phaedrus

65 ms·

541.
by phaedrus 16y ago
Even if you discount the batteries entirely, 1000 lbs seems a bit high for the weight of an engine (or even engine and transmission). I suppose maybe a big block V8 with a very strong Ford pickup transmission could weight that much; but it
542.
by phaedrus 16y ago
The engine used in the original VW Beetle was about 40 HP (started out even less, and later models were 60 HP, but for many years it was 40). I have heard that it only takes about 18 HP to overcome air resistance at highway speeds for a sm
543.
by phaedrus 16y ago
I and another computer science student spent an entire semester internship just trying to get Globus properly installed and configured in the CS lab for one of our professors. It (the cluster computing software infrastructure of Globus) was
544.
by phaedrus 16y ago
Calling the output of a C++ compiler a black box and saying it's not a good idea to use C++ for that reason, and implying that C is better because you mostly know what the assembly output will be, boils down to an argument against abstracti
545.
by phaedrus 16y ago
I remember reading this years ago. It eventually gets into why the Linux kernel isn't written in C++, but the beginning of the discussion starts with an innocent question about how to port a legacy kernel module that was written in C++ for
546.
Ask HN: Where are the open source AI/planning libraries?
7 points by phaedrus 16y ago|2 comments
547.
by phaedrus 16y ago
Somewhat related, in the Io language, I was surprised to find that the expression "-23 abs" evaluates to "-23" not +23. The language desugars the expression to "0-(23 abs)". I think what threw me was the fact that Io uses a space rather
548.
by phaedrus 16y ago
From the introduction, "NOTE: The actual structure of the generated code depends on the computer architecture, operating system and compiler."
549.
by phaedrus 16y ago
Then by all means build such a single-server Watson clone and program it! I think you're underestimating the combinatorial explosion that occurs when you try to do any kind of AI over natural language (and I speak from experience). Though
550.
by phaedrus 16y ago
Similarly I've often wondered if it results in hotter coffee to mix your milk with the coffee when it goes into the thermos, rather than when it comes out. I'm pretty sure it is better to do it this way - my reasoning is that the hotter bl
551.
by phaedrus 16y ago
My "new hire" treatment as government contractor was so bad I almost quit. Even though it's a huge organization there's no process at all in place; you're just thrown to the wolves. Basic things like where and how to get my security badge
552.
by phaedrus 16y ago
According to the page it's 72 MHz, not 7.5 MHz.
553.
by phaedrus 16y ago
Thanks for writing this. I once had a Dwarf Fortress game that got lost to a hung ssh session; I could have used something like this. Does it work with x apps? Because it would be great to be able to start my IDE over ssh on the laptop know
554.
by phaedrus 16y ago
Sorry meant to up-vote you but my finger slipped. Thanks for plugging DF it really is an awesome game.
555.
by phaedrus 16y ago
This. (PS sorry I accidently downvoted when I was trying to click up vote. Hard to hit the right arrow on Android phone.)
556.
by phaedrus 16y ago
I disagree. Turing's original paper where he introduced the Turing machine addressed the question of whether a discrete machine is interchangeable with an analog mind; Turing's argument is that even if the states are continuously variable t
557.
by phaedrus 16y ago
I have bipolar disorder and I definitely identify with his "the flake" story. I wouldn't just not show up like the guy in the story but I do have depressive cycles where I'm not sure I'm doing any good by showing up; I come in anyway. Afte
558.
by phaedrus 16y ago
If a person or alarm doesn't wake me up, I often will not wake up naturally. At all. One time I went to bed at midnight on Friday and didn't wake up until Monday morning at 1 am. Waking up for me feels like coming up from being deep unde
559.
by phaedrus 16y ago
In CP/M the order really was "cp to from". So chosen to match the assignment operator in programming.
560.
by phaedrus 16y ago
I think it must be an overzealous/haywire word correction algorithm that doesn't believe single letter words (a, I) should stand on their own. Or maybe it was retyped by someone by hand and missing the space after those letters is the typi
561.
by phaedrus 16y ago
The idea of an item being rare due to emergent properties reminds me of something cool from Diablo 1. There was at least one unique item that shared a "kind" slot with another, lower level unique. Due to a bug, the game would always choos
562.
by phaedrus 16y ago
I think so. Actually the mantra "processes, not threads!" is something I've found to be a good way to solve problems in general. For instance, when I needed to run 3 simulated microcontrollers in a simulator that supported circuit plugins b
563.
by phaedrus 16y ago
Buckminster Fuller predicted a future in which physical structures are increasingly replaced by information (with the implication that the information accomplishes the same task as the physical structure, but better). I work as a governme
564.
by phaedrus 16y ago
I've had more problem with that from UPS. Both my wife and I were home all day, hell I even at one point went to the porch and waited outside for the package to arrive. UPS truck never came by and driver claimed "nobody home". Had to g
565.
by phaedrus 16y ago
The surface area of the Moon is much larger than Everest though. IIRC it is similar to the land area of Earth. (Remember that the Moon, although smaller than the Earth, has no oceans.)
566.
by phaedrus 16y ago
Dwarf Fortress
567.
by phaedrus 16y ago
Reminds me of the blue-eyed islanders puzzle. http://www.xkcd.com/blue_eyes.html
568.
by phaedrus 16y ago
This is the most irresponsible thing Joel Spolsky has ever done, and I lost all respect for him after he posted this essay. My bosses at my then-current workplace began using this article as an excuse not to do proper software architecture
569.
by phaedrus 16y ago
> why not use natural language to specify a program, but add annotations to disambiguate the parts which are ambiguous due to the inherent fuzziness of natural language? That's far from a new idea; that misguided idea is how monstrositi
570.
by phaedrus 16y ago
I've written my own custom data recovery tools to recover lost files. The first was a hack of ddrescue to only recover sectors containing a certain string (because the drive had so many bad sectors that a full ddrescue would have taken wee

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