adavies42

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31.
by adavies42 14y ago
Home sewing is killing fashion! http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4f/Homesewin...
32.
by adavies42 14y ago
one of the things someone pointed out to me most of a decade ago is that more and more things are becoming algorithmic--or perhaps we should say, being revealed as being algorithmic. take some classic physical patent like the Bessemer p
33.
by adavies42 14y ago
note that both "car" and "computer" were patented at the concept level (both causing huge messes, incidentally). of course, those patents expired long before the relevance of the concepts....
34.
by adavies42 14y ago
partly it's payment details: a lot of patent extenders roll out right when the generic goes to over-the-counter status--insurance pays for the new prescription drug, but won't cover the old one at all anymore. the one relevant to me on a da
35.
by adavies42 14y ago
pointer tagging!
36.
by adavies42 14y ago
why do people repost three-year-old articles? because it's easier than finding new ones saying the same thing. this is like anthropic reasoning--always true, rarely useful.
37.
by adavies42 14y ago
yes, i love that one! now that's good common-case optimization.
38.
by adavies42 14y ago
happens to my tea all the time--i don't know if it's actually superheated in the sense of being >212, but it sits perfectly still in the mug until i drop the bag in, at which point it goes nuts with the bubbles.
39.
by adavies42 14y ago
> Gracefully handle 404s. > [...] > Consider linking to your home page and/or site map [...] For a second I thought you were advocating redirecting 404s to the homepage, and I was about to flame you. I hate that one, and I t
40.
by adavies42 14y ago
> What's needed is a distributed, decentralized system, ideally at the protocol level. Imagine if a GET request by default gave you the "current" version of a page, but you could send an extra header that said "give me this page, as it
41.
by adavies42 14y ago
the design thing that i notice about most microwaves is that some of them let you just punch in a time and hit start, while others make you hit "cook" first. i find this to be an excellent example of (failing at) optimizing for the common c
42.
by adavies42 14y ago
actually microwaved water will frequently be above boiling--microwaving lets the water remain still enough for it to get superheated. when you disturb it (with a teabag, spoon, etc.) it will start bubbling wildly (and quite possibly give yo
43.
by adavies42 14y ago
* durations and points are commensurate points in time are relative to some fixed point, and are (more or less) dimensionless. durations are not, and are (more or less) vectors. this has a couple consequences: durations are independent of e
44.
by adavies42 14y ago
* floats are ever a good idea for storing time. a system i use (no, not excel) has one of its time types defined as a double of days since their epoch. the problem is that it's universally represented in the interface as a timestamp to mill
45.
by adavies42 14y ago
* highly-precise (nano-second or better) time has any intrinsic meaning at all (relativity)
46.
by adavies42 14y ago
the "country/(city/region)" notation is from zoneinfo, the standard unix timezone system. "X standard time" (and "X daylight time") are the common names most people in america use when referring to timezones. zoneinfo's form has the benefit
47.
by adavies42 14y ago
> Even if you have a mathematical proof that your software is correct, it's still only correct given certain assumptions taken as axioms in the proof. Violate those axioms and your software can't be held responsible. "Beware of bugs in
48.
by adavies42 14y ago
17% of the world's population lives in a single .5 timezone ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Standard_Time ), so i'd hope that one's not too widespread....
49.
by adavies42 14y ago
> In the Jewish calendar, the day starts when the moon comes out. say what? afaik (speaking as a jew here), it's when the sun goes down. (moonrise, averaged over all time, happens at any point in the 24-hour cycle.) possibly you're thin
50.
by adavies42 14y ago
what about something like _Kill Bill_ that's basically an animated movie that just happens to be live action? (i'm pretty sure it actually had both "a guy in a three piece suit run around with a katana" and "a cyborg girl in a fishnet bodys
51.
by adavies42 14y ago
if you're looking for smart books, you want _The Diamond Age_ <rimshot>
52.
by adavies42 14y ago
they should replace the gears with tighter tolerance ones then and clear this up permanently
53.
by adavies42 14y ago
be careful of looking like you're overdoing it tho. some of the replies to the comments on the article are so generic, i assumed they were spam until i checked the author's link (reply to "Joel Parker Henderson" is awful, reply to "Doctor M
54.
by adavies42 14y ago
huh? did you have a point?
55.
by adavies42 14y ago
giflib is probably his most important project in terms of how many people use it gpsd is probably the project he's working on right now with the most potential for widespread use and importance forgeplucker http://home.gna.org/forgeplucker
56.
by adavies42 14y ago
"recently"?!?
57.
by adavies42 14y ago
i've gotten to the point where i can subconciously key off the window chrome to know how to paste. (half my coworkers use xterm, the other half putty.)
58.
by adavies42 14y ago
nice article from a magazine i wasn't familiar with. does anyone have any more recommendations for "in-depth general interest" magazines? the classic is the new yorker, and the one i (re)discovered recently (mostly through links from places
59.
by adavies42 14y ago
"I can't define it, but I know it when I see it."
60.
by adavies42 14y ago
the way i think of my language skills in my own head is mostly a three-level system: read, write, and debug. at the first level, you know enough to be able to look at existing code and have some idea what's going on. (this is me with C++.)

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