graycat

867 ms·

1. 3811.▲
   by graycat 14y ago

   "On machines where pointers do not fit ints (basically all 64bit machines), you just silently (due to the cast there is no warning) truncated a pointer. Worse, it may work depending on the malloc implementation and how much memory you alloc
2. 3812.▲
   by graycat 14y ago

   Yup. With PL/I the maximum length of the string is set when the string is allocated, usually dynamically during execution. The length can be given as a constant in the source code or set from computations during execution. There is also a
3. 3813.▲
   by graycat 14y ago

   For "dark corners of C", when I was writing C code I had several serious concerns. Below I list eight such in roughly descending order on 'seriousness': First, what are malloc() and free() doing? That is, what are the details, all the det
4. 3814.▲
   by graycat 14y ago

   When I was a senior in college, I went through the math of the double pendulum. The subject is mostly just ordinary differential equations although there is a cute role for a little matrix theory. Generally it seems to me that the OP gets
5. 3815.▲
   by graycat 14y ago

   The main "point" is that, (1) we can do some things with 'small' or 'medium' data, (2) with 'big' data we can do more, (3) but due to the curse of dimensionality, the 1 over the square root of n problem, etc., even big data cannot be big en
6. 3816.▲
   by graycat 14y ago

   Yup. If have enough data and keep testing hypotheses long enough and keep fitting long enough, then have a good chance of finding a hypothesis can't reject and a fit that looks good, even though are looking at junk. So, divide the data in h
7. 3817.▲
   by graycat 14y ago

   "some correlation between x and y that makes us money" Well, there is a relationship between X and Y but it might not be an actual 'correlation'. Why? Because the relationship might be non-linear. For an easier explanation, consider just
8. 3818.▲
   by graycat 14y ago

   Before you can sell me a wrench, have to let me know what nuts it will turn, and I have to have some such nuts to turn. For big data, what nuts does it turn? I'm still waiting to hear just what nuts people want turned, especially those for
9. 3819.▲
   by graycat 14y ago

   Well, I wrote Kodacolor realizing that Kodak was in Chapter 11 and film is on the way out. But I was hoping that Fuji or maybe something from Europe would be equivalent to Kodacolor, as I recall, called color negative film. But I don't kn
10. 3820.▲
    by graycat 14y ago

    Thanks. I had to Google "Bayer filter" -- the Wikipedia page is good. So, yes, without knowing it, I was describing a Bayer filter. For video, sure, my Nikormat is only a still camera, but my guess is that the Canon CCD sensor will also ge
11. 3821.▲
    by graycat 14y ago

    It's a fantasy image that would be good to photograph, if it happened. A Sachertorte is a chocolate cake famous from Hotel Sacher in Vienna. It has lots of chocolate and eggs, some apricot jam, and only a little flour. The cake is chocola
12. 3822.▲
    by graycat 14y ago

    This article is not nearly the first time I thought about such things. His reason for getting a technical Ph.D. was essentially the same as mine. And I concluded the same as he did, that to use such education in business, basically have t
13. 3823.▲
    by graycat 14y ago

    So, with all the critical details here about CCD sensors, you expert guys are telling me that I should not rush out and spend $10 K, $20 K, or whatever for the latest Nikon/Canon single lens reflex with a CCD sensor and a bag of lenses and,
14. 3824.▲
    by graycat 14y ago

    Speed is an issue: I live 70 miles north of Wall Street and for a while worked a block away from the actual Wall Street. I found that at any time except the worst of the rush hours, I could go door to door by car faster than by the Metro
15. 3825.▲
    by graycat 14y ago

    At least in the US, the history of rail and high speed rail is clear: Even if you build it for free, during operations it fails (A) to show a profit or (B) to pass the laws on 'cost/benefit' analysis on the needed subsidies. So, in simple
16. 3826.▲
    by graycat 14y ago

    "or the rule itself was in error" I thought that the rule was in error: I couldn't read the rule clearly on the screen, but it seemed, or I guessed, that the problem with the rule was that the "humans" omitted the decimal points and, thus,
17. 3827.▲
    by graycat 14y ago

    Yes, case number 384,449,194 of systems management causing a system problem. Also case number 439,224 of what looked like a localized problem quickly causing a huge system, e.g., all 23 data centers around the world, to crash. They have my
18. 3828.▲
    by graycat 14y ago

    With so much in stories and history of Hitler, the Holocaust, The Third Reich, WWII, etc., off and on for some years I tried to understand what happened and see if parts of the world or here (in the US) remain vulnerable to a similar disast
19. 3829.▲
    by graycat 14y ago

    I read it a little differently: 1920-1940, just 20 years, including 12 years of The Great Depression, saw just explosive growth in telephones, electric power, electric motors, electric lighting, radio, autos, oil, steamships, chemical engi
20. 3830.▲
    by graycat 14y ago

    "everyone in tech journalism has the IQ and attention span of a gnat" I take great offense and strongly object to your unwarranted, unjustified, uninformed, misinformed, just plain wrong insult of good and innocent gnats!!!!
21. 3831.▲
    by graycat 14y ago

    Thanks for your response. Maybe we are close to a boundary of what HN will tolerate. So, I shouldn't try to comment on all you mentioned. In effect, commenting on the Republicans, what is crucial is simpler than your list -- they lost! Fo
22. 3832.▲
    by graycat 14y ago

    Thanks. http://imgur.com/tzToXpv Nice data. Basically Obama won only among people with less than $50 K a year. Wow! The exit poll data is amazing -- the poor, the non-whites, the women, the less educated except Obama also won the po
23. 3833.▲
    by graycat 14y ago

    With your "the 'warm and fuzzy' image of the Obama administration" you may have some answers I don't have to some questions I do have. In simple terms, I didn't and don't 'get it', why Obama was elected in 2008 and even more why he was elec
24. 3834.▲
    by graycat 14y ago

    I took the statements by grandalf as meaning 'some' or 'many' and not literally 'all'. But notice http://www.businessinsider.com/a-third-of-people-manipulate-... with About A Third Of People Have A Fundamental Desire To Manipulate Others
25. 3835.▲
    by graycat 14y ago

    So, DARPA is ready to write checks for just technical plans just as engineering presented just on paper for very challenging problems. And they intend to evaluate the plans, just from what is on paper. So, the check comes before any proto
26. 3836.▲
    by graycat 14y ago

    i = j+++++k
27. 3837.▲
    by graycat 14y ago

    The Dukes didn't need actually to 'corner' the market. The number of contracts being sold was exactly the same as the number of contracts being bought. So, "The number of people buying" was essentially the same as the number of people sell
28. 3838.▲
    by graycat 14y ago

    Shorter version: TV is light entertainment, even when it pretends to be something more. Why? Claim: There is in effect a rule not to be violated: Whenever content passes through a video camera, the work must be under the control of a pr
29. 3839.▲
    by graycat 14y ago

    Sorry, but my view of what is really "useful in today's world" is what the language has that makes it easy to get at, i.e., make use of, other software, e.g., TCP/IP, device drivers, operating system services, authentication services, APIs,
30. 3840.▲
    by graycat 14y ago

    Right. Sorry about leaving out the last paragraph. But one might try being short on a related public company, say, GroupOn.