jfarmer

30 ms·

1. 241.▲
   by jfarmer 13y ago

   It's mostly irrelevant, honestly, except as good marketing. If I buy $1000 worth of candy and sell it for $1000 every month, do I have a "$12,000 run rate?" I'm not poo-pooing FOBO, only saying that "$X run rate&qu
2. 242.▲
   by jfarmer 13y ago

   The most high-value people in a group are the first to leave as the group grows and the average value of the group decreases, accelerating the decline of the average value of the group. To prevent this you need structures in place to retai
3. 243.▲
   by jfarmer 13y ago

   Does it work the same as Preview? Preview actually detects my signature on the page I'm holding up and creates a vectorized version of it automatically. It's not just a photo.
4. 244.▲
   by jfarmer 13y ago

   Edit: I see one fellow saying to have a lawyer send a C&D or some other sort of nastygram. I agree that's premature, although if he asked a lawyer to do that they'd most likely inform him about other options. On first read, I
5. 245.▲
   by jfarmer 13y ago

   It is difficult to sue the state and officers acting on behalf of the state. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualified_immunity and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_immunity_in_the_Unite...
6. 246.▲
   by jfarmer 13y ago

   It is difficult to sue the state and officers acting on behalf of the state. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualified_immunity and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_immunity_in_the_Unite...
7. 247.▲
   by jfarmer 13y ago

   You realize this is precisely the mandate of BPPE, the agency in question, right? They're a consumer fraud agency, part of the California Department of Consumer Affairs, and their rules include such nefarious things as... "The in
8. 248.▲
   by jfarmer 13y ago

   Is this a rhetorical question or do you actually want to know? The way you've phrased the question makes it seem like you've already decided what your opinion is. BPPE requires programs like these to assess $0.50 per $1,000 charg
9. 249.▲
   by jfarmer 13y ago

   For the diligent, these are the requirements these bootcamps are being asked to comply with (warning, legalese ahead): http://www.bppe.ca.gov/enforcement/institution_minreq.shtml
10. 250.▲
    by jfarmer 13y ago

    I'm going to put on my math hat for a second, because this blog post was a bit confusing for me at first. I had to read through the post a few times to understand what the "homophony group" was. For this comment, I don't
11. 251.▲
    by jfarmer 13y ago

    How many people do you know personally who rely on those things to survive? I don't mean people you've met, but people you've grown up with, friends, family, schoolmate, etc. — that sort of thing. For example, can you name t
12. 252.▲
    by jfarmer 13y ago

    No. While it's true that ζ(-1) = -1/12 and that the ζ function plays an important role in physics, your reasoning is fallacious. If X implies Y and we know that Y is true, that does not mean X is true. So just because the video
13. 253.▲
    by jfarmer 13y ago

    I left out lots of other details, too, because it was meant to be an outline for the original commenter, not a proof. In any case, \sum_{i=1}^{\infty} \frac{(-1)^i}{i^2} is not conditionally convergent, so it is not a counterexample
14. 254.▲
    by jfarmer 13y ago

    The basic idea is pretty simple. If Σa_i is conditionally convergent — that is, Σa_i converges but Σ|a_i| does not — then there are an infinite number of both positive and negative a_i. See [1] below for a hint on how to prove this; it&#x
15. 255.▲
    by jfarmer 13y ago

    Nevertheless, that seems to be how people understand the video. See, e.g., the person whose comment I was replying to.
16. 256.▲
    by jfarmer 13y ago

    Warning, prolix rant ahead. I actually think that video is awful and it certainly doesn't illustrate what Terry is illustrating in his blog post. Rather, the video goes through a bunch of non-rigorous symbolic manipulations which ends
17. 257.▲
    by jfarmer 13y ago

    And yet, @kyro and I and I suspect many others were able to understand perfectly well what @sama meant. The original comment > what does "ruthless" mean nowadays in valley newspeak? or did i miss a memo about "nice"..
18. 258.▲
    by jfarmer 13y ago

    I'm not sure what the Chomsky Hierarchy has to do with what we're talking about, but re: category theory, there's a difference between "understanding" and "familiarity." I agree that the definition of a ca
19. 259.▲
    by jfarmer 13y ago

    The problem with being a programmer and learning category theory is two-fold. First, category theory is very abstract. Indeed, mathematicians often jokingly refer to category theory as "abstract nonsense." The story goes that No
20. 260.▲
    by jfarmer 13y ago

    "I haven't seen it, but here's my opinion." — HN in a nutshell :D
21. 261.▲
    by jfarmer 13y ago

    Nah, it did, I think in the scene where Theodore and Amy are talking about dating OSes. Amy mentions that a friend of her's asked out an OS and it turned them down.
22. 262.▲
    by jfarmer 13y ago

    Yes and no. It depends on the business and product. First, Everpix had revenue, yes, but they had negative marginal profit ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marginal_profit ). Since their business is based around charging
23. 263.▲
    by jfarmer 13y ago

    And you're familiar with the economics of Snapchat, how, exactly? Among other things, I'd expect Snapchat's marginal costs to be much lower than Everpix's. <opinion rel="armchair">Just looking at the two
24. 264.▲
    by jfarmer 13y ago

    There was a great piece in the financial times called "The Iraqi who saved Norway from oil": http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/99680a04-92a0-11de-b63b-00144...
25. 265.▲
    by jfarmer 13y ago

    Is this the "username223 Laugh Test" or something more universal?
26. 266.▲
    by jfarmer 13y ago

    "I'm a programmer at Hacker School" sounds like they're employees of Hacker School.
27. 267.▲
    by jfarmer 13y ago

    Let's conduct a simple thought experiment. I'm attending Hacker School. A friend I haven't seen in a few months comes up and asks, "So, what are you doing these days?" I respond with something like Oh, I'm
28. 268.▲
    by jfarmer 13y ago

    I don't know if you know Jake from Insight Data Science, but he calls his students fellows and his program a fellowship: http://insightdatascience.com/ Per the point you were making in your essay, though, he does this
29. 269.▲
    by jfarmer 13y ago

    For those who dug this essay, check out Wiio's Laws: http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/wiio.html
30. 270.▲
    by jfarmer 13y ago

    > If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch you must first invent the universe. There's plenty of room between "justify everything from first principles" and "perform an ad hoc 5-minute search of the web for resea