LnxPrgr3

20 ms·

121.
by LnxPrgr3 13y ago
Depends on the application. If I'm processing audio in a PBX, 64-bit floating point precision isn't going to do me much good when my source is a noisy 8-bit µ-law stream. All I'd gain is twice the demand for memory space and
122.
by LnxPrgr3 13y ago
I'm a somewhat math-undereducated programmer obsessed with DSP. I've gotten very used to the feeling of being in way over my head reading up on math concepts. As I stick with it, I learn more and more. Yeah, it's frustrating,
123.
by LnxPrgr3 13y ago
I glad my music collection was on physical media when tornadoes knocked power out to just about the entire county. I had something to cure the boredom besides drinking and rioting! (Well, once the weather stopped trying to kill us all.) I&#
124.
by LnxPrgr3 13y ago
My feelings about that are mixed. On one hand, I try myself to avoid car battery acid as much as possible. It's legitimately nasty stuff, housed in a device where common use can lead to explosive venting of the battery's contents.
125.
by LnxPrgr3 13y ago
For a point of reference, a charged car battery's acid is about 4 times as concentrated, and there's a lot more of it.
126.
by LnxPrgr3 13y ago
Wait, where are you buying new laptop batteries for $10?
127.
by LnxPrgr3 13y ago
In my own experience, programmers vary more than languages do. I worked with someone who produced very elaborate designs for the most trivial tasks. Unfortunately, his code was more clever than he was, so it often didn't actually work.
128.
by LnxPrgr3 13y ago
I'm sad the newer time functions are still "esoteric"—it's the only sane POSIX timer API I'm aware of, but it's not available on Mac OS X or FreeBSD the last I checked.
129.
by LnxPrgr3 13y ago
I had people saying absolutely awful things to me in the middle of class, well within earshot of an authority figure who couldn't be arsed to do anything about it. Funny enough, by far the worst class I took was a networking class. I t
130.
by LnxPrgr3 13y ago
http://underhanded.xcott.com/ <-- a contest all about sneaking bad behavior into code without being noticed You can't rely on a backdoor looking like this: if(!strcmp(username, "secretagentman")) { …
131.
by LnxPrgr3 13y ago
It seems obvious enough that always reading and never acting is pretty useless: even if you remember everything you read and it was all good information, there's no magic force that turns correct knowledge into anything useful to anyon
132.
by LnxPrgr3 13y ago
Long after my formal academic career ended, I continue to learn from people. Not all of them are the best teachers, but if I think someone has something to teach me, I put in the effort myself to learn whatever lessons they offer. Sometimes
133.
by LnxPrgr3 13y ago
The good news is I suspect the people able and motivated to make real contributions to our field aren't too worried about Internet points. At least, I hope that's the case, because the Internet seems to reward easy to understand a
134.
by LnxPrgr3 13y ago
Been on Prozac? I haven't, but I'm on another SSRI now, and I can't begin to see this as a drug useful for placating the masses. If anything, it's increased my motivation to fix things that are broken. It's replaced
135.
by LnxPrgr3 13y ago
Apple is no more responsible for contributing to Valgrind than you or I am. I do wish Valgrind worked properly on Mac OS X, but I don't have the right to demand someone make it happen for me, especially for free. Same with GCC and GDB.
136.
by LnxPrgr3 13y ago
I'm not sure that's true. I suspect the MacBook Air is as successful as it is because most people want portability a lot more than they need raw power. I wouldn't build a render farm out of 11" MacBook Airs, but I bet th
137.
by LnxPrgr3 13y ago
It's funny—my boss has wished me luck on interviews, and people I barely know know I'm on an anti-depressant. The fact I've made an attempt on my own life is posted publicly on HN. As far as I know, I'm also absolutely u
138.
by LnxPrgr3 13y ago
For what it's worth, they did similar things to the iOS app a good while ago and I still haven't gotten used to it. It's profoundly wasteful of my 4" of screen real-estate. I never got used to Facebook's timeline either before they had the
139.
by LnxPrgr3 13y ago
Delayed sleep phase disorder is a recognized disorder that can be difficult or impossible to control: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_sleep_phase_disorder That isn't an excuse to stop trying—there are things you can do that often hel
140.
by LnxPrgr3 13y ago
Can't we give honest feedback without going into an epic fit of nerd rage over it? Besides, the worst fights I see among programmers are over trivial matters of opinion anyway. Ever seen people fight over indentation styles, or the proper w
141.
by LnxPrgr3 13y ago
As they say, the dose makes the poison. So far, I don't see any evidence that exhaled e-cigarette vapor contains more than a trivial amount of nicotine. That nicotine could be a hazard for the user, but as far as I can tell you'd have a hel
142.
by LnxPrgr3 13y ago
Do you have any evidence that e-cigarettes harm people around their users? The few studies I've seen seem very positive. Not that I mind if their use indoors is banned… but I find this claim interesting because it contradicts the (admittedl
143.
by LnxPrgr3 13y ago
From the research I've read, that seems unlikely. This study was unable to detect any environmental contamination from nicotine: http://clearstream.flavourart.it/site/wp-content/uploads/201... "Among all, the most interesting aspects we o
144.
by LnxPrgr3 14y ago
The text isn't just not visible right now. It can't become visible. It lives above and to the left of the start of the page. Surely the browser's aware of that.
145.
by LnxPrgr3 14y ago
Someone should call the banks and warn them their depositors' accounts are worthless then. I think the argument is a sufficiently deflationary currency creates an investor's dream: once you get enough of it, you can spend just what you need
146.
by LnxPrgr3 14y ago
For what it's worth, my car's fuel gauge appears to do exactly this—no change from full for the first 60-100 miles, and about 2.5 gallons left on "empty." The first quarter tank lasts a good deal longer than the third, at least according to
147.
by LnxPrgr3 14y ago
Even old-fashioned gasoline cars carry with them a tank of incredibly flammable fuel, a battery that can dump hundreds of amps into a short circuit (and that vents explosive gas in normal operation), and a much higher risk of colliding with
148.
by LnxPrgr3 14y ago
Maybe things have changed in the last several months, but: "94.2% of iPhone users plan to buy an iPhone for their next phone, improving upon last year's rate of 93%." "Android phones were measured at a re-buy rate of 60%, up from 47% last y
149.
by LnxPrgr3 14y ago
Interesting thoughts, but I'm confused: how exactly is Apple going wrong here? Despite their sky-high margins, they're finding enough customers to rake in record-breaking earnings. New products are often hard to find in stock: even iMac dem
150.
by LnxPrgr3 14y ago
Depression isn't rational. I can't say I've been depressed—I'm not qualified to diagnose that. I can say I've felt so hopeless I've made an attempt on my own life. Thankfully, it was a pretty lame attempt (after a lot of alcohol) that I abo

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