The article has 1.5% per decade and that's over the past 2 decades, which could be accounted for by the measuring point, especially with an 11 year solar cycle.
AI summary; "Yes, astronomers have observed that Neptune's prominent clouds have largely disappeared, and NASA scientists suggest this phenomenon is linked to the sun's 11-year solar cycle and its impact on Neptune's atmosphere"
Point / function is it loads a website every x seconds. The obfuscation comes as it's utility, as it loads in an iframe in your browser you have the full pull of the site inc js etc, which if you wanted to could be used to semi obfuscate your surfing. i.e. creates a bigger haystack to find the needles of your surfing.
Difficult problem, I do know what you mean about fitting messy life into patterns, that said some can still be invaluable at times.
Something like a singleton would be handy to stop multiple creation of an object, for web design mvc just makes life a lot easier by decoupling different parts and in theory for your project something like an observer pattern could be created to notify other systems to a state change. http://www.java2s.com/Tutorials/Java/Java_Design_Patterns/01...
In the end there's many ways and approaches, maybe even brushing up some class design stuff in another language might help.
Good luck on your journey, sounds like you'll be fine.
Would say general brain storming and inquisitiveness, i.e. how does this actually work and can I improve on it.
As an example of this thinking, I looked at ghostery a while back and thought it could be cool to work out what I would have leaked and to which websites. "Would have been tracked" was born, though still got to get around to coding, feel free to take it you want.
As a few other high level project suggestions; cloning programs for different languages, play around with electronics (there's years there) or pick a few open source projects to contribute to.
I learnt hardly anything computer related at uni, I actually lost some knowledge. However the social side and the things I learnt about myself made it more then worth it.
So true with the contracts on the side. A lot of start ups end up taking years, need something for living/server costs so you can keep following the dream.
Just fixing this problem myself at the moment. Currently living with parents working on a new version of my main startup. Bartered a work exchange with a designer for a new design for the site so I can purely work on the code. Last week picked up a side contact for 5 days every 2 weeks for a minimum of 10 weeks and got another possible contract after they have finish their funding run.
So will probably be back working full time with contract combo and will just hire out simple bits of code / skip sleep for my start up
Neuroscience -
Brain scan a person from all religions to show it's the same thing that they are all doing. (massive blood flow reduction in the part of the brain that orientates their positioning)
Eco -
Do a tidal power generator crossed with a desalination plant.
Experiment with resonance frequencies of hydrogen and ionosphere for clean power.
Make ultra cheap solar panels and dump them in the desert. (pretty sure some tin foil, a way of converting and some genetic algorithm shaping should get this done)
Patch any ozone holes with spraying of o^3 / something to counter act the cfcs.
Co2 problem (down to 60% of the problem from 90% a few years ago) harvest the co2 out!
Physics -
There's always going to be smaller!
One of the strings in string theory is consciousness
Society -
Legalise all drugs, prostitution and assisted suicide (stops making so many people into criminals)
No speed limit on motorways at certain times
Biology -
Find what plants grow well in all soil / sand conditions. (grow the desert / useless land)
Bacterial recycling / break down of rubbish.
TV/entertainment -
Providers release torrents / streams to anywhere with ads before the pirates do it for them.
And to answer the ops questions:
1. I think it's possible to influence fields you have no expertise in, as can email scientists / producers.
2. yes
3. More empowerment to people to get involved. One day a year ask people if they have any ideas or suggestions in x field.
Would think about on 1 - does the product work? has it been tested, could you get it infront of clients?
As for the 40k lines of his code and his component; write up tests, refactor it where need be and if the worse comes to the worse launch with buggy code and update after it's out there and you know if it's worth fixing!
mark twain: "Dance like nobody’s watching; Love like you’ve never been hurt. Sing like nobody’s listening; Live like it’s heaven on earth."
Einstein: "imagination is more important than knowledge"
Programmers quote:"I find that most people get upset by mistakes. I generally don't. I have always thought that the reason is that I am trained to accept that there will be mistakes, because compilation errors are a norm. When they happen, you fix them, and move on with your life. If you get upset over compilation errors, you won't last in this biz"
trotsky: "those who make peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable"
Personally do mass cooking, picking up ingredients either from a farm shop or if I'm short on time from one of the veggie box schemes.
Started off with big chillis and curries, making 6 times the amount I would normally do and freezing the rest. Now also do pastas and soups. I make sure to give some extra sauce as well as try not to use a microwave for the reheating. A meal is as simple as getting out of the freeze the night before and reheating whilst I surf the web.
Breakfast:have scrambled eggs on brown toast with an orange.
Snacks: fruit or peanuts.
Healthy food every day and it's quicker and cheaper then cooking properly every day.