rflrob

81 ms·

751.
by rflrob 17y ago
"The unix command line ('cat foo.txt | sort | uniq -c | sort -rn') is wonderfully concise and powerful". And yet, contrary to the author's assertion, it can be made even more concise without sacrificing the power: sort foo.txt | uniq -c |
752.
by rflrob 17y ago
Is it me or have posts related to the suitor problem been relatively popular on HN in the last ~3 months or so? The result isn't especially new, nor does it bear any obvious relation to programming or entrepeneurship, so it's just a bit of
753.
by rflrob 17y ago
I think you're on the right track, but replace "astronomical sciences" with "science", and I think it's more accurate. Of every 100 third graders who wanted to become a scientist because of something cool NASA did, I'd guess you get 10 who
754.
by rflrob 17y ago
On long trips, especially coming home from long trips, I'm usually in at least a little bit of a hurry to get there and be done driving. It's therefore worth $1.50 (assuming I pay $.10 per gallon more than is necessary for my 15 gallon t
755.
by rflrob 17y ago
There's also the process of "communicating" papers. In those, a NAS member can essentially vouch for other authors twice a year, and provide outside reviewers of their choice. This track is ending as an option this July, however.
756.
by rflrob 17y ago
As someone who only knows how to drive an automatic (never had access to a manual to learn), some of the problems he's describing sound like he hasn't made the necessary adjustments in driving style that an automatic apparently requires (at
757.
by rflrob 17y ago
I haven't seen any evidence that Big Name universities are going to lose their prestige any time soon (a point which is actually not addressed much in the article). When I tell people what Top-Ranked college I went to, the immediate respon
758.
by rflrob 17y ago
It all depends on how well the organism can distinguish between the incorrectly copied DNA (this is probably what you mean by damage) and the right sequence. Given that most of the DNA will be copied correctly, if slightly wrong bits can b
759.
by rflrob 17y ago
There are two-and-a-half shortcomings of the TeX ecology (but not the core TeX software itself) today that I've seen: The first is the fact that TeX is still relatively unknown, at least in non-specialist circles, which makes it hard to sh
760.
The Last Big Thing from Apple(shamusyoung.com)
1 points by rflrob 17y ago|0 comments
761.
How Many Nukes Would It Take?(informationisbeautiful.net)
7 points by rflrob 17y ago|26 comments
762.
by rflrob 17y ago
While I certainly respect the work you're doing, I think there is still a long way to go before the appliance model of serving becomes feasible. The question, then, should be what do we do in the mean time? Would shutting down the YouTubes
763.
by rflrob 17y ago
"MIT doesn't accept anyone who they don't think can make it. This works in part because of the self selection in applicants, although nowadays they're getting 13,000 per year, 1/3 of which the Admissions Office judges can do the work." If y
764.
by rflrob 17y ago
Seems like a more general case of "Premature optimization is the root of all evil". Rather than just being speed optimizations, it's functionality optimization, but the same principle of don't fix something until you know it needs fixing a
765.
by rflrob 17y ago
Is there an advantage to doing that as opposed to using isNaN()?
766.
by rflrob 17y ago
Is it just me, or does it seem unfair to lump Goldman Sachs, McKinsey, and Google all into the same class? In particular (having worked at none of them), I'd reject putting Google, an engineering company, into the same category as the othe
767.
Peter Atkins on writing textbooks(nature.com)
6 points by rflrob 17y ago|4 comments
768.
by rflrob 17y ago
I don't understand... why does the turtle need to move at all?
769.
by rflrob 17y ago
Also: http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2010/01/skype-class-action-settlem...
770.
by rflrob 17y ago
Me too, actually. I haven't put my information in yet... still waiting to see if I can corroborate the story. The whois on the site seems to check out though. It's registered to a "Rust Consulting", whose website talks about class action
771.
Skype Expired Credit Class Action Settlement(creditexpirationclassaction.com)
13 points by rflrob 17y ago|8 comments
772.
Tarantino's "Basterdized" History(askmen.com)
2 points by rflrob 17y ago|0 comments
773.
by rflrob 17y ago
Isn't it a little late in the season for grad school advice? I know there are schools where the deadline has already passed, and even assuming you could get together an application for one of the ones that hasn't, it would be poor form to a
774.
by rflrob 17y ago
How does Venmo make money off of this? Do they charge the sender? In the article, a vendor says, "they’re not charging us any transaction fee"
775.
by rflrob 17y ago
I'm just sad that Mac Chrome didn't also get a comic.
776.
by rflrob 17y ago
I have a reasonably fast connection, but the experience here is greatly improved by downloading all the datasets: http://blog.chromoscope.net/download/
777.
by rflrob 17y ago
"People are natural hackers, we've just got out of the habit of it" This is put so well I don't know what to add to it.
778.
by rflrob 17y ago
It might be folly to try to argue with language anti-evolutionists, but when spacing was added to scripts (according to the author, most recently during the middle ages), minuscule and majuscule were not consistently used at the beginning o
779.
by rflrob 17y ago
I think the author's conflation of empiricism and science isn't quite right. Instead, I would say that science is the combination of empiricism and reason. While ultimately the process of science needs to agree with (and predict) data, t
780.
by rflrob 17y ago
In this case I'd interpret "trick" to be more like a skateboard trick, i.e. a non-obvious, but probably skillful manipulation of the data. If Tony Hawk pulls off something cool, nobody thinks he's trying to pull a fast one on his spectators

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