geophile

65 ms·

691.
by geophile 9y ago
I was at Computer Corporation of America for a few years, until 1988, in the research group. It was quite illustrious in its day, producing very interesting research and prototypes, (concurrency control, extended relational databases, the A
692.
Use of dependency theory and normal forms in the real world
1 points by geophile 9y ago|0 comments
693.
by geophile 9y ago
No, that's not what I mean. A point is represented by a z-value at the resolution of space. A non-point is approximated by multiple z-values, at varying resolutions. You can trade the accuracy of the approximation against the number of
694.
by geophile 9y ago
Oh! I see the problem. I don't mean just a tree keyed on the z-axis. I mean z-order: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z-order
695.
by geophile 9y ago
Related to another thread on this discussion: Z-order combined with sorted array/tree/etc. generalizes to non-point objects quite easily. I think the Z-order NN algorithm will "just work" with non-point data.
696.
by geophile 9y ago
Huh? I've used z-order inside database systems, with many millions of records. Works incredibly well.
697.
by geophile 9y ago
Not sure what you mean by a single-axis kd-tree. Z-order + sorted array/tree/etc. is a generalization of an oct-tree. An octtree is just z-order combined with a degree 8 trie. And an octtree is simply an encoding of a 3-d grid. So
698.
by geophile 9y ago
Simpler: - Compute z-value for each vector, store in binary tree (or sorted array, etc.), keyed by z-value. - Compute z-value of search vector, search the data structure, find the k adjacent items in each direction (k is small, e.g. 1-5). -
699.
by geophile 9y ago
It's the wrong question. The question that should be discussed is why non-engineers feel qualified to dictate product decisions. Source: I am a software engineer who has often had to fix dumb ideas from people who have no idea how soft
700.
by geophile 9y ago
1/3 = 0.3333... Multiply each side by 3 3 * (1/3) = 1 3 * 0.3333... = 0.9999... So 1 = 0.9999...
701.
by geophile 9y ago
Well, not so far. Perhaps that will change.
702.
by geophile 9y ago
I also think that Apple design and quality has plummeted. However: Android is a Google product. Google makes their money selling data on me. Apple makes money on hardware. It's an easy choice.
703.
by geophile 9y ago
Can't read the article due to ad blockers. But going by the headline: Huh? Siri is usually able to do something reasonable with requests I throw at it. Alexa -- almost never. I have a Dot at home, and it's good for getting a weath
704.
by geophile 9y ago
Do they actually exist? My friend got tired of waiting and got a refund. That was maybe a year ago.
705.
by geophile 9y ago
That's well and good, but this letter avoids the elephant in the room. Apple has gone way too far in sacrificing functionality for style. I'll accept a seam in the phone, and a slightly thicker phone, if I could replace the batter
706.
by geophile 9y ago
I asked my daughter if she would slip this into the lengthy, Hebrew Haftorah reading during her bat mitzvah. Not everyone would have detected it, (certainly not me).
707.
by geophile 9y ago
I interviewed with Informix shortly before IBM acquired it, and after they acquired Illustra (a commercialized Postgres, company started by Stonebraker). My recollection was that Informix was a mess having decided to basically build their n
708.
by geophile 9y ago
Oh fuck, just give me a decent keyboard on the MBP. Is that so much to ask?
709.
by geophile 9y ago
Isn't there another possibility? What if a math breakthrough makes bitcoin mining much cheaper? What would that do to Bitcoin -- hyperinflation?
710.
by geophile 9y ago
But texting the word "I" is still broken? I would have thought that one was easy.
711.
by geophile 9y ago
Because in a 100-node cluster, you get 100 du results. With osh you can post-process cluster output in arbitrary ways, e.g. summing. Also: - Piping of Python objects instead of strings. - Integrated database access (SQL results -> stream
712.
by geophile 9y ago
Functional programming and GC are slowly moving up. Looking forward to the (pure) Lisp resurgence of the 2020s.
713.
by geophile 9y ago
In 2003 I started working on a distributed file store for archival, (an "object store"). I was responsible for the metadata management component, which was implemented by a Java distribution layer over a postgres database on each
714.
by geophile 9y ago
> the rise of streaming content services has kinda killed off the need for file sharing for most people. The history is a bit different. Napster was sued out of existence. As I recall, this was done by the record labels, but the argument
715.
by geophile 9y ago
Well, they rely on doing pretty much everything in the application layer, which can become messy and cumbersome. Relational databases are the way they are for a reason. NoSQL is often selected, not because they address requirements better,
716.
by geophile 9y ago
Yes and no. Yes, choose carefully at the beginning, and use relational. More specifically, use Postgres. But choose the right things to worry about at the beginning. So worry about something that can accommodate changing requirements, i.e.,
717.
by geophile 9y ago
I really, really dislike Swift's approach. get/set/willSet/didSet -- so much complication to preserve the illusion that you are operating on a field when you are actually doing no such thing. Why is this desirable? It re
718.
by geophile 9y ago
I wrote an ORM for Java, many years ago, and I have also come around to the anti-ORM position. One major reason for this was a conversation with a customer not interested in our product. She didn't want or need the extra layer, and als
719.
by geophile 9y ago
I think getters/setters are an abomination resulting from a sensible OO idea taken too far. Having private fields and public methods has benefits that are so obvious that I won't belabor the point. Sometimes -- maybe even often --
720.
by geophile 9y ago
The problem is that the combination of an old iPhone and a new OS tends to suck. And batteries wear out.

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