billybob

46 ms·

421.
by billybob 16y ago
Yikes. Somebody needs to buy himself a pair of Silly Pants and have fun once in a while.
422.
by billybob 16y ago
Really? Did you sell them to people you trust? Personally I just don't sell hard drives. They get destroyed. I don't have anything illegal or immoral on there, I just figure, I've had financial info on there, pictures, etc, and who knows wh
423.
by billybob 16y ago
So when they turn 21, a "be responsible" switch will magically flip in their minds? The job of parents and society is to teach children responsibility. That means having consequences for your actions. And the closer you get to adulthood, th
424.
by billybob 16y ago
Aw, isn't that sweet. You know what would be sweeter? A little note attached saying "P.S., we give up, we are switching to Webkit."
425.
by billybob 16y ago
Does your boss understand the concept of tests? Removing unit tests because they're "making things break" is like removing your smoke alarm because it's "making annoying noises." To stretch the analogy, it's only a matter of time before the
426.
by billybob 16y ago
Yeah. If inflation gets out of control, you have to make up new ones. "That vishal meeting was a meepish waste of time!"
427.
by billybob 16y ago
A Caesar cypher, specifically. Wow.
428.
by billybob 16y ago
Yep. "Hey government, you know that pipe we use to funnel every citizens conversations to you? That was nice for you, huh? We want to engulf another company. Let us. (Also their conversations go in the pipe.)"
429.
by billybob 16y ago
We're using Riak to store forms that can have varying schemas as JSON. That and the no-single-point-of-failure were two of the big draws.
430.
by billybob 16y ago
I actually think this related announcement is cooler: http://googlevoiceblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/sprint-integrate... "So now, calls to your Sprint mobile number can easily be answered from your office or your home phone, or even your com
431.
by billybob 16y ago
What's the goal of this site? I'm not sure I'd want to ask someone a question that they may have already read the answer to. When I interview someone, I want to know what they actually know or can figure out with hints, not whether they hav
432.
by billybob 16y ago
Or "drowsy?"
433.
by billybob 16y ago
Aw. For a second, I thought this was going to be about a Wi-Fi-only phone . When that becomes a popular product category, it will be an interesting day in tech.
434.
by billybob 16y ago
Excellent point. :)
435.
by billybob 16y ago
So basically, according to this graph, coal, oil and natural gas cause way more deaths per unit of energy produced than other energy sources, and notably, nuclear energy is by far the least dangerous. That's interesting, if it's true.
436.
by billybob 16y ago
I'm not an environmentalist, but as a technology person, I'm extremely skeptical of claims that nuclear power can be safe, however well-designed the reactors are today. It's hard enough to tell whether my web server will be able to handle n
437.
by billybob 16y ago
"due to the amount implicit knowledge that a doctor gathers during a >24h time period about his patients that can't be transferred in a handoff." While this may be true, the process of the handoff could be vastly improved. My wife is a
438.
by billybob 16y ago
"I've asked many doctors about this. They insist that they are not effected by sleep deprivation. They claim it is safer to have the same doctor for 24-48 hours rather than hand off a patient to a new, fresh doctor." Absolute bunk. Doctors
439.
by billybob 16y ago
Not sure if the rules were stricter, but Chrome's increased bounty from Google was the main thing I wanted to hear about in this contest. It's a nice PR move if Chrome isn't hacked successfully, and probably a nice recruitment move if it is
440.
by billybob 16y ago
I think we mostly agree here. Each person does make his/her own choices, and most people can improve their life situation if they decide to. And I definitely agree that simple income distribution isn't the answer - better to "teach a man to
441.
by billybob 16y ago
Scott Chacon (author of Pro Git, Git evangelist for Github) has said in his Changelog interview that Git and Mercurial are in fact extremely similar. He wrote some kind of tool for letting the two work together, so he had to learn the inter
442.
by billybob 16y ago
Agreed. In fact, this is a big part of why I dislike Facebook: the public nature of conversation distorts it. I have wonderful, deep conversations with my wife. I also have deep conversations with my best friend. I love them both, and I'm n
443.
by billybob 16y ago
"...poverty is a result of poor life choices." This is an overgeneralization. All of us make choices based on our perception of the world. It matters very much whether, like me, you were raised by educated people, being told "you can do any
444.
by billybob 16y ago
How much do you actually know about Puritans? Most of what I learned about them in high school came from works of fiction. It was a pretty unfair picture, in retrospect.
445.
by billybob 16y ago
On the other hand, if you have to do it one or two times a month, you should write a script. It prevents future mistakes on your part, and makes the task a lot easier to hand off to someone else, because you're guaranteed to record all the
446.
Ask HN: How to identify promising entry-level coders?
20 points by billybob 16y ago|22 comments
447.
by billybob 16y ago
I was a journalist, and unhappy. Took a break, went back to school (to study music), met a girl, and we decided to get married. By that time she was in grad school a few hours away. When we married, I moved there and had to find a new job.
448.
by billybob 16y ago
I sure don't. Personally, my outlook swings between "I'm so awesome, look at what I made" to "I am an idiot - why am I in this field?" The latter comes when I'm 2 hours into a debugging session and still stumped, or when I'm looking at code
449.
by billybob 16y ago
I had to turn that video off to maintain my personal pride. I may be a nerd, but by gosh, I do NOT watch Windows installation retrospectives for entertainment! :)
450.
by billybob 16y ago
That's the age when I really started coding. Now I'm in my second full-time programming job and building a pretty great resume. My tips: 1) Study and practice. Pick a topic you don't know, choose a book that's well reviewed, and learn it. 2

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