10ren

111 ms·

931.
by 10ren 17y ago
The categories of animals reminds me of the small world/seven degrees of separation thesis, that you'll know a lot of people who are in a tightly connected group, but you'll also know a handful of people who are distantly connected. These d
932.
by 10ren 17y ago
Re Knuth: "A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked." - Gall's Law - Tesla claimed that he could envisage an entire complex machine (and run it, so he could watch which parts wear ou
933.
by 10ren 17y ago
"Secrets of the Rockstar Programmers: Riding the IT Crest " http://ridingthecrest.com/ I think that completes the entire coder-interview genre.
934.
by 10ren 17y ago
Some discussion here http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=583164
935.
by 10ren 17y ago
I get the idea, but I wish the blogger had explicitly defined the "'Babylonian’ approach". I think he's saying that it's a mistake to take one theory, with one notation, and imagine that just because it is correct and covers all the cases,
936.
by 10ren 17y ago
The examples have that LaTeX beauty http://www.math.union.edu/~dpvc/jsMath/examples/Struik.html (top-right corner to flick through) It's a bit slow to render on my little eee PC. That's understandable - but when using the back button, it
937.
by 10ren 17y ago
I think the way parallelisism changes the established trade-offs in code "optimization" is summarised by his lines: Don’t split a problem into “the first” and “the rest.” Instead, split a problem into roughly equal pieces; recursively sol
938.
by 10ren 17y ago
Google maps terrain http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Mt+Bosavi,+Papua+New+Guinea&#3... (unfortunately, the satellite image is obscured by cloud)
939.
by 10ren 17y ago
I expect that Apple isn't forbidden to do it; just forbidden to use the name "Apple" for that purpose. Solutions: 1. Apple finds (or creates) another company/business/brand to do it. 2. Apple negotiates permission from Apple Records (perhap
940.
by 10ren 17y ago
"It is by logic we prove, it is by intuition that we invent" - Henri Poincaré I emphasized the invention, but you're quite right that we also need the proving. I agree with your hardware example (things like the Pentium bug are rare...),
941.
by 10ren 17y ago
I just noticed that I have an implicit conviction that pg's essays are entirely written for us, that the comments here are their beginning and their end - their entire purpose. I don't know if it's true; not that pg intends it, nor that tha
942.
by 10ren 17y ago
This is a charming little essay. But why? - The "exoskeleton" metaphor for an N-list having its skeletal structure on the outside made me smile. - I like the explanation of N-lists having a flat structure. Clean modules, with no dependencie
943.
by 10ren 17y ago
* mechanical_fish's zoo comment http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=469940 * Gruber's adventures of the washed-up brushed metal theme ???? * Ivan Krstic's Porsche story http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=424506
944.
by 10ren 17y ago
Another factor is that older founders will have (relatively) less need of YC: they'll have their own funds, experience and contacts. The age-distribution of YC startup applicants affects the age-distribution of those that are funded, and so
945.
by 10ren 17y ago
Fullscreen version http://www.hntrends.com/Plotter2.swf Incidentally, I thought the lines looked blurry... in fullscreen it's clear that they are. The pop-up only appears for the datapoints - not if your mouse is over a line segment bet
946.
by 10ren 17y ago
I like 15 years, because that's 10 doublings by Moore's Law... 1024. What becomes trivial with an iPhone that's 1,000 times faster? If instead of Crysis fps of 20, you have 20,000. If instead of 2GB RAM, you had 2TB RAM; instead of 1TB HDD,
947.
by 10ren 17y ago
GP is the submitter. He's linking a way to locate other articles on HN about Dijkstra (by using "ewd", which always appears in the URL for Dijkstra's site).
948.
by 10ren 17y ago
Thanks for the overview. I was hoping for some examples, but most work on it is done in academia. "Iterative" theorem proving (though probably a typo for "interactive"), is the way this could go: "agile theorem proving". That is, where you
949.
by 10ren 17y ago
Some videos on the Wired story: http://www.wired.com/autopia/2009/09/human-powered-helicopte... There's ground effect because it's so low (0.2 m), but it's still unbelievably cool.
950.
by 10ren 17y ago
Some interesting papers there, highly cited: http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=productivity+formal+meth... The top two are 1990 and 1996, and the debate doesn't seem to have changed that much... in 10-20 years. Some nice thoughts in Cla
951.
by 10ren 17y ago
That's interesting, about your experience of productivity with formal methods, compared with not using formal methods - do you have an example handy?
952.
by 10ren 17y ago
Historically, we SOTSOG - using abstractions, so complexity is pushed down to a lower layer (language, libraries, OS). I think this will continue to be how we cope with complexity - one specific case at a time, rather than a new general way
953.
by 10ren 17y ago
It also creates an opportunity for iPhone competitors. Competitors seem inevitable, given that the basic technology is available to everyone. But until those competitors get their act together, why shouldn't Apple do whatever it likes? Ther
954.
by 10ren 17y ago
BTW: it's not so odd if you think of a hacker as an expert tinkerer. Tinkering is the opposite of upfront design.
955.
by 10ren 17y ago
I love Dijkstra. I share his valuing of things that make sense, and the dream that all things can be understood - and his humble acceptance that we have to break down problems to fit inside his, mine and your human brains. But you can see
956.
by 10ren 17y ago
Yes, why can't we franchise a university? 1. One argument is that we already have franchised them: universities have access to textbooks of a higher-quality than they previously had. I'm sure we have more universities per capita than before
957.
by 10ren 17y ago
"In order to download lisp, one must first download lisp." Antiviral marketing.
958.
by 10ren 17y ago
That's for the whole area. If you pull just a fraction of the area, the force required is proportionately less (think of a strip of Velcro that you pull apart from one end). fun fact: the Firefox spell-checker knows that Velcro is a tradema
959.
by 10ren 17y ago
The ascii art in 7, using angle graphics, is very appealing to me. It looks compellingly like a FSM (though that's not how the eg is using it). http://images.maketecheasier.com/2009/08/bashprompts-7.jpg
960.
by 10ren 17y ago
Sony and HP started out with many products. > Of the many projects they worked on, their very first financially successful product was a precision audio oscillator, the Model HP200A. (emphasis added) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hewl

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