bkovitz

10 ms·

121.
by bkovitz 17y ago
I was not aware that classified ads used to be the main source of revenue. I thought that most of the 20th century, paid advertising (the kind with graphics) was the main source. I'm curious. Do you know something I could read to find ou
122.
by bkovitz 17y ago
And let's not forget the most effective way to get a job: contacts. Sending out résumés is pretty weak, even if you have a degree or two.
123.
by bkovitz 17y ago
I skipped college and went straight for the job. Learned more in one year at a software job than most people get in four years at a college. But that is a great point: a lot of organizations, particularly big organizations, use a college d
124.
by bkovitz 17y ago
Washington Post pays for all the time and hard work to put together a real story. Gawker reduces it to snark, collects the ad money. This is a problem. Real journalism is in big economic trouble. If there were ever an opportunity for some
125.
by bkovitz 17y ago
"The first goal of college must be to get a proper basis for getting started with a job, and preferrably a career." "I think the solution is to get more serious about packaging the education part in a way that doesn't force you to bundle
126.
by bkovitz 17y ago
I don't understand how he gets his conclusion. The switch statements ran faster by a factor of two or more. Isn't that a significant improvement in performance?
127.
by bkovitz 17y ago
As a completely self-taught software engineer, I'm inclined to agree. Except for one big doubt: A large percentage of people do not excel on their own. They rely on social standards to specify what counts as "good enough" and to provide
128.
by bkovitz 17y ago
UPDATE: The on-line book was only up temporarily, to get comments from the artist. It's gone now. It'll be back up when the printed book is published.
129.
by bkovitz 17y ago
What's new and special about this edition?
130.
by bkovitz 17y ago
Indeed, comparison with other opportunities is most important. I didn't make that clear. If you can do better teaching and/or better research outside the university, then go for it. (I am wrestling with this decision right now.) That
131.
by bkovitz 17y ago
I really like this concept. The execution is simple and straightforward. Despite the sophistication, anyone can understand it. One question, though: How is it even theoretically possible to make money from this?
132.
by bkovitz 17y ago
It's OK if the reader can skip or skim the help text. That's good graphic design: your eye finds the main things easily, and then digs into the details as necessary.
133.
by bkovitz 17y ago
Thank you for pointing this out. Lately I'd been feeling despondent, thinking that the Internet is mostly a sea of unsupported opinion. The surfeit of opinion seems driven by the fact that (a) unsupported opinion is easier to write and publ
134.
by bkovitz 17y ago
Certainly, there's loads of stupid "research" in academia—cranking out papers that interest no one, in order to justify tenure and more grants. However, "90% of everything is crap". The relevant question, before you throw out the entire in
135.
by bkovitz 17y ago
"champeen"
136.
by bkovitz 17y ago
It sounds like this guy got enormous return on his mini-retirement investment. He found true wisdom. We've all heard the things he's saying about life and happiness, but now he really grasps them. All for a somewhat unpleasant three-mont
137.
by bkovitz 17y ago
Ecch. Years ago, working on genomics stuff, it occurred to me that the same kind of approach could unshred documents. I didn't pursue it, because I didn't think of who the market would be. (Well, that and the usual other million distract
138.
by bkovitz 17y ago
The article just barely touches on the main point: without general knowledge in your head, you can't put things into context. One person cited in the article proposes that the trade-off is between learning to analyze vs. learning facts.
139.
by bkovitz 17y ago
Weird. When I bought MS-Office at the Microsoft store on the Redmond campus, an employee gave the cashier his employee number while I waited. Lots of people were doing that, just as openly.
140.
by bkovitz 17y ago
Are you sure about this? Can you post a reference? My understanding is that the same sorts of scales (logarithmic, with any frequency f and f*2^n treated as equivalent pitches, usually with five or eight tones per octave, occasionally more)
141.
by bkovitz 17y ago
Duh. It just hit me. Math is mostly edge cases. Consequently, the urge to be have perfect logical validity (same as the urge to write a bugless program) requires you to spend most of your attention on the edge cases. That urge is stronger i
142.
by bkovitz 17y ago
Strange but true: Microsoft encourages their employees to get their non-employee friends to use the employee discount. A sale is a sale, I guess.
143.
by bkovitz 17y ago
And, basic respect and consideration are very inexpensive. Often it's simply a matter of returning emails and phone calls.
144.
by bkovitz 17y ago
What do you love about abstract algebra? I'm asking because I found myself deeply disappointed with it when I took it in school. It seemed to me just a haphazard collection of definitions and puzzles. Why, for example, does anyone care ho
145.
by bkovitz 17y ago
Try putting it on Full Screen and hit Pause as necessary. I was able to read most of the text, though it wasn't always easy.
146.
by bkovitz 17y ago
Isn't it weird how awful math terminology is? Even the word "derivative" is an awful choice. The special and wonderful thing about a derivative is that it's the rate at which another function changes, not that it's derived somehow.
147.
by bkovitz 17y ago
Yeah, that brings up another of those peculiar things about math, and especially, dealing with math culture. It's hard to talk about a main idea without getting mired in weird exceptions. There are indeed precise conditions that guarantee
148.
by bkovitz 17y ago
My experience with math in school is that it was taught as if it were modern art: a bunch of meaningless procedures (up through calculus) and meaningless puzzles (beyond calculus). If it were taught as providing some insight or serving some
149.
by bkovitz 17y ago
I'm a math idiot, too, but I know that he's confusing indefinite and definite integration. Definite integration returns a number; indefinite integration returns a function. Differentiation does undo indefinite integration.
150.
by bkovitz 17y ago
Sounds like you've figured it out. Just as it's easier to avoid the popcorn in the grocery aisle or theater lobby than when it's within arm's reach, it's easier to block HN than to avoid typing "Cmd-L n" in your browser.

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