mdpopescu

14 ms·

91.
by mdpopescu 7y ago
The worst piece of code I had to optimize was running a database search with an O(n^3) algorithm. Fixing that did not require knowledge of cache lines.
92.
by mdpopescu 7y ago
I refuse to learn about infosec, for the same reason that I refuse to become an amateur surgeon: I don't want to know enough to be dangerous. This is a field that will take 100% of your time if you want to be good at it, and being &quo
93.
by mdpopescu 7y ago
Wow. Krugman is a free trade economist now... and most people in the comments seem to agree with that. The lunatics have taken over the asylum.
94.
by mdpopescu 7y ago
If they manage to get monopolies over geographic areas then yes, you get exactly what we have today. However, for a couple of years after 1990 we actually had quite a lot of security companies that were competing peacefully in the same area
95.
by mdpopescu 7y ago
Competition. You hire a different police force to protect your property. Of course, if one entity has a monopoly over the legitimate use of force in an area, you're in trouble.
96.
by mdpopescu 7y ago
When companies are inefficient for a long time, it's usually because they managed to prevent competition. In this case, they successfully managed to bully the whole world, using the US government, into adopting rules created by US comp
97.
by mdpopescu 7y ago
Not in my experience. Most Americans are angry about the president or some senator. Medicare? FBI? The US Navy / Air Force / Army? The police? Most Americans love those. (When did you last see a group of people asking for the disb
98.
by mdpopescu 7y ago
The same thing happens with the US: despite the problems that (most of) the rest of the world has with its government, the US citizens are very much supportive of their government. To paraphrase your last statement, as long as the US can ma
99.
by mdpopescu 7y ago
Ah... in religion we call that "gnosticism". (Not really important, it just struck me as something weird to find in a HN thread.)
100.
by mdpopescu 7y ago
You can say anything you like in North Korea too. The government might not agree with you and that's fine.
101.
by mdpopescu 7y ago
Sure. This is a reason to become your own employer and establish a B2B relationship instead - with all the pros and cons that implies.
102.
by mdpopescu 7y ago
> I have never seen anything pornographic break through YouTube's filters You mean unintentionally, right? Because you only have to search for "full adult movie" to find a bunch.
103.
by mdpopescu 7y ago
The whole point of syntactic sugar is that it makes a code fragment easier to read / understand. That's why we're not calling it syntactic poison.
104.
by mdpopescu 7y ago
Yeah, how's that working out?
105.
by mdpopescu 7y ago
There's a problem with this. See JB Rainsberger's video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSes_PexXcA
106.
by mdpopescu 7y ago
Yes! "We have this problem, you see, where cells sometimes start to multiply aggressively instead of doing their job. That's a bug, the customers are complaining. How long will it take to fix it? What do you mean you don't kn
107.
by mdpopescu 7y ago
This is a much better explanation of the problem with estimates than my analogy :) Especially this part: Professionals have found it's often easier to refuse to provide estimates than to fight over high-confidence estimates or educate
108.
by mdpopescu 7y ago
Here's an analogy. The spell for floating an object is Wingardium Leviosa. It usually takes an 11-year old a few days to become proficient at it. Please give an estimate for a modification of this spell that will make the object lift,
109.
by mdpopescu 7y ago
Ah... you're in for a nasty surprise. [1] Among this cohort, the mean self-estimated handwashing rate was 73% (range, 50%-95%), compared with the covertly observed rate for this cohort of 8.6% before and 10.8% after patient contact, w
110.
by mdpopescu 7y ago
- The DRM of Netflix is irrelevant. The people who want to download the movies will do it anyway, but their number got way lower once Netflix (and probably Hulu and others like them) got a large enough catalog. People like convenience and a
111.
by mdpopescu 7y ago
For movies? Netflix. For books? Piracy is irrelevant. (See far too many articles from Konrath, who at one point uploaded all his books on a torrent site AND advertised that on his blog... to no effect on his sales.)
112.
by mdpopescu 7y ago
What stops the general public from making the same assumptions about anything with "banc" in the name?
113.
by mdpopescu 7y ago
Wouldn't it be much less game-able to forbid LYING in a document, as understood by the elusive man-in-the-street? Seriously: to judge a contract in case of a conflict, pick 12 people from the street and ask them to summarize it. Go wit
114.
by mdpopescu 7y ago
Given the crisis of 2008, I would say that this failed utterly, wouldn't you? It's just another few millions lost in regulation compliance to add to the billions lost to the "outright scammers" that are the regulated ban
115.
by mdpopescu 7y ago
Yes. Yes. Yes. Nowhere. Sure, but that doesn't make it not wrong. Companies are made of people. Forcing people to do something against their will is aggression; if they haven't started it then it's morally wrong.
116.
by mdpopescu 7y ago
Use money. People tend to pay more for things / services they prefer than for those they dislike.
117.
by mdpopescu 7y ago
Ouch. There's a good chance this might be considered hacking under some interpretation of US laws. I wouldn't do it. Set up frequent milestones and get paid for them.
118.
by mdpopescu 7y ago
Huh? If you believe in Imaginary Property, you own the copyright to your code until you get paid. He won't be trusted with sensitive projects that he doesn't get paid for .
119.
by mdpopescu 7y ago
Huh. When I created this product [1], it required the end user's bank credentials. (I am using the past tense because I don't know if it does that anymore -- I'm not working there nowadays.) I was sure that was an insane idea
120.
by mdpopescu 7y ago
Were they immediately arrested? If not, that means it's "unofficial" (wink, wink) de-facto policy.

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