essayist

15 ms·

91.
by essayist 14y ago
A much better approach (from a piano teacher, but it generalizes: Tags like "stupid," "bad at ____", "sloppy," and so on, are ways of saying "You're performing badly and I don't know why." Once you move it to "you're performing badly bec
92.
by essayist 14y ago
Useful. I'd love to find FAAS - Kalman (and other) filtering as a service. For instance: I run daily backups on various databases. I expect the backup size to increase roughly linearly, but I'm just going to look in on the backups at random
93.
by essayist 14y ago
Mostly Gmail via Chrome on Snow Leopard, supplemented with Sparrow to clear out the inbox from time to time.
94.
by essayist 14y ago
Since water droplets look alike, you get the illusion, at the proper frequency setting, of water dripping up. I wonder how it would look if a different dye was injected into the flow every few seconds, just above the faucet. Presumably, the
95.
by essayist 15y ago
This is one example of statistical sloppiness in reporting, comprising: (a) sloppiness about the quantity or proportion being asserted (e.g. "many" rather than "at least 4000" or "10%" or "24"), and (b) sloppiness about the confidence inter
96.
by essayist 15y ago
David Foster Wallace's take on this was that my own reality is so overpoweringly real, that it's hard to see you (or anyone else) as real. everything in my own immediate experience supports my deep belief that I am the absolute centre of
97.
by essayist 15y ago
Joel Spolsky's illuminating screed on Netscape rewriting its browser from scratch is apropos here: The idea that new code is better than old is patently absurd. Old code has been used. It has been tested. Lots of bugs have b
98.
by essayist 15y ago
Yes, please. Plus - I work in DC, but generally want to see moves in Virginia, so tying the search to my location is too restricting.
99.
by essayist 15y ago
Somewhat parallel to what I see as the two legitimate uses of infographics (with no claim that there are only two): 1. presenting/supporting analytical results 2. providing the viewer/reader with a way to explore data for new conclusions
100.
by essayist 15y ago
Here's an example of Bill Clinton, as President, calling bullshit in 1995. A while back, Pakistan had paid a lot of money to buy 28 F-16 fighters, but that sale was voided by the US Government because of Pakistan's efforts to develop nuclea
101.
by essayist 15y ago
I do as well, even when I type in the addresses provided in the example.
102.
by essayist 15y ago
Or a private Roku channel - streaming puppies FTW!
103.
by essayist 15y ago
I'm in deep agreement here. Gregory Bateson put it well, many years ago, writing to someone who wondered whether she/he had a role in a friend's suicide: Complete, in your imagination, this scenario: Your friend has achieved her suici
104.
by essayist 15y ago
William Black, who was a lead investigator/prosecutor for the 1990's savings and loan crime spree, would disagree. http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04232010/profile.html When an investment bank packages up securities to sell and doesn't
105.
by essayist 15y ago
I'm a tremendous fan and frequent user of various StackExchange sites, and I've been looking for places to use a tool like OSQA or Coordino. I wonder, though, about the scale required. My sense is that for sites like StackOverflow and Hacke
106.
by essayist 15y ago
You might find Sharon Drew Morgen's work helpful. For instance: http://sharondrewmorgen.com/2011/07/why-arent-our-prospects-... (My only connection is that I've read two of her books and talked to her on the phone once.) TL;DR: "A purchas
107.
by essayist 15y ago
One trick that works for me, from time to time, when dealing with a CSR in person or over the phone, and running into roadblocks - ask them, human to human, what I should do. It obviously doesn't free them from their bureaucratic chains, bu
108.
by essayist 15y ago
I dropped an CLEC DSL a few years ago because I was spending 2 days every six months babysitting their repair jobs. Considered Comcast, but just signing up was an immense hassle - phone reps couldn't find the offers I had in my mail, or on
109.
by essayist 15y ago
I'm sorry that this happened to Tammy Camp, for her, for the other organizers of the conference, and for the attendees. Regarding many of the HN posters here who argue that Camp shouldn't have blogged about this, or that she must be lying:
110.
by essayist 16y ago
I find that this helps tremendously when I'm stuck in a decision. I open TextWrangler on my MacBook, and write about the various options, why I don't like them, and, if I'm really good, what the cost of not making a decision is, and what th
111.
by essayist 16y ago
Yup. See the "Maginot line" discussion above.
112.
by essayist 16y ago
Point taken. Still, it leaves me wondering: what's the "rail gun" of diplomacy - e.g. how would serious money spent on R&D help us resolve the issue of Israel and the Palestinians? And what's the "rail gun" for nation building - how wou
113.
by essayist 16y ago
This is great! When the Soviets come roaring through the Fulda Gap, or the Japanese descend on Pearl Harbor, we got 'em! Oh, wait. We're preparing for the last war or even the one before that, all over again. How does this help in the world