simmons

30 ms·

241.
by simmons 13y ago
It's been my observation that revenue in the tens of billions of dollars doesn't enable a company to make bold, risky moves -- it hinders it. People become very risk-averse when there's a lot to lose. Many of these well est
242.
by simmons 13y ago
Yes, indeed. The CDPD network was sluggish and spotty, but that was my first taste of being able to look up important information (maps, etc.) on the web while on the go.
243.
by simmons 13y ago
That idea reminds me a lot of the Springboard modules on the old Handspring PDAs. (I had a Handspring Prism and an AT&T CDPD wireless data module -- it was like having a clunky smartphone back in 2001.) It would be interesting from a
244.
by simmons 13y ago
In the late 90's, I attended a presentation that described doing just such a fractional-light fiber split at major exchanges (e.g. MAE-West) to collect data for research purposes. [1] While the researchers were probably trustworthy, I
245.
by simmons 13y ago
This is an interesting idea. I assume by "frequency modulation" of data, he means adjusting the timing of the transmissions to create an out-of-band channel that might be more difficult to notice when packet sniffing. As a crude
246.
by simmons 13y ago
Thanks for the tip; I should check out Portal 2 sometime. If it's anything like Portal 1, it achieves the balance by constraining the dynamic gameplay to discrete puzzles, each of which, when solved, moves the player along the storyli
247.
by simmons 13y ago
"Movies and plays get much of their power from the resonances between the structural layers. The congruence between the theme, plot, setting and character layouts generates emotional power. Computer games will never have a significa
248.
by simmons 13y ago
I wouldn't put too much emphasis on such wording, as various fields use common words in uncommon ways. For instance, cryptographers refer to those they seek privacy from as "adversaries," which may sound excessively agressiv
249.
by simmons 13y ago
This has been on my mind a lot lately, too. I'm glad I'm not the only one who has noticed this. I don't think there's any grand conspiracy, here -- Hollywood caricatures and over-simplifies pretty much everything. But
250.
by simmons 13y ago
After clicking through a lot of FAQ entries, I found this under "I'm moving": "If you are moving within Austin, TX, we'd love to keep you as a customer." So, I guess they're just in Austin. It took a lot of work to figure that out, though
251.
by simmons 13y ago
Huh, it's interesting that there's actually an engineering standard for yellow light times that local governments don't seem to acknowledge. I've always been annoyed at the dangerously short yellow lights around here (Denver), compared to
252.
by simmons 13y ago
The more I think about it, the more similar these sorts of groups seem to inner-city gangs. Otherwise good kids get caught up in the wrong environment, find acceptance within a peer group, and then become seduced by the intoxicating taste
253.
by simmons 13y ago
I was thinking the same thing. I, too, wrote many sheets of hand-coded 6502 assembly back then, but I didn't think to use a multi-colored pen.
254.
by simmons 13y ago
I've often thought about this as well, but I don't really want to keep buying drinks and snacks and load up on the calories. (And I can only drink so many low-calorie plain coffees without shaking...) There should be a way of paying shops
255.
by simmons 14y ago
Boulder is currently in the process of trying to kick out Xcel Energy and operate their own power infrastructure. I've been wondering if this is a step towards making a bid for Google Fiber. (Since having a city-owned utility seemed to be
256.
by simmons 14y ago
I had XM radio for a number of years, when it was cheaper and I had a discounted plan. I actually had great luck with reception, except in extreme geographies like the Columbia River Gorge. I like taking road trips, and it was awesome to
257.
by simmons 14y ago
I'm all about merit/talent-based hiring and working from home, but it's hard for me to be too judgmental of extreme measures taken in an effort to resurrect a declining company. Yahoo is the patient on the operating room table being defibr
258.
by simmons 14y ago
"I can't wait for the next big thing because honestly we've made a gigantic step backward." One of these days, those of us interested in a 21st century Usenet should really get together and make it happen. I never used Gnus (I was more o
259.
by simmons 14y ago
For what it's worth, I signed up for a Dropbox account in late December, and have not received spam at the unique address I provided.
260.
by simmons 14y ago
I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one doing this. A colleague and I run a hangout most of every day, and it really makes it feel a lot like being in the same room. (I had to ask the other day -- "Is that your doorbell or my doorbell?) We
261.
by simmons 14y ago
The "witch" comment reminded me of the shift in the term "hacker" to refer to criminal behavior. A lot of people distrust cleverness. I've always suspected that if another term was adopted for positive hacking, such as "tinkerer", it too
262.
by simmons 14y ago
I took a quick look at the Javascript code on saebekassebil's GitHub, and it does seem to be the start of some sort of music theory library. The waveform visualizer demo just doesn't seem to be very revealing of what the library is about.
263.
by simmons 14y ago
Neat! I've been reading up and playing around with this stuff the past few weeks, from both the waveform synthesis side and the music theory side. I don't think I've quite wrapped my head around the basic concepts yet. (i.e.: Why have no
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by simmons 14y ago
Just my guess, as a Denver-area resident... Metro Denver has several areas with very high concentrations of office space and jobs (Downtown, DTC, Broomfield/Interlocken, Boulder, etc.). Also, the residential density (even within Denver pro
265.
by simmons 14y ago
I have a high-deductible health plan (HDHP) from Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield of Colorado, associated with a health savings account (HSA). It has worked well for me and I recommend that general route to other self-employed people, but man
266.
by simmons 14y ago
I lived in Alabama for a while back in the metric days. The article you link to seems to confirm the general impression I had of how it went down. US: "We're switching to the metric system, everybody!" Alabama: "Yay! Switching to metric!
267.
Using Google Hangouts for collaborative telepresence(cafbit.com)
3 points by simmons 14y ago|0 comments
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by simmons 14y ago
There certainly exist places like you describe. However, would regional urban centers like Des Moines and Omaha really fall into that category? Des Moines is no San Francisco, but I would expect it to be on the receiving side of any sort
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by simmons 14y ago
A similar approach occurred to me as I was writing that example. (Using a range-based for loop, break on found.) I guess I'm mostly scratching my head trying to figure out find_if's place in the universe.
270.
by simmons 14y ago
I've been using both C++11 and Python lately. While the new C++11 features add a lot of value, I still find it frustratingly verbose for some things. For example, finding an element in a collection: std::string type = "foo"; aut

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