a_p

7 ms·

1.
by a_p 9y ago
His username here is rtm: https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=rtm
2.
by a_p 9y ago
I don't think the original got enough attention for this one to merit a flag. Also, the guidelines here say that "when you flag something, please don't also comment that you did."
3.
by a_p 13y ago
There are methods of handwriting that allow you to avoid hand cramps. The Palmer method of handwriting, which was popular in America at the turn of the 20th century, emphasized using the whole arm and shoulder to make marks on the page. In
4.
by a_p 13y ago
The real scandal here happened in 1959. When Congress passed created 501(c)(4)s, the law said that (emphasis is mine): "Civic leagues or organizations not organized for profit but operated exclusively for the promotion of social welf
5.
by a_p 13y ago
> We were once great at innovating in the physical world...But recently, software (and mostly Internet software) has been the focus of innovation, and its importance is probably still underestimated—there are compounding effects to how i
6.
by a_p 13y ago
I posted this comment about obscenities on another thread recently, but I think it is relevant to this thread as well. According to Paul Fussell's Class: A Guide Through the American Status System, aversion to profanity is a middle class th
7.
by a_p 13y ago
My favorite story about how Ernst Kummer [1] did arithmetic, from Hoffman's The Man Who Loved Only Numbers [2]: "One story has him standing before a blackboard, trying to compute 7 times 9. "Ah," Kummer said to his high school class, "7 ti
8.
by a_p 13y ago
The only thing as breathtaking as the amount of information the Chinese military has stolen is how dysfunctional their military is. Here [1] is an excellent article about corruption in the Chinese military. The Chinese government is a bizar
9.
by a_p 13y ago
>What if the Web had been patented? Then it would have ended up like Gopher[1]. In 1993, the University of Minnesota announced that it would start to charge license fees to use its implementation of the Gopher server. By 2000, when the
10.
by a_p 13y ago
The U.S has an enormous amount of rare earth metals. [1] But the processes of extracting the ore have such a horrendous effect on the environment that the only country willing to mine the metals in significant quantities is China, and the v
11.
by a_p 13y ago
I'm surprised this post doesn't mention Markov chains. The author seems to think that finding and implementing a grammar quality checker will help stop spam. Aside from provides endless hours of entertainment viz. DissociatedPress, Markov c
12.
by a_p 13y ago
In 2010, the Sienna Presidential poll — which is very well respected — ranked George W. Bush as the 42 most intelligent president (only Harding ranked lower). [1, pdf file]. 14 of the 19 categories have W. in the bottom 5. These categories
13.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev charged with using ‘weapon of mass destruction’(washingtonpost.com)
22 points by a_p 13y ago|41 comments
14.
by a_p 13y ago
This article was published in 2004. It was still causing problems in 2012 [1], when a paper published in the prestigious journal Cell had a few gene names written as dates [2]. Even the GEO [3] had problems with this , according to [1]. T
15.
by a_p 13y ago
You can record the playback of a vinyl record and transfer it to a digital record without losing any information. The clicks and pops were consciously removed from some vinyl records when they were remastered. If you wanted to, you could tr
16.
by a_p 13y ago
The patents that have his name on them are design patents , not software or hardware patents. If he does have his name on a software or hardware patent, it is for legal purposes only. I'm using the Jargon file's definition of hacker [1], w
17.
by a_p 13y ago
Steve Jobs was not a "hacker". [‡] He knew almost nothing about computer languages, computer architecture, and according to Neil Young, he listened to vinyl records at home [1] — which shows that he was ignorant of how audio quality works (
18.
by a_p 13y ago
WCVB is reporting that [NAME 1] has died from his wounds [1]. [NAME 2] is still at large — the police are setting up a perimeter and the search will become much easier in several hours when the sun rises. [1] http://www.wcvb.com/news/local
19.
by a_p 13y ago
The most accurate information may be gleaned from police scanners. News cameras may give you pictures of the amount of police officers at the scene, but they cannot get close enough to give you video of what's actually happening. The irony
20.
by a_p 13y ago
The rest of George Hart's site is interesting as well, especially his encyclopedia of virtual polyhedra [1]. There is also a part 2 of "Mathematically Correct Breakfast" (this time a trefoil knot) [2], and his sculptures are worth looking a
21.
by a_p 13y ago
Body language experts are trained to look for groups of behaviors. Often, certain behaviors such as crossed arms could just mean the subject is cold. It is also hard to judge someone's body language after you have just met them; it is mu
22.
by a_p 13y ago
This seems to be a harmless case of erroneous old information slipping in because it was not stricken from all maps many years ago. However, it is not unusual for many maps to all contain the same mistake. Cartographers have been known to i
23.
by a_p 13y ago
The author of this article should be ashamed of himself. He failed to do basic research about how money is actually distributed. If he did, he would have found out about the Federal Reserve distribution system, the structure of which is
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by a_p 13y ago
No. The "tortured souls" are the programmers that worked on Excel[1]. Look at this page [2] for videos of the game in action. [1] http://everything2.com/title/The+Hall+of+Tortured+Souls [2] http://www.eeggs.com/items/719.html
25.
by a_p 13y ago
VBA doesn't handle files larger than 2gb, which is one of the reasons people don't recommend using Excel and Access for your business. There are some ways to deal with the 2gb limit[1], but it is better to use other software. [1] http://su
26.
by a_p 13y ago
Microsoft used to include easter eggs in their programs, but stopped in 2002 as part of the "trusted computer initiative". [1] Excel 97 had a hidden flight simulator, Word 97 had a hidden pinball game, Access 97 and 00 had a magic 8 ball si
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by a_p 13y ago
Investment bankers make money because they are allowed to borrow enormous sums of money (leverage) to invest. In other words, they are allowed to gamble with the money of others with very little consequences. There is no other industry wher
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by a_p 13y ago
If you cannot understand how people could possible think that software patents are acceptable, I recommend reading this article. [1] Not because it will convince you that software patents are good — it won't. But it will help you understand
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by a_p 13y ago
Color is something that people take for granted or think of as trivial but it's actually rather complicated. There are some colors that can't be represented in print and some colors that can't be represented on a monitor. There are several
30.
by a_p 13y ago
THe RSS button is still available. Just click Nightly -> Options -> Toolbar Layout and drag the RSS button onto the toolbar.

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