phaedrus

65 ms·

691.
by phaedrus 17y ago
As a programmer, the thing that bothers me about Cantor's diagonalization (and the whole concept of Real numbers) is that it presumes an infinite number of bits of information can be stored in each number. So it's kind of like saying that
692.
by phaedrus 17y ago
This is just as much a story about what "man + computer" equals. THIS is what early computer pioneers dreamed a computer could be to people.
693.
by phaedrus 17y ago
Actually your question perfectly illustrates the limitations of thinking of this as a computation device: I doubt it could be used to find the longest path, for the reason that whatever way the oil droplet responds at one intersection, it
694.
by phaedrus 17y ago
Consider this: replace "acid gradient" in the experiment description with "air pressure": Imagine constructing a larger version of this maze from cardboard. A vacuum cleaner is placed at the exit of the maze. Sucking the air out of the m
695.
by phaedrus 17y ago
The original author would do well to read Strunk & White's _The_Elements_of_Style_. Using many words does improve communication. Edit: Sorry, I meant, "using many words does NOT improve communication." (I guess using few words does n
696.
by phaedrus 17y ago
Haha funny I think I've invented a new fundemental data structure as well. Hopefully we haven't all three invented the same one! Mine is going into proprietary software; I don't know if I'll write a paper over it. It doesn't allow you to
697.
by phaedrus 17y ago
This is brilliant.
698.
by phaedrus 17y ago
To provide a counter viewpoint, the new C++ features are a major reason why we choose to use/continue to use C++ for the game engine my friend and I are writing. As heavy users of C++, we consider the changes to be a welcome and useful mod
699.
Ask HN: When data is code, what is the meaning of a config script?
7 points by phaedrus 17y ago|3 comments
700.
by phaedrus 17y ago
Several years ago, I was refused a job interview: the interviewer told me "we only hire people at least 16." I was 20 at the time!!
701.
by phaedrus 18y ago
You should look at "Io," a language based entirely on this modeling philosophy: http://www.iolanguage.com/ I have to disagree with people who say class based modeling is "intuitive". It only seems intuitive after you've been steeped in
702.
What happened to www.NewMogul.com?
1 points by phaedrus 18y ago|1 comments
703.
by phaedrus 18y ago
I would have thought the chamber these beams travel through would have to be kept at vacuum to work -?
704.
by phaedrus 18y ago
Have they lifted the DRM? Can it display PDF's? Can I load whatever I want on it from whatever source I want? The biggest shortcomings of the first Kindle were not its physical limitations.
705.
by phaedrus 18y ago
His best post yet, IMO. Computer scientists/programmers have experience with dealing with complexity, and that experience could well be applied to other fields as well. As a side note, I wonder if with the complex mortgage backed securiti
706.
Rebuttal to "A hacker's loneliness"
65 points by phaedrus 18y ago|37 comments
707.
by phaedrus 18y ago
I can see Google filing all these patents on wacky ideas that they never intend to build, just so Microsoft goes nuts saying "me too! me too!" and wastes money trying to implement what it thinks Google is doing.
708.
by phaedrus 18y ago
Brilliant! I once tried to implement Minesweeper in SQL; this is even better.
709.
by phaedrus 18y ago
Did you notice the first picture of the LHC on that page looks just like the Reality Bomb apeture from the recent Doctor Who episode? http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Reality_bomb
710.
by phaedrus 18y ago
I read several news sites' articles about this and none of them provided a link! A google search for it just brought up more news articles. Thank you, hacker news, for providing the meat (the actual site) and not just the fluff.
711.
by phaedrus 18y ago
When I was in high school I was hired by a company to fix a problem in code for which they only had the EXE, not even object files! Since I had a lot of experience hex editing computer games, I was actually able to fire up a debugger and g
712.
by phaedrus 18y ago
You still haven't answered my question - how can I, sitting behind one NAT, receive a connection from my friend behind another NAT, if neither allows direct incoming connections? All your multicast, peer-to-peer, etc. buzzwords don't mean
713.
by phaedrus 18y ago
No, it's not just a "religious" argument. NAT really does violate the way the internet was supposed to work; it causes real technical problems, not just aesthetic ones. In fact, NAT is a nasty kludge by the strictest definition of the wor
714.
by phaedrus 18y ago
The clicky keyboards just feel right. Really though the issue is that soft keyboards were chosen only for lower manufacturing cost - we nerds saw something that was really good (clicky keyboards) go away and get replaced with utter crap t
715.
by phaedrus 18y ago
I would have loved to make even half that a month, and I live just 150 miles from Tulsa. And if I'd been the one working on it, I'd have stayed and the app would be done now!
716.
by phaedrus 18y ago
I used to have a boss who always said "This is you #1 priority!" Uh boss, this is the third time today you've said that. Which of these #1 priorities comes first? I think sometimes crisis mode is more of a (dysfunctional) motivational ta
717.
by phaedrus 18y ago
Exactly. This is why all the UML-mania is b.s. A UML diagram of the high level classes in a project? Yes that is useful. And guess what? You can generate that automatically from the code. But doing the entire app in UML, as some peopl
718.
by phaedrus 18y ago
Why not just add a small negative weight to all articles that come from an address which isn't unique? For instance if someone discovers XKCD for the first time and submits 20 of them, sure they're great but presumably once you've seen one
719.
by phaedrus 18y ago
Curious. What do you think - has Microsoft been so successful in business at least in part because of its insistence per Paul Allen of keeping large cash reserves, larger than most companies keep on hand? (MiniMSFT blogger said somethin
720.
by phaedrus 18y ago
I think he means you can't (AFAIK - please correct me) do a hostile takeover of a private company, at least not in the same manner. because in a privately owned company there are no public stockholders to appeal to; the owner and the manage

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