camccann

16 ms·

91.
by camccann 17y ago
Yeah, but why not aim higher? Er, lower? Besides, unlike brainfuck, Unlambda is actually a plausible language for writing nontrivial code--painful, but not inconceivable.
92.
by camccann 17y ago
This almost makes me tempted to write a web app framework in Unlambda. Almost.
93.
by camccann 17y ago
...so, basically it gives the same ease of understanding program flow that lazy evaluation offers, but without the distracting complexity of referential transparency? Okay, then.
94.
by camccann 17y ago
Given a harmful, self-reinforcing cycle produced by multiple independent actors making (fairly predictable) decisions, I'm curious why you think it's correct to single out a particular part of the cycle as being the problem. At any link in
95.
by camccann 17y ago
You don't need to go to university to study. In fact, if you're actually motivated to learn, it's almost as likely to get in the way. There are certainly some potentially good reasons for going to university, but if you don't have your goal
96.
by camccann 17y ago
Ah, the existential accessor operator is lovely. It really warms the heart to see variations on the Maybe monad sneaking into other languages--if there's one thing from Haskell I miss elsewhere, it's that.
97.
by camccann 17y ago
Corollary 1: A good workman uses tools that make it easier to diagnose his own mistakes, since that's what most problems are. Valgrind is a beautiful example. Corollary 2: Tools that don't help you catch your mistakes are, in fact, bad tool
98.
by camccann 17y ago
No, your reformulation is also incorrect. A correct formulation might be "The source is biased; therefore I would be wise to be skeptical and subject any claims to greater scrutiny." A nice thought, but naive and impractical in applicatio
99.
by camccann 17y ago
Many logical fallacies are actually good quick-and-dirty heuristics for deciding whether something is worth considering. "The source is biased, therefore the argument is wrong" is clearly incorrect, but "the source is biased, therefore the
100.
by camccann 17y ago
It's also worth noting that the political factions promoting climate change as an issue, and the policies and actions being proposed as solutions, are largely unrelated to the details of actual science. It's a perfectly reasonable position
101.
by camccann 17y ago
One's own efforts are a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for creating wealth. In an unstable state people who are already rich benefit; people who might become rich are likely to have a different experience. So yes, I suppose that
102.
by camccann 17y ago
I think we need to change the discussion regarding climate change. For every scientist who says the world is warming, you'll can find another who says it isn't. That... really isn't true, you know. Depending on who you're asking, the opin
103.
by camccann 17y ago
Have you considered letting the non-tech users post profiles of some sort as well? I can certainly see some difficulties, but it could be useful if you found a way to make it work. Particularly, I'm thinking of people with specialized exper
104.
by camccann 17y ago
What you say is an indictment of the inhumanity of the prison system, not an argument in favor of the death penalty.
105.
by camccann 17y ago
He only cared about how people treated each other, human relationships, attitudes of the human heart, and love. I think most atheists would agree that Jesus sounds like a great guy. The sticking point is probably more the lack of actual e
106.
by camccann 17y ago
Oh, more bad news: robots can already do that, and it will only be a few more years before the cleaning company we outsource to figures out how to exploit that differential profitably. This is really a key point, I think. Automation is th
107.
by camccann 17y ago
I recall seeing at some point, but alas cannot recall where, a study that looked at average productivity per hour vs. hours worked each day/week. If memory serves me, they found that productivity/hr reliably dropped at the beginning and end
108.
by camccann 17y ago
Many precious metals have useful qualities in terms of resisting corrosion, conducting heat or electricity, and such. In a lab doing this kind of work, they are likely to have those materials just lying around. Read it as "we used super-hig
109.
by camccann 17y ago
I was under the impression that when using hydrogen for fuel, the by-product was water (at least in automobiles). The article just triggered the question, I wasn't necessarily commenting on the technology. Oh, sorry! Yes, burnt hydrogen i
110.
by camccann 17y ago
I've sometimes wondered what Mencken would have thought of the internet. Especially given that large parts of his life could be plausibly summarized by "he did it for the lulz".
111.
by camccann 17y ago
It is the eternal bane of the hasty cook that, alas, hot metal looks exactly like room-temperature metal.
112.
by camccann 17y ago
Right. It's just a variety of solar power, converting the energy in sunlight into another form--in this case, chemical potential energy. The potential value lies in weighing practical considerations between different ways of storing solar e
113.
by camccann 17y ago
At a global scale, the "rains out of the atmosphere" bit mostly covers it. Condensation and evaporation processes tend to make water vapor largely self-regulating, shifting around quantities of water that dwarf human factors. However, where
114.
by camccann 17y ago
The average person would only have to work a couple of hours a day for all of humanity's basic needs to be met. With robots, we may eventually reach the point where people don't need to work at all in order to meet humanity's basic needs.
115.
by camccann 17y ago
Drifting slightly off-topic--the self-similar structure of cauliflower is neat, but is put to shame by a closely related plant. Behold, the king of recursive food, the ultimate fractal vegetable: Romanesco Broccoli. http://upload.wikimedia
116.
by camccann 17y ago
If you want to take that route, one of the most promising approaches is via "algaculture"--basically cultivating oily pond scum in shallow pools, then skimming off the algae and drying/pressing it to extract useful oil.
117.
by camccann 17y ago
Depends on where you are. Sunshine is a little harder to box up and ship to where it's needed.
118.
by camccann 17y ago
There's an interesting distinction to be made between true anonymity and "pseudonymity", though. In particular, a pseudonym identity can eventually acquire as much baggage as a real identity--the more social connections and reputation tha
119.
by camccann 17y ago
Ahh, 4chan. I don't think 4chan, and /b/ in particular, get enough credit for being the... unique sociological artifact that they are. There are many that extoll the virtue of "free speech", but how many are able to gaze unflinching at its
120.
by camccann 17y ago
I don't know whether to laugh or cry at some of these anecdotes. As a final example, a buffer overflow checker flagged a bunch of errors of the form unsigned p[4]; ... p[4] = 1; "No, ANSI lets you write 1 past the end of the arr

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