qntm

20 ms·

151.
by qntm 15y ago
I was thinking of the possibility of phishing by starting with a fake site and altering the URL to that of, e.g., a bank. But anyway, it seems not to be an issue.
152.
by qntm 15y ago
In answer to my own question, it seems that you can't modify the hostname using this method, only the query.
153.
by qntm 15y ago
I notice that this infinite scroll technique uses some sort of Javascript technique to update the contents of the address bar without redirecting the user to another page. Isn't that a massive, cataclysmic security risk?
154.
by qntm 15y ago
Except when you're comparing objects! I want to make sure that object A and object B are instances of the same class. Also, I want to make sure that they are equal i.e. that every attribute is equal. Also, since I'm now used to always using
155.
by qntm 15y ago
Does everybody in the world who uses Bitcoins also keep a copy of the global transaction record? Isn't that going to become colossal very quickly?
156.
by qntm 15y ago
I've seen this, in situations where a link is set to become bold when the mouse pointer is hovering over it. The result is that the text becomes bold, and redistributes itself. Having redistributed itself, the bold link is no longer under y
157.
by qntm 15y ago
See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_ain%27t_gonna_need_it But there's a fine balance to strike here. There's a massive spectrum of solutions to the problem of "Prevent the site from being swamped with spam and other inappropriate c
158.
by qntm 15y ago
> people will learn to keep their money in a safe place. Like a bank!
159.
by qntm 15y ago
That's exactly how all news stories are written. Unless you were making a joke.
160.
by qntm 15y ago
This is also the solution to the old "putting a smiley emoticon in a parenthesised piece of text". "(What a good idea :)" evidently needs a second parenthesis. "(What a good idea :))" looks weird and is ambiguous. "(What a good idea :\))" u
161.
by qntm 15y ago
I always find it incredibly difficult to concentrate on comparisons of Fibonacci sequence algorithms when I know for a fact that there is a closed-form expression[1] which gives F(n) in constant time. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibon
162.
by qntm 15y ago
> The thing is, managers actually -like- being informed on a weekly (or even daily!) basis! This. As a coder, I like to be left alone and allowed to focus on the same thing for long periods of time. Interruptions break my train of thou
163.
by qntm 15y ago
Well, losing all your customers' money is certainly an innovative way to run a bank.
164.
by qntm 15y ago
I can't conceive of a world where "there should be no passwords" or "keep these machines security-free" were ever serious positions held by software engineers. It's Garden of Eden thinking.
165.
by qntm 15y ago
I'm not sure I understand Stallman's comment. He is against letting "a few of the users ... hold total power over the rest". Isn't that the whole point of a system administrator? He seems to be explicitly in favour of making it so that a le
166.
by qntm 15y ago
The nature of programming is that you use the right tool for the right job. The question is what kind of tool we want Haskell to be. "I want Haskell to be most useful only in specific, limited situations where puritanical program correctnes
167.
by qntm 15y ago
That reddit post (and admittedly it is just a reddit post) actually says the opposite: there is no theoretical basis for antimatter not to behave exactly like regular matter in the presence of a gravitational field. The null hypothesis (a
168.
by qntm 15y ago
The interesting thing is that, as you get further and further from Earth or the Sun or the centre of the Milky Way, the level of precision which is even useful becomes less and less. What is one light year left or right for a quasar 13,000,
169.
by qntm 15y ago
Second attempt. 2^n has approximately n log 2 digits. Assuming that they are distributed randomly, the probability that none of these digits are 0 is (9/10)^(n log 2). For n = 50,000, this is already unbelievably tiny. For n = 50,001, it is
170.
by qntm 15y ago
Consider the final k digits of 2^n. (If 2^n has fewer than k digits, pad with zeroes.) Now repeatedly multiply by 2, and then truncate mod 10^k. For k = 2, you get the repeating sequence "2", "4", "8", "6", "2", .... For k = 3 you get t
171.
by qntm 15y ago
The numbers 2^n aren't random. For example, the final digit is never 0. You might expect other patterns to appear on larger scales.
172.
by qntm 15y ago
No, speed up the orbital period too so we can have a 360-day year.
173.
by qntm 16y ago
True. However, we don't need to be able to compare two arbitrary chunks of code. As long as our algorithm provides no false positives, I would settle for something as simple as a checksum.
174.
by qntm 16y ago
And Perl.
175.
by qntm 16y ago
> Do you trust Dropbox to not send compromised JavaScript every time? If so, why not trust them with your keys in the first place? I don't trust Dropbox to do either of these things, but at least in theory I can examine the JavaScript
176.
by qntm 16y ago
This may sound like a stupid question, but if you don't want the browser to follow a link when somebody clicks it, why not just leave off the href attribute?
177.
by qntm 16y ago
So, in short: every Circle is an Ellipse; an XStretchableEllipse is a different thing from a mere static Ellipse; every Circle is not an XStretchableEllipse; and there's no such thing as an XStretchableCircle.
178.
by qntm 16y ago
They disabled uploads a very long time ago, although I don't think it was announced as widely.
179.
by qntm 16y ago
The need for the bracelet makes this a lot less attractive than it could be. I've been waiting for ring-based UIs since Pratchett's The Dark Side Of The Sun. For example: contactless smart cards. Put them in ring form. Then you just have to
180.
by qntm 16y ago
Okay, surprise me. What key is "super"?

More ›