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The best measurement yet of the lifetime of the electron suggests that a particle present today will probably still be around in 66,000 yottayears (6.6 × 1028 yr), which is about five-quintillion times the current age of the universe. For those who were worried (and I'm sure many of you were)
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Yoda's lifetime is at least 1 yodayears 
I'm sorry, a recent post in the lounge gave me a black hole where my humor is supposed to be... 
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I think it is still too soon to tell, said the cat....
(Actually, if an unobserved electron is a probability distribution function or waveform, to what extent can we say that two time separated observations of that waveform are the same "electron"? - more semantics than physics question)
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I find the issue about what an electron "is" fascinating, and I'm reminded of Heisenberg's thought (which I don't pretend to understand):
"Light and matter are both single entities, and the apparent duality arises in the limitations of our language."
"Atoms are not things; they're only tendencies."
In my next lifetime I intend to explore quantum mechanics and cosmology 
«Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.» Benjamin Franklin
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I thought a 'yotta was 10 to the 24th, equivalent to 1000 to the eighth, but I never actually met a 'yotta yet.
«Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.» Benjamin Franklin
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BillWoodruff wrote: I never actually met a 'yotta yet.
A yotta that I did not like, I never met.
If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time - a tremendous whack.
--Winston Churchill
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I want to be an electron.
Hundred years of human life is nothing in comparison.
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Kent Sharkey wrote: 66,000 yottayears (6.6 × 1028 yrs)
Fixed that for ya!
Decrease the belief in God, and you increase the numbers of those who wish to play at being God by being “society’s supervisors,” who deny the existence of divine standards, but are very serious about imposing their own standards on society.-Neal A. Maxwell
You must accept 1 of 2 basic premises: Either we are alone in the universe or we are not alone. Either way, the implications are staggering!-Wernher von Braun
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That's a lorra, yottayears!
(With apologies to Cilla Black)
"If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough."
Alan Kay.
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If you want to be a space explorer, you’re one step closer to quitting your day job. Previous experience as a space cadet not required
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Trio of metrics providers all report that Edge's percentage of Windows 10 users has declined monthly. You couldn't go with, "It's fallen off the edge?"
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New York Times, December 13, "In Virtual Reality Headsets, Investors Glimpse the Future" [^].Quote: Magic Leap, a secretive company making wearable technology for mixing digital imagery with the real world, is seeking to raise $827 million. Jaunt, maker of a 3-D camera for filming virtual reality video, has nabbed a total of $100 million, including $65 million in September. And 8i, which makes technology that lets people interact with video of humans as though they were in the same room, has raised nearly $15 million.
No like. Don't wanna.
«Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.» Benjamin Franklin
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This is an area that really interests me. I'm just in the process of launching a new business venture that combines elements of VR, Augmented Reality and Perceptual Computing. The more that companies invest in smoothing the VR experience, the better it is for me.
This space for rent
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IEEE Spectrum: [^]Quote: In the paper, presented on 12 August at the Association of Computing Machinery’s Conference on Knowledge and Discovery, the group introduced two important new algorithms that work in tandem.
The first implements the disparate-impact rule from the Griggs case and tests whether a particular selection algorithm is discriminatory. If the test results show that the algorithm under question can distinguish attributes—like whether a data point represents a male or female—then it’s labeled biased. The other algorithm the researchers introduced tries to remedy the bias by modifying the actual data set so that any selection algorithm would deliver fair results. The algorithm does this by blurring attributes that may be correlated to, say, race or gender.
Lead researcher, University of Utah professor Suresh Venkatasubramanian, comments:Quote: Many people believe that an algorithm is just a code, but that view is no longer valid ... 'An algorithm has experiences, just as a person comes into life and has experiences.'
«Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.» Benjamin Franklin
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Some judges (especially including those in the Griggs case) need to learn the first principle learnt in Statistics courses:
Correlation is not causation
So do some CS professors.
If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time - a tremendous whack.
--Winston Churchill
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but shouting those four words doesn't help distinguish between correlation and causation. to do that, you have to actually look at the data, all of it.
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The "disparate impact" doctrine deliberately ignores any possible explanations; it looks only at the results, i.e. it assumes that correlation implies causation.
Even looking at the data collected might not help. For example, explaining a study that found a positive correlation between the number of televisions in a household and the rate of divorce would require knowing the meta-data that:
- As couples age, they tend to become wealthier, to have larger houses (more rooms), and to have a TV in each room.
- The peak rate of divorce is when the couples reach middle age (40s to 50s).
- After the children leave the nest (parents in the 50s), many couples downsize to smaller living quarters (fewer rooms).
I have my doubts that this algorithm incorporates all possible meta-data...
If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time - a tremendous whack.
--Winston Churchill
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Daniel Pfeffer wrote: The "disparate impact" doctrine deliberately ignores any possible explanations; it looks only at the results, i.e. it assumes that correlation implies causation.
ignoring explanations for an effect != assuming correlation implies causation.
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Chris Losinger wrote: but shouting those four words
I liked the shouting. I thought it was nice and it kind of woke me up.
Besides...
Correlation is NOT CAUSATION!!!
And most people haven't had it shouted into their heads enough. 
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Very good.
I'll shout along with you.
Daniel Pfeffer wrote: Correlation is not causation!!!
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fyi: I found the article and the implications the author(s) drew from the "research" as ludicrous as the fascist virus of "political correctness" now infecting the body-politic in most "developed" nations.
«Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.» Benjamin Franklin
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What happens when you take away the quality assurance team in a software development operation? Fewer, not more errors, along with a vastly quicker development cycle. Ignoring the obvious comment about Yahoo's strength as a company these days
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This is a disturbing trend in the name of quicker dev cycles.
That's not what we ask for though.
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I'd like to know how this works in practice. As we all know, developers shouldn't test their own code, so who exactly is testing the code if not a tester? Even if they are writing all sorts of automated tests and creating tools, are they still testing their own code? If so, then I don't see how this could ever be a successful strategy.
It smacks more of cost-cutting measures than a genuine desire to increase quality.
"There are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. The first method is far more difficult." - C.A.R. Hoare
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