mtdewcmu

90 ms·

841.
by mtdewcmu 13y ago
true.c could be useful as a kind of helloworld -- a minimal example of the conventions followed by gnu command line programs.
842.
by mtdewcmu 13y ago
I'm not sure exactly how your proposal might work, but, generally, the problem you would run into is that the group of characters can be shifted. So you'd end up having to compare every possible shift.
843.
by mtdewcmu 13y ago
They need some internal motivation and the belief that their effort will pay off, i.e. the subject is within their reach to comprehend, and the effort invested (and risk) will yield an acceptable return. If they don't like a subject, t
844.
by mtdewcmu 13y ago
I consider it a sign of a good idea when someone else has beaten you to it. Some of the XXX cam sites draw people in by allowing non-paying users to watch and chat, and once you get involved, you pay only for what you use. The home screen s
845.
by mtdewcmu 13y ago
The same concept applies to transportation. How to get around faster: take shorter routes, and take all the stuff you're going to need on the first trip.
846.
by mtdewcmu 13y ago
Part of the performance is algorithmic. Mixing Boyer-Moore and regexes isn't elementary. However, the knowledge is available for anyone keen to apply it.
847.
by mtdewcmu 13y ago
I have a book called Flexible Pattern Matching in Strings [1], which covers all the algorithms that might go into a modern, state-of-the-art grep, with practical advice on performance (N.B.: Boyer-Moore is no longer state-of-the-art). The
848.
by mtdewcmu 13y ago
I don't follow the kernel discussions, but since scheduling algorithms always create winners and losers, you can imagine why there'd be resistance to change.
849.
by mtdewcmu 13y ago
On earth it's entirely true that heavy things fall and light things float (like dust, feathers, etc). So you can't blame someone for applying this experience to the moon if they've never thought it through. Also, I wonder if
850.
by mtdewcmu 13y ago
That's a nice site. Having seen what you can do with live webcams, e.g. livejasmin (NSFW), I was thinking a similar model could work for language learning. The teachers could be paid. They wouldn't be contracted and they'd be
851.
by mtdewcmu 13y ago
Right. There are lots of state of the art algorithms in Linux. If there was a published solution that was obviously much better, you can bet it would be implemented.
852.
by mtdewcmu 13y ago
Applications can already manage their own memory in Linux. O_DIRECT bypasses the buffer cache when doing I/O, and there are plenty of ways that applications can influence or take control of their own memory using various system calls,
853.
by mtdewcmu 13y ago
That depends. The skills I developed with sed and awk have paid dividends. But when I hear someone speak of becoming a regex master, as if a regex was an entire tool unto itself and not just a way of representing a pattern, that makes me th
854.
by mtdewcmu 13y ago
I don't usually write regular expressions that are complex enough to need maintenance. If you are writing one that is enough effort that it isn't disposable, then you might want to reconsider whether you're using the right to
855.
by mtdewcmu 13y ago
Regular expressions were simple and straightforward tools until Perl. They were originally intended to be equivalent to finite state machines, but, thanks to Perl, you can write regexes that may or may not halt, and no one can can ever prov
856.
by mtdewcmu 13y ago
He must have an incredible personality, to be able to approach people predisposed to hate him and win them over every time... not many people could or would do that.
857.
by mtdewcmu 13y ago
My opinion, as an atheist who finds personal religiosity quite boring... is that most people who attend church do so for socialization rather than faith. Most people (not all) don't really know much about their own religion, they just
858.
by mtdewcmu 13y ago
One of the benefits of being an atheist IMO is not having to worry about unwittingly committing trivial sins. No one is keeping score.
859.
by mtdewcmu 13y ago
That's true. But rocks erode at a rapid pace in comparison to the age of the earth. Apparently, very little is left for geologists to study from earlier than about 1 billion years ago. And there is a tremendous amount of groundwater de
860.
by mtdewcmu 13y ago
It looks more usable than scsh, and I like the name.
861.
by mtdewcmu 13y ago
What struck me is the age of the oldest known seawater. That's on the order of 2% of the age of the earth. There are plenty of rocks that are much older. I guess seawater doesn't keep very well.
862.
by mtdewcmu 13y ago
True, but once it evaporates, it can no longer be called seawater. I think you may be reading this in the wrong context. It's a geology story, and geologists study things that have been buried in the ground a long time. The value is in
863.
by mtdewcmu 13y ago
I'd imagine that a lot of the need for new engines is driven by new hardware, and it seems that the video hardware has stopped evolving at a rapid pace. nVidia and AMD have been focused more on computation than graphics recently.
864.
by mtdewcmu 13y ago
Observational studies like this could conceivably be useful under different circumstances. I think the chances of distinguishing meaningful from meaningless correlations would probably be higher if the variable being studied wasn't as
865.
by mtdewcmu 13y ago
Maybe they're comparing eating nuts with eating nothing. I would not doubt that nuts reduce risk of death under those circumstances.
866.
by mtdewcmu 13y ago
This study sounds like a waste of time. How you could ever follow up and prove that nuts have all those protective effects is beyond me -- as is why you would even think they do in the first place. However, we excluded participants with a
867.
by mtdewcmu 13y ago
You still run a risk of sounding like an idiot if you use this construction. Personally, I would wait a few more years before adopting it in all situations.
868.
by mtdewcmu 13y ago
You can't know what to optimize without taking into account how the application is going to be used. And even knowing that, profiling and cost/benefit analyses are the ultimate guide. I think the best rule of thumb is to not worry
869.
by mtdewcmu 13y ago
Great quote from Knuth/Dijkstra: I believe that by presenting such a view [on the proper use of goto statements] I am not in fact disagreeing sharply with Dijkstra's ideas, since he recently wrote the following: "Pl
870.
by mtdewcmu 13y ago
I'm waiting for the real life dancing badger.

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