andrewl

81 ms·

871.
by andrewl 14y ago
Try reading the title piece of his collection "Thank God for the Atom Bomb." I thought of it when I read your essay "What you Can't Say." Fussell liked breaking rules, and he did it with subtlety and a lot of thought. He was a complex think
872.
CEOs and the Candle Problem(blogs.nature.com)
7 points by andrewl 15y ago|1 comments
873.
by andrewl 15y ago
In my family, it was always the toys you built things with: wooden blocks, Tinker Toys, Lego, Lincoln Logs, and Erector Sets, plus clay. Also drawing and painting tools.
874.
by andrewl 15y ago
I'm reminded of Danny Hillis' description of telling Richard Feynman his idea for the connection machine: One day when I was having lunch with Richard Feynman, I mentioned to him that I was planning to start a company to build a parallel c
875.
by andrewl 15y ago
...what we'd really want to see is a large successful enterprise system built on Smalltalk to serve as an instructive example. To my knowledge no such system exists... Does such a system exist to anybody's knowledge? I've heard that the
876.
by andrewl 15y ago
I have jj mapped to Esc in insert mode. If you type it quickly, the two j characters vanish and you escape out of insert mode. If you type them slowly you get two j characters in your text. I rarely need two j's in my text, of course, so it
877.
by andrewl 15y ago
In addition to the four-square article above, Edmunds has the fascinating account of a writer who went undercover as a car salesman. It includes the four-square technique, and tons more: http://www.edmunds.com/car-buying/confessions-of-a-c
878.
by andrewl 15y ago
True. I did say you had to stretch things a bit. I was suggesting YC News as Paul's tavern. A public gathering place.
879.
by andrewl 15y ago
It's in the first sentence of Tom Jones, Axiak. I thought you knew that. An author ought to consider himself not as a gentleman who gives a private or eleemosynary treat, but rather as one who keeps a public ordinary at which all persons a
880.
by andrewl 15y ago
Joel is heavily involved in StackOverflow.com and the whole StackExchange universe, so it's likely he has a good handle on support costs for hosted products. Fog Creek also offers a hosted version of FogBugz (free, I think, to students and
881.
by andrewl 15y ago
Yes and no. Yes if you're talking about having a chance of working in the US at the level lots of PhDs do (faculty at a university, principal investigator of a grant-funded project, etc.). No if you're just asking if you need a PhD to think
882.
by andrewl 15y ago
Plainspoken and thoughtful, and quietly moving.
883.
by andrewl 15y ago
Agreed. Rose isn't a bad interviewer, and he gets great guests, but he often interrupts far too frequently. He was better here than he often is.
884.
The Design of Symbols(nytimes.com)
2 points by andrewl 15y ago|0 comments
885.
by andrewl 15y ago
The Whitehead quote at the start (from An Introduction to Mathematics, 1911) is a great one, and relevant to programming as well as pure math. But a lot of good came after the one sentence the author quotes: "By relieving the brain of all u
886.
How To Lead Clever People(business.in.com)
76 points by andrewl 15y ago|25 comments
887.
by andrewl 15y ago
He gave me a bicycle for my mind. That's a powerful gift, and I'm grateful.
888.
by andrewl 15y ago
Paul Graham says "I use EasyDNS. They're expensive, but reliable and never do anything evil." Source: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=150565 Note that that comment was posted over three years ago. Does anybody have any more recent exp
889.
by andrewl 15y ago
...the secret weakness of Agile was that one sociopath could ruin an entire project. One sociopath can ruin any project, no matter what the methodology. The most important decisions are hiring decisions.
890.
by andrewl 15y ago
Damian Conway. He did a great series on Vim at IBM Developerworks. The first one is at: http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-vim-script...
891.
by andrewl 15y ago
> What sorts of recreational drugs are not addictive? > And what sorts of drugs will not mess you up when taken in "recreational" dosages? Alcohol is one, if we change "not addictive" to "not always addictive". Alcohol certainly c
892.
by andrewl 15y ago
I've always said "DEE-mun," just as I say Julius SEE-zer, not SAY-zer.
893.
American Companies Looking Abroad for Capital(nytimes.com)
3 points by andrewl 15y ago|0 comments
894.
by andrewl 15y ago
Philip Greenspun has a short article on the subject at: http://philip.greenspun.com/teaching/three-day-rdbms/beyond-... And there's a discussion about the article on his blog: http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2011/01/13/rdbms-versus-n.
895.
by andrewl 15y ago
Arts & Letters Daily: http://www.aldaily.com/ Cool Tools: http://www.kk.org/cooltools/ Philip Greenspun's blog: http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/
896.
by andrewl 16y ago
Very nice tool. I expect to use it, and happily pay for it. I like subtle, minimalist design, and the look grabbed me. But I also have somewhat diminished vision, and I had to blow the page up a lot to read it.
897.
by andrewl 16y ago
Does anybody know what font Larry Gonick uses in his "Cartoon Guide to..." books? It's informal and cartoonish, but it doesn't bother me (in the context of Gonick's books). I wouldn't want to read a novel in it.
898.
by andrewl 16y ago
Are the brazil nuts shelled or unshelled? I read somewhere that there are a lot fewer nutrients in the shelled nuts. But the unshelled are harder to find.
899.
by andrewl 16y ago
There's always Fortress, which can be written in Unicode: http://projectfortress.sun.com/Projects/Community/
900.
by andrewl 16y ago
Numerals themselves are also notation, and I've always liked this from Alfred North Whitehead: "By relieving the brain of all unnecessary work, a good notation sets it free to concentrate on more advanced problems, and, in effect, increases

More ›