ljw1001

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Latest “Crafting an Interpreter” is out(craftinginterpreters.com)
67 points by ljw1001 9y ago|1 comments
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by ljw1001 9y ago
I was going to suggest system dynamics as it especially well suited for complex domains, and for simulating the results of policy changes. Tools like Vensim and IThink are currently (commercially) available, and there are some open source t
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by ljw1001 9y ago
People don't need to be reminded to think of themselves first. Because they do, and because the HN community is affluent there is already enormous commercial effort to solve their problems.
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by ljw1001 9y ago
Clearly, people want the IPO. I suspect economists would argue that the potential for an outsized reward that makes people reluctant to leave, reduces the management incentive to "invest" in keeping employees happy.
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by ljw1001 9y ago
If anything, Airbnb is in the business of converting housing to hotel space. Many units are hosted by people who buy them to rent to tourists, reducing the housing stock.
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by ljw1001 9y ago
I've been experimenting with Kotlin for a few weeks now and have been deeply impressed by how easy it is to get started with. This stems from three things: The Intellij tooling is excellent, as noted in the article, and the adoption cu
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by ljw1001 9y ago
i hear you, but whether you get more than static depends on team/organization culture. It is good advice though.
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by ljw1001 9y ago
This is a symptom of a problem you might help to address. companies spend a fortune on recruitment and next to nothing on on-boarding. The problem is multiplied when there is a lot of technical debt or weak infrastructure, because they make
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by ljw1001 9y ago
I think that you're not necessarily considering the side effects of (A) working 10 hour days, and (B) spending an hour on paperwork. People will often start to wonder why they work so hard if the company doesn't take their time se
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by ljw1001 9y ago
I've had the same experience. I'm sure it's somewhat context dependent, but if the code amounts to business rules and they are not documented, which is very common, you can only reverse engineer what the system _does_ and the
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by ljw1001 9y ago
For the backend, Kotlin on Intellij. It's crazy awesome and you can use it now for android clients as well. The Javascript transpiler is probably not ready yet (in beta) so I would use a Bootstrap and/or Material Design library wi
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by ljw1001 9y ago
There is a huge amount of research that shows that broad responsibilities (without micro-management) are correlated with high motivation. See the classic paper "One more time, How do you motivate employees" for a starting point. S
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by ljw1001 9y ago
Working remotely is probably the most-likely trend to supplant open offices. It doesn't cost the company any hard cash (like real offices would), and any productivity differences are nearly invisible, as they are with open offices.
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by ljw1001 9y ago
Sigh. The growth _rate_ is not dependent on the population, but the actual numeric growth _amount_ is. It is the _population_ that is growing exponentially. You are describing the shift from a steep exponential growth curve to a lower expo
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by ljw1001 9y ago
I refer you to the 12,000-year human population growth chart on Our World In Data, in a post by Max Roser. https://ourworldindata.org/world-population-growth/ Growth is clearly exponential. Your theories don't fit
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by ljw1001 9y ago
I never said that it would continue to decline indefinitely. I said it was exponential before, and it's still exponential, even though the rate has changed. In spite of the massive negative response here, that statement is perfectly tr
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by ljw1001 9y ago
Thank you. You finally made it clear exactly what you don't understand. One person per second is linear. .00001 person per year * current population is exponential, assuming only that the (fractional) person is added to the population
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by ljw1001 9y ago
No, but we are talking about a formula of the type where a growth rate G is a factor of a base population P, and P in Period n+1 = P(n) + G*P(n) In this case G is the difference between the birth rate and the death rate for time period t. A
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by ljw1001 9y ago
The original post was about frighteningly difficult problems. I think they meet that criterion.
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by ljw1001 9y ago
The trend is towards low/no growth, but it's not there yet because of the current growth in some developing countries as you mention. People need to recognize that this is, currently, just a trend, and not yet a fact and certainly
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by ljw1001 9y ago
LOL. somebody downvoted this, but you know. Math.
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by ljw1001 9y ago
a co-op is a business venture, and so is a form of capitalist organization. But I think your point is that some forms of capitalism are more aligned with societal good than others, and that we can make different choices.
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by ljw1001 9y ago
My idea was that Google+ should have run ads from the beginning, but donated all profits to some large but approachable goal like eliminating polio. This could have undermined Facebook's drive to create an alternative advertising ecosy
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by ljw1001 9y ago
picture two exponential growth curves, one steeper than the other, over time the a trend moves from the steeper curve to the less steep curve. The "population" whatever it is, is still growing exponentially at the less steep curve
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by ljw1001 9y ago
yeah, it's not a complete model. :)
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by ljw1001 9y ago
picture two exponential growth curves, one steeper than the other, over time the a trend moves from the steeper curve to the less steep curve. The "population" whatever it is, is still growing exponentially at the less steep curve
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by ljw1001 9y ago
Frome wikipedia: "Global human population growth amounts to around 75 million annually, or 1.1% per year." 1.1% is exponential growth when the base is growing, just like 1.1% compound interest displays exponential growth. It is st
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by ljw1001 9y ago
Clearly survival bias, but I think the point stands: None of these necessarily started out as "Let's be crazy ambitious" but all had the kind of impact that Graham is looking for.
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by ljw1001 9y ago
To my mind, these are the most important, unsolved problems: - environmental degradation is based on two exponential growth trends: human population and per-capita consumption (driven by economic growth). Solving either could be, literally,
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by ljw1001 9y ago
This sounds a lot like Wolfram Alpha, although google does now provide some quantitative results. It works as a calculator and as a units translator for example. that's a good point about only the first few results mattering.

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