MisterOctober

15 ms·

91.
by MisterOctober 8y ago
Zoinks! that'll teach me not to comment before reading the article. Thanks for the heads up! It's interesting how, in the OP, Barbour doesn't use much of the language he leaned on for "The End of Time' [1999, the so
92.
by MisterOctober 8y ago
Also, check out physicist Julian Barbour's notion that the universe is entirely static, and that our mind 'constructs' the illusion of time's arrow by orderings its perception of a collection of configuration spaces he c
93.
by MisterOctober 8y ago
Great question! There are lots of great beginner books out there, but if I had to pick three: 1) "A First Book of Morphy" by del Rosario -- takes the very well-considered principles of GM Reuben Fine and illustrates them with [mo
94.
by MisterOctober 8y ago
This kind of thing gets me furious. I mean, I realize that folks gotta eat, but damn... poaching / stealing individuals of a threatened species that is also one of the coolest animals on the planet -- it just shows no respect. Same t
95.
by MisterOctober 8y ago
Very cool! This'd be absolutely great for getting more value / use out of the pile of Everyman books that I [and, I'd hazard a guess, a solid chunk of chessplayers in general] have sitting on the shelf that don't get us
96.
by MisterOctober 8y ago
Yeah, the DGT board is perfect for on-the-fly tournament analysis -- but a computer vision tool would be great for times when you don't have access to the/a DGT board or its data Set one up at the park and get some insight on thos
97.
by MisterOctober 8y ago
Yep! "Clever" code always reminds me of Kernighan : "Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to deb
98.
by MisterOctober 8y ago
Not the parent, but my situation is similar to yours and so I'll offer my experience : First, raked out [thinned / dethatched bermudagrass rhizomes] an area roughly 100 square feet. Broadcast region-appropriate wildflower and herb
99.
by MisterOctober 8y ago
yeah, but not for extended periods -- so I dunno how the battery'd do for daily working-at-a-cafe or similar. I do always carry a spare battery tho
100.
by MisterOctober 8y ago
^+1 for Thinkpads running Linux. Switched from MBPs to these a year ago, never going back.
101.
by MisterOctober 8y ago
I think you're on to something there in re: clearly vocalized morals --> strikes people as judgmental and therefore provokes attempts to dismantle. Re : definition : the funny thing is that, if I recall correctly, the Vegan Society&
102.
by MisterOctober 8y ago
I feel you on the constant side-track 'what if?' questions for sure! For my part, I don't cleave to the Vegan Society's definition of 'vegan,' or anybody else's but mine, for that matter. I use the word o
103.
by MisterOctober 8y ago
this reminds me of all the printers and other peripherals I see that are connected directly to the internet ; even the folks who maintain them sometimes aren't aware that these things are a potential [I daresay likely] attack surface
104.
by MisterOctober 8y ago
I don't have a source / link handy at the moment, but a couple relevant notes to consider : 1) the vast (vast) majority of corn consumed by humans is processed into things like corn syrup, modified starch, whiskey, etc, rather tha
105.
by MisterOctober 8y ago
"I have you; you are completely dished! Do you not know that in the Navy, you must always choose the lesser of two weevils!" ^ tried to resist, could not resist
106.
by MisterOctober 8y ago
Exploitation of labor, farm and otherwise, is of equal concern to me. There are several ways I go about minimizing my participation in agricultural labor exploitation, but most prominent are : 1) Buying only produce grown in the USA; 2) Bu
107.
by MisterOctober 8y ago
Yep -- when I started researching corn for my own horticultural reasons, I was cold shocked to find out only ~10% goes to feed humans, with the balance going mainly to animal feed and ethanol : http://worldofcorn.com/#corn-u
108.
by MisterOctober 8y ago
Vegan here; first part of the above comment hits nail on head. When people ask me about the [apparent] contradictions associated with being vegan and also participating in industrial society, I mention something about my view of veganism b
109.
by MisterOctober 8y ago
^ agree -- I've seen lots of folks [newer users mostly] turn to grep when really what they wanted was sed. It's just a matter of learning which screwdriver is for which type of screw
110.
by MisterOctober 8y ago
I dunno -- there's definitely a community of developers who prefer not to use the command-line / Unix toolset, but at least half of those I know [especially the macOS users and those with some ops experience] routinely reach for t
111.
by MisterOctober 8y ago
"Ditto" - I learned the hard way while growing up that having the idea isn't the hard or valuable part -- bringing into practice a useful and profitable idea is! Took a loooong time to really come to grips with that notion,
112.
by MisterOctober 8y ago
I experienced a modern heat pump in action for the first time about a year ago, when I was visiting family in the very cold US state of Maine -- creaky old [and ill-insulated] house in the woods heated up in a jiffy! Hats off to the engine
113.
by MisterOctober 8y ago
This is so much like the Black Mirror episode "Nosedive" that it's almost not funny
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by MisterOctober 8y ago
Wunderbar! That makes my day, thanks for sharing. Every time I think of tortoises, the book "Classic Shell Scripting" with its African tent tortoise cover springs to mind.
115.
by MisterOctober 8y ago
Totally! The clouded leopard is one of my favorite big cats. That's two great pieces of "species persists" news in a week! A few days ago, it was the giant bee: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environ
116.
by MisterOctober 8y ago
They came in both flavors depending on rev level -- mine is a 64-bit / Core2 Duo version (can't see exactly which CPU at the moment 'cause it's at home) -- it's currently running CentOS 7.6 x86_64 like a champ with
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by MisterOctober 8y ago
T61 daily user here -- with 8GB memory, it's smooth sailing and a thrifty little machine.
118.
by MisterOctober 8y ago
I can really relate to this. I 'climbed the ladder' in company X and thereby acquired a lot of company-specific domain knowledge that didn't really have much value outside the company. I realized what kind of a fix I was in
119.
by MisterOctober 8y ago
^ Yep! I switched from MPB to Thinkpad last year, and couldn't be happier. Vast improvement in ergonomics and serviceability / upgradeability. As you point out, the older machines are great for dev work with some basic upgrades
120.
by MisterOctober 8y ago
Damn good advice. #1 is really key for me -- I find that if I decompose a learning effort into the smallest possible grains, I have a much better chance of sticking with it. For example, when I felt intimidated about learning SQL long ago,

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