RogerL

52 ms·

421.
We’ve Put a Worm’s Mind in a Lego Robot's Body(smithsonianmag.com)
3 points by RogerL 12y ago|0 comments
422.
by RogerL 12y ago
Until recently I've always worked in life-critical systems (bugs == death). Harshness was never required. Unceasing scrutiny was. As you say, criticism/analysis and harshness are different things. Probably some of the best leaders
423.
by RogerL 12y ago
I don't think this is new, just more visible. Exactly this same culture is documented in Kidder's "Soul of a New Machine", and if you read biographies of Oppenheimer, Feynmann etc the same was going on back in the 40s. A
424.
by RogerL 12y ago
I've never been a big fan of code review for finding bugs. Sure, you can find bugs, but the question is, how efficiently? Long ago I learned a couple simple rules that get my defect rate very close to zero: asserts everywhere, and step
425.
by RogerL 12y ago
"I used to take that as an indicator of how good a coder the candidate was, but more recently I’ve realised that it’s a much better indicator of how long it is since they went to college" I would take this as evidence that he is q
426.
by RogerL 12y ago
In general, because those languages essentially declared things were 'bad' that aren't bad at all. Sometimes you have to mung data. Pull it in off a serial bus, strip out the header, rearrange it for the next thing you are se
427.
by RogerL 12y ago
Has it? Besides the number of great people they turn down, the great people that refuse to interview at all with them (I don't know anyone willing to waste their time with a process clearly designed to be biased towards their failure),
428.
by RogerL 12y ago
In the long term, a company's value is usually considered to be the discounted future cash flows. Stock price is often vaguely, if at all, correlated with this number.
429.
by RogerL 12y ago
As with asserts in C, you can compile with that turned on or off.
430.
by RogerL 12y ago
You match 50% of the requirements, that's better than the usual recruiter spam.
431.
by RogerL 12y ago
There is no particular reason to think that N+1 does not have a wikipedia page. The next page without a number might be, I dunno, N+3454327.
432.
by RogerL 12y ago
A tiny bit south in San Juan Batista is Fremont Peak Observatory. Come and meet some sky geeks, and look through their telescopes! http://www.fpoa.net/tips.html
433.
by RogerL 12y ago
I grew up in the White Mountains mentioned in the post you are responding to. I am still bowled over by the stars, by the moon, any nature, really. I suggest the difference is merely that we are different people, not that where we were born
434.
by RogerL 12y ago
And that is not how digital sampling works - you don't allocate bits to different frequencies.
435.
by RogerL 12y ago
Any decent code analyzer will pick that kind of thing up. I'd say the Apple bug speaks more about their process than their coding standards.
436.
by RogerL 12y ago
That is under 7.2 seconds per line, nonstop. [1] I'm a fast typist, and I can't type that fast. [1] 75 hrs/week * 4 weeks * 3600 sec/hr / 'over' 150,000 lines = 'under' 7.2 sec/line
437.
by RogerL 12y ago
The claim was he did this mostly while others weren't in the office. If you assume they work a straight 8 hours (and why would they at crunch time) that leaves 14hrs/day to eat/sleep/work. 10/5 isn't so unreaso
438.
by RogerL 12y ago
I can't speak for everyone, but we get it (that you don't have experience to show). You are a student at the beginning of your career. Just be honest and enthusiastic. As the parent says, blathering about your experience selling c
439.
by RogerL 12y ago
Sure, you could walk up to a touchscreen and order your espresso. But I want to ask if the scones are fresh. Or how sweet the iced tea is. Or ask for a sample of something. Or ask for extra sugars. And on and on. And how 'easy' is
440.
by RogerL 12y ago
* Psychics that tell parents their missing child is in heaven and happy. Do I have to enumerate the problems this has? * Breatharians that recommend not eating. * People that stare into the sun for energy. * People that recommend 'natu
441.
by RogerL 12y ago
Don't forget matlab starts at 1. R starts at 1. Mathematica starts at 1 by default, though you can override that for any given array. 1-based indexing is very common in mathematical software.
442.
by RogerL 12y ago
These are anecdotes, but every person I know that commutes to work on a bike has had an incident of some kind. For awhile I knew one person that didn't fall into that category, but about a month ago his luck changed. Fortunately for hi
443.
by RogerL 12y ago
Plants that make rocks soft? Rocks "carved as if they were clay". Lacking extraordinary evidence, those are absurd claims.
444.
by RogerL 12y ago
He knows that some have. Thus, the average # of accidents per person is greater than zero. His # is zero. Hence, he is better than average by that measure. I don't think that is a good measure or way of thinking about it, but it is m
445.
by RogerL 12y ago
Bringing this back to the slides, I don't see how this applies to most companies. At most places we are utterly swamped with work; the idea that we can go just build something to allow us to have a conversation is pretty mad. Most comp
446.
by RogerL 12y ago
You can't stop progress just because it alters your cash flow. If you don't make the product, someone else will, and end up positioned to take the future cash flows. No (rational) company stops investing in new products just becau
447.
by RogerL 12y ago
> I think this is more like putting the car salesman in jail for selling them the getaway car ... and that would be wrong. They did not go after, or put in jail, the people that sold the cars to the drug dealers, because, as you say, tha
448.
by RogerL 12y ago
It would not ever occur to me to try to 'promote' a developer to PM; it's not a promotion, it's not a normal career path, and most people wouldn't even want to do it. If it appeals to you, let your manager know.
449.
by RogerL 12y ago
> Yes, not to mention, when was the last time you heard someone call somebody else a nimrod? 1890s England? I hear it all the time. Probably nearly daily. It depends on your circles, I suppose.
450.
by RogerL 12y ago
As others have pointed out, || is short circuit. I'm chiming in not to pile on, but to point out this is a canonical code pattern in C and C++. Check the pointer, then deference it, all in the same if expression. if (ptr &&amp

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