saturn

10 ms·

31.
by saturn 15y ago
Let me second this recommendation that anyone with a genuine interest in this topic check out The Algebraist ; it's a truly excellent book. I wouldn't say it's Hard SF but it's pretty firm and, IMO, a far more considered and imaginative vi
32.
by saturn 15y ago
> At any given time, about 10 percent of Americans are completely incapacitated by their lumbar regions How can this possibly be true? Completely incapacitated, ie bedridden and immobile? Surely the country would be in near collapse i
33.
by saturn 15y ago
Wanted: Hegemony of International Elites looking for despicable candidates for Two Minutes Hate media roles. Slightly senile, doddering old men preferred. Work remote!
34.
by saturn 15y ago
The author claims using "they" is common, but grammatically incorrect - then recommends some arbitrary (and currently unknown and incorrect) set of replacement words to be adopted and thus become correct by weight of numbers. Why not just c
35.
by saturn 15y ago
on a 10G planet, 200 miles at 0˚ would be plenty fun to walk..
36.
by saturn 15y ago
Not that I'm trying to turn HN into a jobs board but if you're finding it hard to get freelance work, an email and a portfolio in your profile would help.
37.
by saturn 15y ago
I have to say, this is great and very timely. I have lost track of how many conversations I've had in the last year where I lament the shocking state of home automation. If there's anywhere REST standardisation is welcome, it's in the home.
38.
by saturn 15y ago
What exactly was a hoax? The document pasted was rather detailed and, while somewhat overblown, was obviously written by someone who knew what they were talking about. It contains a lot of criticism of design decisions by MongoDB; these are
39.
by saturn 15y ago
The one thing I miss after switching to PostgreSQL from MySQL is Sequel Pro. pgAdmin 3, sorry to say, sucks, and I grow tired of rails dbconsole - but that's my only option, really. Please, someone, make a good osx pg client. Just copy Sequ
40.
by saturn 15y ago
Nice article, I guess, but overly complex; it really is a very simple set of reasons. Here goes: 1. There is a large startup community in the US 2. Many people interested in startups already went to the US because of (1) 3. Th
41.
by saturn 15y ago
I was going to write that I didn't think it very good form to post failing code tests on the net, but having looked at the code - my god. I still think it's questionable manners but man that code is shocking. I was also going to say that I
42.
by saturn 15y ago
Shouldn't it be "Netflix reverts Qwikster split"? I don't "revert from" a misguided commit, I revert it. I do like the metaphor though.
43.
by saturn 15y ago
I have always thought that quote was ridiculous. What is unreasonable about noticing an improvement can be made in your surroundings, and endeavouring to make it? There is a grain of truth I suppose, vis-a-vis humanity's general restlessnes
44.
by saturn 15y ago
When the farming jobs left, the unskilled could get manufacturing jobs. When they left, they got service industry jobs. What happens when they leave? What will the millions upon millions of basically unskilled labourers do then? I am tempte
45.
by saturn 15y ago
I also interpreted the word as randomdata did. I think this is an American thing. When I think of sharecropping it makes me think of farmers under a landlord in medieval England or something. Not a great power dynamic but the word isn't all
46.
by saturn 15y ago
Biased? That article? I thought it a very fair analysis, evenhanded almost to a fault. You might not agree, of course, but bias isn't about whether you agree or not. It's a systematic favouring of one side of an argument over others, regard
47.
by saturn 15y ago
> The world does not need 200 programming languages, 1000 javascript frameworks, 500 different web servers and 20-odd social platforms But .. that is the way we find the way forward. It's like evolution. We may not need 500 different
48.
by saturn 15y ago
I thought you were a sockpuppet .. I wouldn't know anything about the stack you describe. Seems to me the barriers there are all Enterprise related; framework innovation isn't the bottleneck. Big business software - perhaps that's something
49.
by saturn 15y ago
> I'd say no on both counts. Well, you're entitled to your opinion I suppose, but I don't know any professional programmer who would even come close to agreeing with you.
50.
by saturn 15y ago
Even if we accept your claim that only 1 in 1000 inventions help the world, which I think is pessimistic, that's still progress. What would you rather people do? Not invent? A programmer writing a new framework might not directly help cur
51.
by saturn 15y ago
> who waste their time creating new languages and frameworks Well that's just laughable, and says more about yourself than any of these allegedly offending third parties. There has been tremendous progress in both frameworks and languag
52.
by saturn 15y ago
I am yet to hear anyone give a compelling argument in favour of parenthesising arguments to a method: def method_name(arg1, arg2) instead of def method_name arg1, arg2 especially when they do not like empty parentheses for no
53.
by saturn 15y ago
You gotta remember that 1% of America is still 3 million people. If three million people want a certain kind of high quality unsweetened yoghurt, and you're the first vendor in line, then you may as well put your order in for that G650 beca
54.
by saturn 15y ago
That's like saying "It's a little amusing how popular these web reimplementations of 2004-era word processors are". Dude, being on the web makes a huge difference. No software to install is massive. You can't link to a program running on yo
55.
by saturn 15y ago
Amazing. We are surely looking at the future of porn.
56.
by saturn 15y ago
None of this advice applies to me, of course. As a man and therefore a child molesting rapist just waiting for my chance to strike, the idea that I could have any sort of conversation with a little girl - let alone sit down on a couch and t
57.
by saturn 15y ago
Well, I can never resist implementing these interview questions! Here's my answer: def strip_dupes string res = '' string.each_char do |char| next if char == res[-1] res << char end res end Any i
58.
by saturn 15y ago
> But I cannot possibly bring myself to throw away books Don't throw them away! The trick is to give them to a library. Win-win situation.
59.
by saturn 15y ago
I recently grabbed a 512GB crucial m4 for $730 delivered, from here http://www.bhphotovideo.com/ (no affiliation) (price has risen slightly since). For some reason I'd been putting it off but seeing it there for less than $1.50 per gig, a
60.
by saturn 15y ago
> I don't think there's a substitute for having a "when in Rome" attitude Yeah, this is a good point. I come across as gung-ho in the parent but I have to admit I do submit to the "when in Rome" effect. That said, if Rome is an absolute

More ›