their-movements-their-melodies

In short, people were bad at guessing who won the competition when they could only hear the music and not see the performers. Professional judges were just as bad as novices (worse when they could see the performance but just as bad when they could only hear it).

Interesting stuff.

I for one like the idea of an optionally typed language. I work with hybrid C++/Python programming so I have experienced the pros and cons of typed vs untyped languages.

In general, I much prefer Python to C++ because of the ease and speed of implementing stuff. But, Pythons performance is lacking so I need C++ for that. My perfect language would have the speed of C++ but the ease and implementation speed of Python. Cython is one such language which is basically compiled Python with optional types. The optional types allows for a lot of extra compiler optimisations and it gives a huge performance boost. I haven't used it for anything "real" though because it uses language extensions and is thus incompatible with pure Python. Once I've converted something to Cython, I'm stuck with the much slower debug/compile/run cycle and I've lost some of Pythons speed and ease. Ideally, Python would some day add optional type info so I could run cython code in the (slow) Python interpretor and compile it once I'm ready to release it. For the moment, I prefer the approach of Shedskin but that's another story.

So, my perfect language would have optional typing and optional compiling when maximum performance was needed. I have no idea if Dao is such a language though.

So, why does the Research council of Norways own article say (close to the bottom, UPDATE in bold):

"All research results in this news brief have not yet been published. The research has been completed, so this news brief is a synthesis consisting of both published and thus far unpublished findings. In consultation and collaboration with the researcher, the Research Council has chosen to release this news at the completion of the research project because the project is of general interest. However, the Council releases this news with the caveat that the findings outlined in this news brief have yet to be verified and that the results will only become significant once they are confirmed by other studies. For further information please visit CICERO"

Exactly. It has not been published yet so we don't know if it is the best thing since sliced bread or just another ham sandwich (tasty, but not better than any of the other sandwiches out there).

I'm guessing it's just a grab for media attention. They issued a press release before publication, the study has an eye-catching title and they claim it is the "most detailed" study yet without going into details.

Personally, I think it is very un-scientific to issue a press release before publishing (or before the claims have been validated by other scientists). Science isn't news, it's a much slower process. Scientific studies are almost always complicated and full of assumptions. The results must be independently validated, discussed and validated again before any claims can be made. Ideally, newspapers should not write about new scientific results until at least two independent groups have verified the claims. That would stop most of the "Cell phones cause cancer" headlines.

It is way too early to tell what this study actually means.

Fortunately, there are scientists studying these things. Here is a simulation of the formation of the milky way (it took 8 months to create it).
http://youtu.be/VQBzdcFkB7w

So, way. A spiral of such definition can be created in 13.5 billion years.

Yes, it can be both. He's giving it away for free and asking for voluntary donations. I.e. it will be free and if people donate, he will make a profit.

The last sentence also shows he is concerned about readers misunderstanding this model of free+donations and accidentally paying when they actually wanted it for free. It is a valid concern and it shows his heart is in the right place.

I'm sorry I don't have any good advice but I hope someone else does. This type of initiative is what the world needs.

And here is the truth behind that statement:
http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/06-01-05/

It is unlikely those were his words and the statement has most likely been "been drastically exaggerated beyond anything that he could recognize as his own".

It not the first time I hear religious people (jews and christians) claim he was "one of theirs" using dubious or out of context quotes. I can excuse the historical inaccuracies in your old books but I can't excuse the making up of new ones.

TiddlyWiki and unit tests.

For plain bugs such as "seg fault when doing x" I just write a test exposing the bug. This way, I won't forget about a bug even if I don't touch the program in six months. It will appear again as soon as I run the full test suite.

For more complex bugs such as design flaws, bugs from user interaction etc I keep them in my to do list in a TiddlyWiki.

TiddlyWiki is the perfect documentation/note taking tool for projects with a single developer since the entire wiki is in a single self contained html file. Therefore, it requires no installation of any software (except a browser) and you can just keep it with your sources and commit it to your repository for safe keeping.

I keep all notes related to the project, ideas, design notes, to do lists, bugs etc in it. I prefer it to plain text because it's so much easier to keep it neat and somewhat structured without being a pain to use. The ToDo list is the most important item since I never know if I will continue programming tomorrow or in six months and need to be reminded of what should be done. Bugs end up in the ToDo list since they are things that should be done just like "Redesign the crappy back end". When one item (feature/bug/whatever) gets too long, I move it to a separate tiddler (like RedesignCrappyBackEnd) and just link to it which keeps the main ToDo list clean.

When I'm finished with a bug or feature, I move it from the todo list to a "Done" list. In this way, I can keep a simple log of bugs, features and what's been done recently. This can be very handy if you suddenly remember you had a similar problem before but can't remember what it was or how you solved it.

The main drawback is that you can't/shouldn't use it for projects with 2+ developers since it handles simultaneous edits just as bad or worse than a plain text file.

I think it provides the most bang for the buck being almost as simple as a text file but much more structured. I have tried some more sofisticated tools but always come back to TiddlyWiki because of its plain simplicity.

(Actually, I use the MPTW clone which has better tagging)

Mörner is not one of the serious scientists. I thought I recognized his name and looked him up at wikipedia. One of his previous achievements is winning the "Deceiver of the year" award for supporting dowsing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nils-Axel_M%C3%B6rner#Views_on_dowsing

Oh, and his claims about the sea level is not supported by satellite measurements.