Smerity

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301.
by Smerity 14y ago
The proposed filter was ludicrous and I'm happy to report it has essentially lost all political steam. It appeared primarily as a bargaining tool for the Labour party to work with a number of independents but even those independents have re
302.
by Smerity 14y ago
That's the issue with this -- if this is actually a problem for Python, then it's a problem for EVERY programming language. Let's first see what satisfies these problem areas: Mobile = [ObjectiveC, Java, C (native client)] (and maybe Javasc
303.
by Smerity 14y ago
It's worse than that. Kickstarter have explicitly said they have no clue what they'd do that day. The fact they're either ignoring the (admittedly complicated) issue or are so naive as to think it's fine to only handle failed projects when
304.
by Smerity 14y ago
This is commonly referred to as the Osborne effect. Apple have a similar issue when the rumours of the next iPhone start making the rounds. With Apple it's likely less of an issue considering they have an impressive profit margin on their p
305.
by Smerity 14y ago
The hashing isn't the point. The leading zeroes method is more likely to produce unreliable results when you can't guarantee the dataset will be large in advance whilst the "keep min M elements" method works fine for unexpectedly small sets
306.
by Smerity 14y ago
Just to mention a modification on the "simple and intuitive cardinality estimator" that's far more accurate and actually used for Google's SZL: Given N objects, hash each object and store the lowest M (s.t. M << N) hashes, then calc
307.
by Smerity 14y ago
There are a few interesting things at work here. Gittip seems highly popular amongst Python contributors at the moment. The top four, other than the Gittip founder himself, are all primarily Python devs[1] and will make $2,400 per year (~$5
308.
by Smerity 14y ago
I see $31.99 in Australia too... This is making me rage a little inside. It's a DIGITAL BOOK Amazon. DIGITAL. Bits. I know it's a little bit further to Australia but for the love of... Amazon is like the Harvey Two-Face -- half amazing and
309.
by Smerity 14y ago
Bank vaults versus databases are entirely different. A bank vault can be locked down. It's only accessible for a small set of hours per day and access is only given to a small number of people. People also don't need random access to a ba
310.
by Smerity 14y ago
This is a fun example of the power of open source. Bitly releases software they use internally but which isn't secret sauce. Github comes along, uses it internally, improves the original software, and ends up benefiting both. Contributing t
311.
by Smerity 14y ago
Oops - I meant LinkedIn! I have no clue how that slipped into Twitter. Unfortunately I can no longer edit, hopefully the link itself is self explanatory.
312.
by Smerity 14y ago
From the previous company I worked at (which used AWS infrastructure exclusively) and many others I've spoken to, IOPS were the leading issue when it came to AWS usage. Many insane solutions were proposed (such as RAID across multiple EBS j
313.
by Smerity 14y ago
Poor security references far more than just poor password storage, but even poor password security by itself becomes a serious issue incredibly quickly. Most people re-use passwords and most passwords are reset by email, meaning a leaked pa
314.
by Smerity 14y ago
Google Chrome and the Google search engine warn you if a website contains malware or is suspected of phishing. Poor security is just as dangerous as these, the only thing missing is the malicious intent. Unfortunately, Google would likely o
315.
by Smerity 14y ago
This is a hilarious, albeit depressing, view of the state of cyber security as seen by the general public. People, even those who are generally considered computer literate, don't have any understanding of web security. Due to this, Tesco w
316.
by Smerity 14y ago
This could be quite a game changer. Other than the generous free allowance, the other big difference compared to Heroku is that it allows you to select the infrastructure you launch on, including three different global regions for AWS (Sing
317.
by Smerity 14y ago
Context is everything, mate, so I strongly disagree about who you are not being a factor. Decisions are driven by many factors and none of mine relied on "overnight success" for example. Control of your working hours was something I wasn't
318.
by Smerity 14y ago
Whilst VC can certainly accelerate a company's growth, it can also be risky. When you take on funding you also take on obligations. One could imagine that VC partners early on may take issue with the idea of Github offering free services fo
319.
by Smerity 14y ago
I'm impressed with the premise of these articles and want to see more of them -- removing the glitz and glamour added by the media to entrepreneurial stories is an important service. I must have been out of the loop -- I never knew that Tom
320.
by Smerity 14y ago
It's unlikely the case here but responsible disclosure is not always so simple and can make 0-day public disclosure a "reasonable response". I have heard of cases where informing the company of a vulnerability and telling them "I will publi
321.
by Smerity 14y ago
One major disadvantage with so many functions is the cluttered global namespace[1]. PHP only added namespaces in 5.3.0 and can't modularize their globals into namespaces without causing massive backwards compatibility problems. PHP is stuck
322.
by Smerity 14y ago
The introduction of list comprehensions is nice and should replace numerous functions. For example, I'm not sure why they're adding the array_column function into PHP 5.5 at the same time as list comprehensions as: $names = array_column
323.
by Smerity 14y ago
I meant to say that the HN community's attitude closely aligns with the Slashdot motto -- somehow it ended up with "HN motto".
324.
by Smerity 14y ago
Unfortunately, stuff that is interesting to hackers isn't necessarily what they're up to right now. As long as these things pass a certain threshold of interesting or cool, they've caught us. Massive flocking (Boids) simulations on GPGPUs,
325.
by Smerity 14y ago
This is an excellent introduction -- thanks for posting it :) I teach high school students programming as part of a summer camp and this is a perfect resource for students who are already further along and want another challenge. The introd
326.
by Smerity 14y ago
I know I'm just nitpicking, but the grammar in the title of the video ("_Whats_ the best way to learn coding?") kills my confidence. Admittedly that isn't indicative of the quality of the product but it's something best avoided. I spend my
327.
by Smerity 14y ago
If you're interested in this talk, Armin provides the slides and links to video for many of his previous presentations at his website[1]. The talks range from horrific (but useful) Python hackery to an overview of Python web app development
328.
by Smerity 14y ago
SEEKING WORK (remote) Language of choice is Python but generally flexible -- enjoy the Flask framework Expertise in Natural Language Processing (NLP), machine learning, data mining/analytics and algorithms at scale Previous experience in st
329.
by Smerity 14y ago
The issue is that if I were a hacker I'd have a program that: a) takes an email and password, b) checks if email is in ["gmail", "yahoo", "msn", "facebook", ...], c) attempts to access account using given password and then d) if successful,
330.
by Smerity 14y ago
It's amazing that Telstra can still surprise me with their business practices. For those outside of Australia, Telstra have a reputation somewhere between GoDaddy and Facebook. They came to power as a legal monopoly, originally government r

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