billswift

14 ms·

61.
by billswift 14y ago
Slide rules? I have a couple, but never learned more than the basics before the TI-30 came along, and have forgotten most of what I had learned.
62.
by billswift 14y ago
NOW I don't, but while setting IRQs was annoying, some of the weird stuff that sometimes happened in the earlier days of plug-and-play was worse.
63.
Incredible flying hover bike lets you fly over desert like a Jedi(latimes.com)
1 points by billswift 14y ago|0 comments
64.
by billswift 14y ago
>I'm not an idiot, stop treating me like one. Many people are however, and mass media, which includes Google, however they may try to deny it, lives by the numbers, which means adapting to the lowest common denominator. Just think, as
65.
by billswift 14y ago
I have little doubt that the problems discussed actually exist, but the biggest reason for the difference is simple economics. Anything free, or at extremely low cost, is over-consumed; hence the many sign-us for the course. But completin
66.
by billswift 14y ago
>maybe you’ll need a small pen Actually, a fatter pen works better for writing really small, you have better control over the point. You might try this with a lot of other things, too. Many of our everyday instruments are built smalle
67.
by billswift 14y ago
That is the revised edition, the first edition of the book was published in 1999, which was 13 years ago.
68.
by billswift 14y ago
Your essay was unbalanced, yes open source sucks in the way you complained about, but Microsoft sucks even worse in some ways (if not quite as badly in others). Complaining about something in isolation is easy; everything sucks compared to
69.
by billswift 14y ago
Actually with his sloppy writing, I couldn't decide if he was dismissing Planetary Resources or Barclay's and the FT.
70.
by billswift 14y ago
As an aside: >When Plutarch wrote 2,000 years ago "an imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all Republics," he was not parroting socialist dogma (1,500 years before the birth of Socialism). While it may
71.
by billswift 14y ago
You have to force or trick yourself into changing habits, the problem with habits is that they become automatic responses to some stimuli; enter "habit change Wood" into Google Scholar for some interesting reading, especially a pdf of htt
72.
by billswift 14y ago
"Explaining" things that they don't understand is a hallmark of journalists, especially the so-called professional ones. Their knowledge of firearms, to take a really long-running example, was apparently acquired by watching made for TV mo
73.
by billswift 14y ago
Threatening to invade an embassy is.
74.
by billswift 14y ago
No. I remember a situation, though no longer the details, where someone was accused of spying during the Cold War and fled to an embassy. He was effectively trapped there, just like Assange, but whoever was after him didn't violate the em
75.
by billswift 14y ago
>This is just conspiracy theory. Somewhat, which is why I never weighed in on it before. But if the UK is threatening something as unusual as invading an embassy, that is evidence that there is likely to be something more to the issue.
76.
by billswift 14y ago
If the UK really is threatening that, then that is more evidence that the Swedish charges are politically motivated rather than being from an actual crime.
77.
by billswift 14y ago
"Nothing is hard to the person who doesn't have to do it themselves." Old quote, I have no idea the original source.
78.
by billswift 14y ago
Pendarvis Theory of Technology: "..., it is my theory that everything wrong with everything is the fault of language teachers. "If a child is taught that it is all right if you mis-spell a word occasionally, or don't always punctuate exact
79.
by billswift 14y ago
Already posted, with a decent discussion, http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4365925
80.
by billswift 14y ago
Decent article, but I wanted to add a little extra warning to this: >One way to do this is to look at past returns and come up with the historical correlation. Be very wary of historical correlations, at any level. I am old enough (I w
81.
by billswift 14y ago
He also confuses, maybe conflates would be better, art and design. For example, his statement that black over-powers everything else only applies to black masses - thin black borders or underlining is the best way to focus attention on cri
82.
by billswift 14y ago
>My weakness is thinking that when I first grasp an idea, I think I'm done. That isn't always a weakness. What he was missing was deciding how deeply he needed to learn the subject first. Depth of Knowledge refers to how thoroughly
83.
by billswift 14y ago
>But what do we do when WE are the problem? Find something outside yourself to focus on. Some quotes: >The more I reflect on this question, the more convinced I am that man's fundamental purpose is to achieve; in other words, the s
84.
by billswift 14y ago
Actually, the common slang you wanted was "a kick in the ass" or less vulgarly "a kick in the seat of the pants", as in this book's title, http://www.amazon.com/dp/0060155280 . An "ass kicking" is slang for a beating.
85.
by billswift 14y ago
Another good reason for using fictional examples when it fits your argument is that their contexts are more limited and less likely to trip context-driven ideological or emotional biases.
86.
by billswift 14y ago
I am not sure exactly what the newspaper's claim is, I didn't see any links to a technical paper that I could follow up on. But I understood behaviorally modern humans to have been around for about 50,000 years. Are they just claiming tha
87.
by billswift 14y ago
Usually both. (Note that with the internet you also have to be dumb, too, to believe you are not eventually going to be caught, no matter how malicious you are.)
88.
by billswift 14y ago
When a walled garden actually is better for users, they could choose to participate. When users aren't allowed to choose, you can be pretty sure who the primary beneficiary is.
89.
The Smartphone Wars: The iPhone Design Was Inspired by Sony(esr.ibiblio.org)
5 points by billswift 14y ago|1 comments
90.
by billswift 14y ago
One critical thing is to make sure you are comparing yourself to an actual, achievable potential; not an impossible fantasy. As the proverb went, It's bad enough comparing yourself to Isaac Newton without comparing yourself to Kimball Kinn

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