raffi

19 ms·

151.
by raffi 17y ago
This blog post struck me as venemous link bait. Sad to see such a thing on the Language Log.
152.
All About Language Models(blog.afterthedeadline.com)
4 points by raffi 17y ago|0 comments
153.
How to Keep Blogging: Motivation Tips from Top Writers(blog.feedbackarmy.com)
1 points by raffi 17y ago|0 comments
154.
by raffi 17y ago
I used to work as a scientist for the Air Force and part of my job was writing reports and proposals. My community expected clear and concise technical writing. At the time I had a lot of trouble with passive voice and complex expressions.
155.
by raffi 17y ago
My FAQ definitely needs an update. I was inspired to write the post when I saw a Feedback Army customer had used the service to populate their FAQ. It seemed such a novel idea to me that I wanted to share.
156.
by raffi 17y ago
:) Thanks for the tip. I'll keep that in mind with my next submission.
157.
Six Tips for a Killer FAQ Page(blog.feedbackarmy.com)
26 points by raffi 17y ago|5 comments
158.
by raffi 17y ago
I wrote an article awhile back on continuations in Sleep: http://today.java.net/pub/a/today/2008/07/24/fun-with-contin... I don't find a need for them in AtD (my current project), but when I was doing distributed systems work they were ve
159.
by raffi 17y ago
I work on the grammar checking software After the Deadline and I use this trick all the time. I'm working on making my software support more languages and I have to rely on this to tell if something my software says is indeed accurate or no
160.
The Secret of Social Media(blog.feedbackarmy.com)
1 points by raffi 17y ago|0 comments
161.
by raffi 17y ago
I like their approach using a variety of tools at different stages of product development to get the job done. I think something our field may benefit from is a guide that explains how to use the different usability services and at what poi
162.
by raffi 17y ago
I recently saw a blog post where someone wrote about the feedback they received and they weren't happy. The same person then revised their questions and tried a more task oriented approach and they were much happier. http://www.i-proving.c
163.
by raffi 17y ago
"When I started at MSFT in 1996, there were six people between me and [Microsoft cofounder] Bill Gates," Boris said. "In 2009, there were 13 people between me and [Microsoft CEO] Steve Ballmer." Fred said, "the number of managers between me
164.
by raffi 17y ago
It's not OO but you can roll your own. See: http://sleep.dashnine.org/manual/functions.html#3 It does threading using a fork(&function) abstraction. You can pass an initial set of variables to share but otherwise it's shared nothing.
165.
by raffi 17y ago
These algorithms solve a different problem. They calculate the edit distance between a string A and B. The algorithm in the post finds all strings B within an edit distance N of string A.
166.
by raffi 17y ago
Possibly. I think it's the difference between a plain BST and an AVL or Red/Black tree. More work for some gain but ultimately the data has something to say about whether it matters. I think this scheme would certainly balloon the logic for
167.
by raffi 17y ago
AtD uses a lot of memory but this technique made a difference speeding up the spell checker. For things best done with a hash lookup, we use hashtables. This is what we're using for generating edits still (I wrote most of this post in Augus
168.
How I Trie to Make Spelling Suggestions(blog.afterthedeadline.com)
46 points by raffi 17y ago|17 comments
169.
by raffi 17y ago
Folks should read predictably irrational. Market norms bring out different attributes in people than social norms. I'd much rather borrow something from my neighbor (and return the favor) over trying to extract every dime I can from them (o
170.
by raffi 17y ago
The catch is important. It's annoying to sign up for something only to find out that to get what I came for I have to pay. I'd rather know this up front so I can psychologically prepare myself for it.
171.
Questions Users Ask About Your Site(blog.feedbackarmy.com)
19 points by raffi 17y ago|4 comments
172.
by raffi 17y ago
phew I don't feel bad now. I wrote a HTML preprocessor in 1999 to allow PHP-like embedding of Perl in webpages. It did the equivalent of register globals. I still have it up on my website but with a big warning that says "this has known s
173.
by raffi 17y ago
What does Karma really matter for? The only way to see it is to look at someones profile. I can't imagine the leaderboard is that big of a deal except to the person on it. And even then, I can imagine that it's not that big of a deal to tho
174.
by raffi 17y ago
Wow. That brings back memories in a big way. Just needs trumpet winsock, mIRC, and a nuker.
175.
by raffi 17y ago
Two classes and a thesis away. I'd finish the grad degree and try to get some of the groundwork for the startup set while in grad school. I finished an MSc and made Feedback Army and started on After the Deadline at the same time. If both f
176.
by raffi 17y ago
I first heard it years ago on Slashdot. It's a play on the term grass roots meaning a bottom up campaign started and supported by people who are genuinely passionate about a cause. Astroturfing means faking a grassroots effort.
177.
by raffi 17y ago
To a non-PHP programmer it's pretty non-intuitive to omit a closing tag. Most programmers are trained to balance things like tags, parentheses, and curly braces.
178.
by raffi 17y ago
I'm a reasonably competent programmer by most standards and I was burned by PHP once. If you include a file with their include() function and have whitespace after the closing ?> tag in the file--PHP will throw an error. Except it gets
179.
by raffi 17y ago
It can work out, but it's a long road. http://blog.afterthedeadline.com/2009/09/08/after-the-deadli...
180.
by raffi 17y ago
Presenting is such an important skill. I can't sleep, so here are some thoughts on how to become a solid public speaker if you don't get to attend TechStars or YC. Qualifications: I usually have people tell me I'm a natural at speaking afte

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