camccann

34 ms·

301.
by camccann 17y ago
If memory serves me, there are also cases where information available at run-time can allow better optimizations than could normally be done at compile-time--I think the JVM has some tricks along those lines for JITing bytecode into native
302.
by camccann 17y ago
How "free market" something is is a continuum, not a binary distinction Even worse: it's a multi-dimensional continuum, where the function mapping points from the space "all possible markets" to the space "quality of the resulting health
303.
by camccann 17y ago
LESS short-sighted? Quite so! I fear you overestimate biological evolution. Imagine a market with the same kind of behaviors you describe, only a million times larger, and where not only do markets fixate on 3-month returns, but if any ex
304.
by camccann 17y ago
2 - the disparity in prices shows that the free market just doesn't work for American Health Care This is not intended as an attack on you, just in case it might sound that way, but: I wish people, when saying that "the market doesn't wor
305.
by camccann 17y ago
Economic "laws" are a mixture of gross simplifications and statistical kludges, all of which describe patterns of behavior within some domain of limited parameters, at some scale of detail and timespan. Of course, the same can be said for p
306.
by camccann 17y ago
Nothing Google does is for "users". Advertisers are Google's customers. Users are Google's product. That's mostly true, but a little too glib in some ways. Their raw material is prospective users , their salable product is actual users,
307.
by camccann 17y ago
This brings to mind the story that begins with William Shockley's famous management and interpersonal skills. From Wikipedia: Shockley attempted to lure some of his former colleagues from Bell Labs to his new lab, but none of them would jo
308.
by camccann 17y ago
This sounds like a way to essentially accomplish multiple inheritance without having to deal with the problems caused by actually using multiple inheritance. Mixins (in languages that have them) would seem to do much the same thing as wel
309.
by camccann 17y ago
Requiring GPL on derivative works is the one-way boundary I mentioned; the simulated "copyright-free zone" in question is comprised of all GPL-licensed software, so anything existing wholly within that realm isn't impacted. The purpose of t
310.
by camccann 17y ago
I don't believe that profit margins represent market efficiencies. In a perfect market, profit margins represent value perceived. If your product will save me 10$ but costs you 2$ to produce, charging 5$ is beneficial to both of us. Excep
311.
by camccann 17y ago
To put numbers in perspective, IQ is generally defined as a normal distribution (also called a gaussian curve, bell curve, etc.--it's a "normal" distribution because it's extremely common in nature) with a global average of 100 and a standa
312.
by camccann 17y ago
It seems that copyright when used by big corporations is evil and restrictions are good, but when the GPL gets weakened by them it's suddenly a bad thing. Keep in mind that the GPL is not an end in and of itself; it's a cute little legal
313.
by camccann 17y ago
I suspect what you're thinking is a "perfect market", i.e., an optimally competitive market with several (implausible) characteristics, such as no barriers to entry, all participants being fully informed, A good rule of thumb to keep in min
314.
by camccann 17y ago
Okay, you're right. No matter how annoyed I am with the discussion the least I can do is not make things worse. My apologies.
315.
by camccann 17y ago
Anyway, email me if you wish, so as not to pollute your 97 day experience with HN by continuing this subject here. Your condescension is duly noted. Regretfully, I think I must decline your offer of a "discussion".
316.
by camccann 17y ago
Well, frankly, I think it's obnoxious. I wouldn't mind if it had anything to do with actual science , but this is just political fluff to make people feel good about their preconceived notions. HN's front page got spammed with it because i
317.
by camccann 17y ago
Seriously, how many posts about this do we really need?
318.
by camccann 17y ago
And yet rejection of evolution remains widespread, around 30%-60% of the population in most first-world nations, and evidence that demonstrates evolution's reality is still twisted and misused by those with ideological objections to it. Of
319.
by camccann 17y ago
Who would have guessed that MS would be more developer-friendly than G? Anyone who's done Microsoft-based development? MS is incredibly developer-friendly compared to many platform vendors. It's a point of business strategy for them (if m
320.
by camccann 17y ago
Okay, the whole "I'd rather delete data" thing sounds really sketchy, but... If science and data are not interpreted by the right people, how can we be sure that the world is getting the right message? You know, I suppose you're trying to
321.
by camccann 17y ago
Science isn't even supposed to be neutral; leave that to Wikipedia. I don't even know why anyone would expect a site presenting accurate scientific information to be neutral, wouldn't that completely miss the point?
322.
by camccann 17y ago
This part made me chuckle a bit: What other systems don't have, however, is adaptability. Condon said that, unlike its fellow next-generation gaming machines, the PS3 lets users install Linux, a free, open-source operating system. [...] Un
323.
by camccann 17y ago
Pedophiles don't tend to be the sharpest tools in the shed so I'm guessing dictionary words do the trick 90% of the time. You know, users in general don't tend to do very well at picking passwords. The great success story of educating u
324.
by camccann 17y ago
I have to assume they're using some sort of extremely broad, relatively intelligent dictionary attack--a large dictionary, mixing numbers and symbols in with words, trying misspelled words using things like Levenshtein distance, phonetic sp
325.
by camccann 17y ago
Speaking from personal experience, understanding the concept of much of anything is, alas, not really required to pass the GED. So I fear that anyone who can comprehend an advanced concept such as "percentiles" would be wasting their talent
326.
by camccann 17y ago
Reality check: The median regular poster on HN is probably in the 95th percentile or better for intelligence, knowledge, and general cluefulness. Hell, the median poster on slashdot is probably well above average. The bloggers on ScienceB
327.
by camccann 17y ago
Sure, it could have been a typo, or some other minor mistake. But he's also correct that it's hilariously wrong. Is it really asking too much that something published in the New York Times either have sufficient editing and proofreading
328.
by camccann 17y ago
On the bright side, at least you don't have to deal with a language that includes functions such as mysql_escape_string() , mysql_real_escape_string() , and mysql_no_really_i_mean_it_this_time_escape_string() .
329.
by camccann 17y ago
I know you're probably joking, but for the record: Greenland was marginally more livable during the medieval warm period, but even so farming and ranching were only barely viable and the Norse settlers never ventured very far north or inlan
330.
by camccann 17y ago
I would expect scientists to lean more toward a system based on a notion of natural rights, rather tha on legal technicalities, but I admit a tendency to project. That's curious, I would expect completely the opposite. Are "natural righ

More ›