sethrin

57 ms·

511.
by sethrin 10y ago
There are actually a fair few problems with SI units. The candela is fairly ridiculous, the kilogram needs to not depend on a physical object (it's also a little silly to have a prefixed base unit). The ampere is not practical to measu
512.
by sethrin 10y ago
I have to say, that last is a particularly bad question. Asking about the spacetime interval between two points has an answer. Asking about the spacetime interval between two points when you have some unspecified magic which can shorten tha
513.
by sethrin 10y ago
You are being unfairly downmoderated. It is of course not a given that modeling economic systems is impossible, but there is considerable debate as to e.g. what degree prices are random/unpredictable. Everyone agrees the problem is ext
514.
by sethrin 10y ago
Money past a certain point is not an incentive. Retraining takes time. It's harder to land jobs for which one does not have relevant work experience. The PHP job market is larger than most other web programming segments, so work is eas
515.
by sethrin 10y ago
Many/most PHP platforms these days do claim to be either MVC or Rails-based or both. CakePHP is not a bad example there. There are however a few other very large projects whose take on MVC is lacking to some degree. Drupal is not bad,
516.
by sethrin 10y ago
I think your example actually harms your argument. The SR-71 is a nice plane, and certainly much more advanced than the Wright Flyer, but it is completely outclassed by the Saturn V. The space technology is much more complex, and much more
517.
by sethrin 10y ago
We don't need to invent new physics to do this. The challenges are very real; by various definitions the Saturn V was the most powerful machine ever constructed, and Musk proposes a rocket with several times the thrust. Mankind has not
518.
by sethrin 10y ago
Not only that, but empirical truths are always subject to measurement error -- we will never be completely certain that there is not a more accurate model of reality, and in all likelihood we will always continue to refine our models. Also
519.
by sethrin 10y ago
Without invoking abuses of either relativity or the rocket equation, current physical understanding more-or-less limits us to long-term 'generation ships'. There is some potential argument about cryogenic freezing/revival, bu
520.
by sethrin 10y ago
Police have become the threat that the Founders feared when they talked about the dangers of a standing army. Either they need to be armed with non-lethal weapons only, or they need to stand trial for each killing (severally and collectivel
521.
by sethrin 10y ago
I would cite any animal driven to extinction by a commercial market. If we agree that the criterion is where the good is no longer marketable, we can examine e.g. the markets for beaver or sea otter furs, the cod fisheries of the Grand Bank
522.
by sethrin 10y ago
Predicting the consumption of a scarce resource is extremely plausible, and there are many historical precedents. Predicting that interstellar travel will ever be in any way economically advantageous is probably unphysical. With travel time
523.
by sethrin 10y ago
I wonder what all that text around the equations is. Probably not important, right?
524.
by sethrin 10y ago
To my mind, this qualifies as 'kinetic sculpture'.
525.
by sethrin 10y ago
As far as I can tell, POSIX was an attempt to codify existing practice amongst Unix vendors, picking the best of the most widely supported features, as opposed to actually trying to come up with a good standard. From reading UHH, one might
526.
by sethrin 10y ago
Well there's another wrinkle to this, which is that having a small block size and lower throughput may drive transaction costs up. What I've read suggests that the current 1MB block size works out to about 7 transactions per secon
527.
by sethrin 10y ago
I am not employed by Google. If I were, I would still have a right to disagree with the art direction. The execution was fine; I preferred other concepts which did more to display Shannon's work. Shannon's juggling was about as re
528.
by sethrin 10y ago
Many people seem to. I've actually been looking for negative feedback, since I thought some of the earlier drafts were better. I am just some guy with an opinion though. Overall it was a really difficult piece, given how abstract Shann
529.
by sethrin 10y ago
Interesting! I appreciate the response. Sorry that you have to deal with that, though.
530.
by sethrin 10y ago
Landline phones were powered by the phone company, over the lines. As long as the wires themselves aren't down, the phone company can keep the system working for days without power -- phones themselves don't need much power. DSLAM
531.
by sethrin 10y ago
Have you actually experienced this? I can easily imagine that a given apartment/home could be out and the building/distribution point still be up, but anything less local than that would certainly take my connection offline. And
532.
by sethrin 10y ago
To clarify, when the power goes out, you are still able to get online? Otherwise it would seem like it would be somewhat pointless to have the networking equipment plugged into the UPS. I have worked online during a power outage using a cel
533.
by sethrin 10y ago
In what circumstances do you foresee the power usage of networking equipment as having more than a notional impact on one's life? (Serious question)
534.
by sethrin 11y ago
To clarify, I'm about half of the way through the book, and I have found a couple arguably-correct points. Complaints about Usenet and Unix vendors have mostly gone the way of the dodo. The author consistently ignores any distinction b
535.
by sethrin 11y ago
What part of UHH do you think is not obsolete? I dislike many aspects of Unix, but it seems like 90% of the book is either wrong, meaningless invective, or obsolete. It's hard to view it as of more than historical value -- which is a s
536.
by sethrin 11y ago
Web browsers have standards they're supposed to meet. Where's the standard for qt? Where's the competing implementation? You can denigrate the web standards, even with some degree of truth, but you yourself have pointed out t
537.
by sethrin 11y ago
> I'm in no position to judge the science behind this And yet, you do. Why do you imagine the politicians would be concerned with climate change? It's not like they or the rest of the oligarchy are going to be the ones affected
538.
by sethrin 11y ago
Firstly, this isn't about me. I'm not the one who started this project, I don't have any stake in maintaining it, and I'm definitely not the only one to notice that the tickets are piling up. Frankly I thought it was wid
539.
by sethrin 11y ago
Frankly, I'm not sure I'm up to that. I don't have much in-depth experience with this project, with the finer points of zsh, or with maintaining projects in general. I'm not entirely sure I could do a better job than not
540.
by sethrin 11y ago
910 contributors, 191 issues, 516 pull requests, and his response is that "reviewing and approving pull requests is a nice-to-happen versus a need-to-happen." While I'm glad I am not in the position of maintaining that (or an

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