russell

16 ms·

91.
by russell 13y ago
There is speculation that the crater Giordano Bruno was caused by a large impact on the moon in 1178. If true, it would have been way larger, but evidence of any debris hitting the earth is missing, so it's probably just a nice story
92.
by russell 13y ago
If we define programming as the stuff that we on HN do for a living with C, Java, JavaScript, and the like, then teaching every American how to code is a futile goal. Something on the order of half of all CS majors fail the introductory CS
93.
by russell 13y ago
With a little cleanup, this could have been the original government procurement checklist for Ada.
94.
by russell 13y ago
My favorite: Putting Root Beer in a square cup makes it regular beer because math. It took me a few seconds to get my head around that one.
95.
by russell 13y ago
I find the image of the woman typing away at her computer while her date, boyfriend, husband, coworker even sits attentive to her, to be appallingly rude. Now I am much older than nearly all of you and I grew up when the only electronic dis
96.
by russell 13y ago
I remember reading a discussion on a UK site that a person could be convicted of libel in the UK even if the statement was true. (I am American, so dont base your defense on my comments.)
97.
by russell 13y ago
Oh man, have I been down that rabbit hole.
98.
by russell 13y ago
I would dearly love to see FTL, but to paraphrase Fermi, where are the aliens? The first civilization that gets FTL would colonize the galaxy before any other developed. It's harder for me to accept that we are the first technologica
99.
by russell 13y ago
The article says that agile is a big-enough tent to encompass waterfall development with standup scrum meetings. No way. No way. You can put lipstick on a pig, but at the end of the evening, you are still dating a pig. I lived through th
100.
by russell 13y ago
As I have aged I have evolved a fairly effective simulation of a higher gravity environment. Running and falling down arent so much fun, but you can cope fairly well.
101.
by russell 13y ago
Teddy Roosevelt's trust busting.
102.
by russell 13y ago
Primal Scream Therapy: it's quite prevalent in the Internet.
103.
by russell 13y ago
Sorry, they are using correct English. The male gender is used for the gender neutral case. We need something that is truly gender neutral, but all attempts sound wrong to anyone who made it through high school English. S/he is unpronoun
104.
by russell 13y ago
I think self promotion is frowned upon. Maybe if you framed it as a Tell HN it might be better received.
105.
by russell 13y ago
I watched the videos (no sound - at work) and it seems like from the discussion that they are thinking of returning to the launch site. I looked at the Saturn V data and the first stage came down 350 miles down range and the second stage 2
106.
by russell 13y ago
Patrick Henry is a little strong for this day and age, but "Give me liberty or give me 0.000001% chance of death", works perfectly well for me.
107.
by russell 13y ago
Whether or not you agree with Internet taxation, eBay's arguments are bogus. All you need to do is subscribe to a tax calculation service that calculates the taxes on purchases. At the end of the quarter they send you a bill. you pay the
108.
by russell 13y ago
A couple of decades ago I read about a company in New Hampshire of Vermont that made skiing and hiking outerwear, definitely not hi-tech. They posted everyone's salaries on the wall, including management. If someone wanted a raise he cros
109.
by russell 14y ago
I've been in that position. I even argued that the patent application was invalid due to prior art. The patent people consulted with other developers and just presented me with the paper work to sign. I signed it. It was that or be labe
110.
by russell 14y ago
Google "tragedy of the commons". People are not fundamentally good. They lie, cheat and steal, if they can get away with it. Good behavior results from successful socialization. Socialization can also result in some pretty bad behavior.
111.
by russell 14y ago
"Woman" is the technical term for the female of the species. ;-)
112.
by russell 14y ago
He gave you a reference. Google "statistical sample size". There are several calculators in the results that you can play around. Everybody should take a college level course in statistics, even poets and painters.
113.
by russell 14y ago
You have my sympathies. One thing that might help it to pay attention to your attitude and demeanor. One problem is thinking that you are humbly begging for a job and that they are in control of the process. A bit more of a chip on your
114.
by russell 14y ago
I was there "back in the day". There were lots of people who stayed with a company for decades as well as lots who jumped ship after a couple of years when their employers couldnt keep up with the salary escalation. One or the big differe
115.
by russell 14y ago
My aunt was a linotype operator in the 1950s. One day I visited her at work and she typed my name into a slug. The machine was amazing. It was something like 8 feet tall, maybe more, with a gazillion moving parts. Typing was fairly slow
116.
by russell 14y ago
Interesting, but he does his comparisons based on line count. Only at the end of a too lengthy article does he show the comparisons based on character and token length. And his definition of token is faulty. As far as I can see it is onl
117.
by russell 14y ago
Amusingly enough it links to an old pg essay (2007) of the same title. pg's essay was written just before I started following HN, so I found it interesting. pg mentions how IBM faded from dominance of an earlier generation. That struck a
118.
by russell 14y ago
dreamdu5t you are so wrong that you deserve to be onvoted, but I dont do that. The basic IP technology was all government funded and developed by BB&N. The original internet was ARPAnet, funded by the government to link the government
119.
by russell 14y ago
The article brings up the idea of bioengineering Neanderthals, recreating living representatives. I personally object to the idea of creating people who are probably intellectually inferior to us. The other idea of creating Neanderthal ce
120.
by russell 14y ago
I actually had my heart set on a Bugatti Veyron. Who wants to poke along at 200 mph when you can go 250. Pretty cool looking too.

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