brent

19 ms·

151.
American Consumers Spend More Money On Cheese than On Computers(flowingdata.com)
5 points by brent 18y ago|2 comments
152.
by brent 18y ago
In your case I would say that you should NOT pursue the PhD. However, to counter some of the ridiculous comments I've read... 1. I get to work on the problems that interest me most. 2. I make more money than I would starting at an unfunded
153.
by brent 18y ago
Would a VC pass on 2x even if they knew it was the sweetest the deal would be? What if its the best possible exit? Do you think the VC's are valuing xobni higher than $20m even in the face of Microsoft inevitably copying all of their featur
154.
by brent 18y ago
It isn't arbitrary at all. I think people should know a compiled language (procedural), a scripting language, a numerical computing language (w/ vectorized notation), and a functional language. I think its completely excessive for the aver
155.
by brent 18y ago
Why do you say that? Which part is hip? If my #5 were my list I could understand the comment, but my list is much more reasonable than the post. I use c, python, and matlab on a near daily basis for work so they are all quite practical.
156.
by brent 18y ago
These lists always seem a bit silly to me. It seems to be an attempt at being hip rather than a practical list. I thoroughly enjoy Haskell and Erlang, but I'm not sure they are languages anyone "should know". My list would be more like (
157.
by brent 18y ago
That's interesting. I tested about 30 keyboards before I settled on it. The decision was almost entirely feel and I love it. I type/code ~6 hours a day on it.
158.
by brent 18y ago
Speaking of incompetent programmers... I'm clicking on the comments link on his page and nothing is happening (unless I hit refresh of course :)).
159.
by brent 18y ago
"The best way to get good ratings is to be relatively easy on grades, good looking or both" "Last year, a scholarly study found a high correlation between RateMyProfessors.com and a university’s own system of student evaluations." This is n
160.
by brent 18y ago
For anyone interested in the original paper (this journal is freely available to all): http://download.ajhg.org/AJHG/pdf/PIIS0002929708002553.pdf
161.
by brent 18y ago
... and zero mathematicians.
162.
Only one computer scientist in the world's top 100 public intellectuals(foreignpolicy.com)
7 points by brent 18y ago|23 comments
163.
by brent 18y ago
I thought this was reasonably interesting as he beats Montaigne and Wikipedia.
164.
by brent 19y ago
While I haven't looked in depth at either post I find this to be an awfully bold claim and appears to be based on the results of a small number of example problems. There are probably hundreds of papers available where the opposite is show
165.
by brent 19y ago
What good is the best collection of links if it is not easily searchable? Is there a reason you're avoiding this functionality?
166.
by brent 19y ago
I'm sure your intention wasn't to spend a hundred on the subject, but Somorjai has an introductory book which I think is worth noting. http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Surface-Chemistry-Catalys...
167.
by brent 19y ago
http://www.amazon.com/Competitive-Advantage-Creating-Sustain... Should I send a copy of this to 37 signals? I thought this was business 101. If you don't have a sustainable competitive advantage you will undoubtedly suffer. 37 signals
168.
by brent 19y ago
Should read: The most common english words in rss feeds. I would imagine that it is not necessarily representative of the entire language. Specifically I doubt 'government' is the second most used word over 10 letters (although I obviousl
169.
by brent 19y ago
The syntax that you hate will grow on you. If you're like me, at some point you'll wonder why other languages do not use whitespace effectively. It may be annoying at first, but when you revisit code later it makes it much more readable i
170.
by brent 19y ago
Here is my list. It is probably not a good hacker list, but a CS/ML/bioinformatics list. Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs (SICP), Abelson & Sussman The Little Schemer, Friedman The C Programming Language (K&R), Ker
171.
by brent 19y ago
The question is... was this comment posted before or after this xkcd comic was published: http://xkcd.com/406/ . I believe both were within the hour.
172.
by brent 19y ago
I don't think there is an exact analytical solution. Of course if you're only interested in the first d decimal points you can just rearrange the terms so the piece you're inserting the recurrence in is less than 10^-d for very large k (ar
173.
by brent 19y ago
Reminds me of: Hofstadter's Law: "It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take Hofstadter's Law into account."
174.
by brent 19y ago
Yes, this is not correct. This would would mean x asymptotically approaches e as k increases. However, if k = 30, x should be nearly 150. See my other post for more details.
175.
by brent 19y ago
I'm not a real math guy, but I believe you solve these with a technique called asymptotic iteration. So for sufficiently large k you can assign an initial guess at x (which I label x0). Then plug that into the original and repeat: x = k *
176.
by brent 19y ago
I'd be happy with v0.1 ... txt xxxid where id a parking lot id and it returns how many spots are empty. Or even just if the lot is full (all I really care about).
177.
by brent 19y ago
On the driving and maps note, I'm at a large university and I'd love to be able to determine via phone if a certain parking lot is full or not.
178.
by brent 19y ago
I'm not a huge sports fan, but this is an excellent idea. I, too, am an F1 fan and in America races are usually broadcast while I'm asleep. I can't subscribe to any F1 rss feeds because I'm guaranteed to accidentally open up my reader bef
179.
by brent 19y ago
t61. Mine has been rock solid. I run ubuntu and everything works great. This is my second thinkpad (last one was ~4 yrs ago). I have not had any of the issues anyone has listed about thinkpads with either one. Mine have worked like a c
180.
by brent 19y ago
Research professors spend much more time doing research than teaching. Usually you love doing it which offsets some of the monetary compensation issues. Also, "barely get any pay" is relative. It depends on where you live, the type of sc

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