michael_dorfman

15 ms·

91.
by michael_dorfman 15y ago
My eldest daughter spent the night before her 13th birthday in front of the computer, with the Facebook registration information filled out, waiting with her finger poised above the Enter key for the stroke of midnight. Yeah, I'm a hard-ass
92.
by michael_dorfman 15y ago
I don't know of any off-hand, but there must be; Knuth is usually collating the work of others. The abstract for the lecture is here: http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~uno/musings.html
93.
by michael_dorfman 15y ago
I'd strongly recommend these, if you are interested in these kinds of things. I look forward eagerly to watching the annual Christmas Tree lecture every year (this year on on Bayesian trees and BDDs, to be held December 8, probably posted
94.
by michael_dorfman 15y ago
What is the difference (in practice) between clicking "not now" to an unwanted friend request, and simply ignoring it?
95.
by michael_dorfman 15y ago
I completely don't understand the question. If you have good reasons for not wanting to go with .NET, you have no need to be asking us for reasons. If, on the other hand, you don't have good reasons, then what's the point?
96.
by michael_dorfman 15y ago
but a professor can’t just teach a few calculus courses without being affiliated with a university? There's nothing stopping a professor from doing just that; there's no legal requirement that all calculus courses be affiliated with a uni
97.
by michael_dorfman 15y ago
Henry Kissinger has famously said that power is better than sex. Well, clearly he isn't a programmer! Actually, what Kissinger famously said was that power was the ultimate aphrodisiac, which is something somewhat different. I imagine he
98.
by michael_dorfman 15y ago
Sure; but if you are presenting in public, it isn't your own 'offended' threshold that should be operative, it is that of your audience. And, even there, you probably don't want to shoot for the middle of the pack there-- offending, say, h
99.
by michael_dorfman 15y ago
There's no magic here; either will do. If it were me, I'd pick up the phone, but I'm old-school. Something like "Hello, my name is temp9900-- I'm the guy who created XYZ. Do you know it? I've been thinking about the future of the site, a
100.
by michael_dorfman 15y ago
There's a lot of things besides nudity that can render an image inappropriate for use in a conference presentation, and judging from the description in the linked article ( There was one image of a pig indulging in sexual activity with a go
101.
Dropbox takes aim at businesses with new service(news.yahoo.com)
1 points by michael_dorfman 15y ago|0 comments
102.
by michael_dorfman 15y ago
Seriously? Did you even look at the pages in question? They are reproductions of the originals, and maintain the original fonts and orthography. This includes the long s, as well as certain ligatures (like ct), and has absolutely nothing
103.
by michael_dorfman 15y ago
Which is why currencies are customarily tied to entities that can do things like fight wars and build roads and enforce taxation, and not pseudonymous cryptography researchers on the internet.
104.
by michael_dorfman 15y ago
It's you. James Fallows has been writing tech stuff for the Atlantic for decades.
105.
by michael_dorfman 15y ago
Meaning changes, but that doesn't mean that it is impossible for a native speaker to make an error. In this case, the phrase has a well-documented meaning (and a long history), and the usage here is clearly a misuse.
106.
by michael_dorfman 15y ago
Used for? Many problems in math have no intended practical uses (although uses, funnily enough, tend to turn up in time.) Knowing what it might be used for really doesn't usually offer any special insight into the nature of the problem, nor
107.
by michael_dorfman 15y ago
I know it is a trivial point, but it's annoying to see somebody as bright as Shuttleworth misuse the phrase "begs the question."
108.
by michael_dorfman 15y ago
I was just about to ask if this was one of your projects.
109.
by michael_dorfman 15y ago
Next up: why Shakespeare never wrote a play about the Internet. Now, if you want to discuss why there is no Nobel Prize in Mathematics...
110.
by michael_dorfman 15y ago
Please don't astroturf questions and answers like this. It's completely transparent, and leaves a negative impression.
111.
by michael_dorfman 15y ago
You've got two different problems here. In the first situation (i.e., trying to find a partner) the problem isn't "getting people to do stuff", it's "finding the right partner." If the people you are talking to aren't sharing your enthusia
112.
by michael_dorfman 15y ago
Quality comes from the authors and the volunteers who peer review submissions, not from copyright This is true. But that does not mean that the publisher provides minimal value; it's worth remembering that Knuth lobbied hard to get the
113.
by michael_dorfman 15y ago
When I look at the quality and quantity of journals in the archives that I get access to for a couple hundred bucks a year, I'm flabbergasted. I only wish there was something similar for the Humanities-- I'd pay in a heartbeat for that. Els
114.
by michael_dorfman 15y ago
The ACM recently published an editorial in the CACM explaining the reasons behind this policy. Here is a brief excerpt: By owning exclusive publication rights to articles, ACM is able to develop salable publication products that sustain i
115.
by michael_dorfman 15y ago
That is clever and sinister, and immediately brings to mind "Reflections on Trusting Trust" ( http://cm.bell-labs.com/who/ken/trust.html )
116.
by michael_dorfman 15y ago
You appear to be assuming that getting those licenses is difficult. It really isn't. If Spotify managed it, any competent competitor can also do it -- after all, the labels have no particular loyalty to a small Swedish online radio network
117.
by michael_dorfman 15y ago
Desperation? How do you figure? They have a sweet partnership with Facebook. That doesn't sound desperate to me. Their product is far from unique, and only really interesting because it has better PR, more apps, a better library, and a
118.
by michael_dorfman 15y ago
Or that they realize that a tiny but vocal minority is going to gripe about the decision, and that for these folks a work-around might be the best solution.
119.
by michael_dorfman 15y ago
The important distinction here is that the user did not request the side-effects, so therefore cannot be held accountable for them. But the user did request the side-effects, when he installed the app, and approved the TOS which specifi
120.
by michael_dorfman 15y ago
Bizarre? I can't imagine any other response. There's no way Facebook (or anybody else) can completely prevent people from making mistakes. So, the best they can do in that situation is give people an easy way to clean up the mess, and make

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