jdblair

50 ms·

601.
by jdblair 10y ago
Its always about making the right judgement call between optimization and complexity, and sometimes I'm still surprised by what needs optimized and what doesn't. An anecdote from a project I'm working on. I'm writing som
602.
Ida Tin's Battle to Build Clue, a Period-Tracking App(newyorker.com)
3 points by jdblair 10y ago|0 comments
603.
by jdblair 10y ago
Its why this would purely speculative exercise would be hybrid - it would still need a diesel engine, it would just burn less fuel. Regardless, I expect the cost of running a ship's engine on bunker fuel is so low there's little i
604.
by jdblair 10y ago
I see I made a typo - meant to write "MW" for power, obviously.
605.
by jdblair 10y ago
You're using power (MWh) to make your point, but the crucial practical issue is energy storage (MWh). According to this chart[1], bunker fuel has about 80 times the energy density of lithium batteries. Something has to charge those bat
606.
by jdblair 10y ago
Now self-employed people with pre-existing conditions can actually buy insurance. That is different and better than before the ACA.
607.
by jdblair 10y ago
I switch back to Mac from Linux so I could have grep, pipes, sed and all the UNIX stuff alongside real commercial applications like Word, Excel and Photoshop. The irony is now I run Linux in a VM because the toolchains for the embedded work
608.
by jdblair 10y ago
The most interesting thing I learned from this article is the sprintf() pre-compiler ( http://blog.kazuhooku.com/2014/10/announcing-qrintf-and-qrin... ). That's awesome. The rest, well, its a helpful check on o
609.
Why Taxing Robots Is Not a Good Idea(economist.com)
2 points by jdblair 10y ago|0 comments
610.
by jdblair 10y ago
I still use a wired trackball!
611.
by jdblair 10y ago
Ok, you object to be using what appears to be a categorical label rather than engaging directly with the comment. That's fair, though "despicable" seems rather judgemental
612.
by jdblair 10y ago
Its not pathologizing a side of the debate to recognize actual emotional over-reaction. And I can recognize that response without shutting down debate.
613.
by jdblair 10y ago
One thing that jumped out for me is the pervasiveness of white fragility. For example: Stop being politically correct. I'm white but I'm not privileged. Stop calling us racists. If you're not familiar with this term, White Fr
614.
by jdblair 10y ago
We've done all three to our yard in Oakland, and its great. We xeriscaped most of our yard, with plants fed by drip irrigation. We put in a small patch of grass (about 300 square feet) with a sod called "native no-mow" that i
615.
by jdblair 10y ago
"Socialism" has a clear, simple definition. Socialism is the ownership and control of the means of production by the government for the people. Its the mis-use of the term socialism and the details of actually implementing governm
616.
by jdblair 10y ago
we will track your reaction to tracking, citizen!
617.
by jdblair 10y ago
Santa Susana is notorious for a dangerously cavalier attitude about chemical safety. For years they burned toxic chemical waste in open pits. They filled barrels and shot them with rifles until they exploded. One person was killed in 1994.
618.
by jdblair 10y ago
I don't understand why that's a problem. My work experience has been one where its much more likely that under-performers drag down the top performers, not that top performers are let go prematurely. If they let me go before I&#x2
619.
by jdblair 10y ago
Hi, Netflix employee here, been here 7 months. In my 18 year career I've never liked working at a large organization as much as I like it here. The people I work with are uniformly excellent at their jobs, I'm learning from all of
620.
by jdblair 10y ago
This is amazing. That said it doesn't have the distorted perspective I think is a hallmark of Picasso's work.
621.
by jdblair 10y ago
moof!
622.
by jdblair 10y ago
I just checked my home ssh endpoint, which runs on a non-standard port on my firewall. I was surprised to discover there have been zero scan attempts. I am using comcast xfinity for my home internet access.
623.
by jdblair 10y ago
You misunderstand - its not the bikes that are reducing traffic, the bike access is a side-effect of the traffic calming barriers. The same barriers with no bike pass-through would be just as effective at stopping through traffic in a neigh
624.
by jdblair 10y ago
Interesting fact: the Hollerith punched card is the same size as the dollar bill in 1890. This is because Hollerith was able to take advantage of existing stacking and sorting equipment already designed for banks. http://infolab.
625.
by jdblair 10y ago
The City of Berkeley, CA, fixed this problem a long time ago, before Waze or even widespread GPS. Every few blocks they block side streets to all vehicles except bicycles. The effect is to be forced to take right or left turns that guide yo
626.
by jdblair 10y ago
Its not just re-entry that makes heat, its re-entry at high speed. The first stage wasn't in orbit. I don't think it had reached orbital velocity and it turned around and fired its engines to reduce its speed even further. Re-entr
627.
by jdblair 10y ago
It doesn't touch everyone. When I was 11 years old (in 1984) they were a revelation to me. Like someone finally wrote something just for me. My son is a voracious reader, and I encouraged him to read them, but he just said "this i
628.
by jdblair 10y ago
A relaxed computer is a happy computer.
629.
by jdblair 11y ago
I've thought a lot about this. The problem with hiding the tracker in the frame is the GPS and GSM antenna will be blocked by the metal tube. There would have to be a way to get the antenna out (maybe a special bottle cage, with the an
630.
by jdblair 11y ago
Its not about the environmental impact, its about the litter problem.

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