smackay

40 ms·

331.
by smackay 12y ago
The article seems overly political in trying to refute the claim that laboratory animals run on wheels because they are driven insane by their environment. However ultimately they are undermining their position because it begs the question,
332.
Mary Anning(en.wikipedia.org)
1 points by smackay 12y ago|0 comments
333.
by smackay 12y ago
Foreign governments are certainly no better. However the government in the USA is certainly more capable and perhaps more motivated than most to act on the information it receives. There is also familiarity with the government carrying out
334.
Why bad scientific code beats code following "best practices"(yosefk.com)
198 points by smackay 12y ago|168 comments
335.
by smackay 12y ago
Required reading: http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html
336.
by smackay 13y ago
It's not so much about moving away from unit tests are more to do with picking the best points at which to test your apps. For web apps the natural points at are the model level and at the client level. For the Django apps I write thes
337.
by smackay 13y ago
In a former life (a long time ago), I used ELLA for designing processors. It was a pretty decent functional language. Great at abstracting components or subsystems and infinitely better than modelling stuff with C. IIRC European Silicon Str
338.
Working simultaneously vs waiting simultaneously(yosefk.com)
7 points by smackay 13y ago|0 comments
339.
by smackay 13y ago
I think television and now tablets have largely achieved this, sadly. However I think you have is precisely backwards. Liberation from the drudgery of parenting for what? more work? I think a more productive goal would be to liberate parent
340.
A simple way to "get more people to code"(yosefk.com)
39 points by smackay 13y ago|65 comments
341.
by smackay 13y ago
We planted a tree (from seed) when each of our kids were born. Being the superstitious, symbol creating species that we are it was a little stressful for the first year or so in case the trees didn't make it and so foretold our childre
342.
by smackay 13y ago
While a journalist may pursue the truth, news organizations only pursue readers.
343.
by smackay 13y ago
It's always impressive to see pilots who are able to recover from seemingly impossible situations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Transat_Flight_236 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news&
344.
by smackay 13y ago
Lego is just a reflection of society and what we project onto it. It's up to you to build new things - all the pieces are there.
345.
by smackay 13y ago
I'd pay good money to track down the aggressive clowns I meet on the highway or those who came close to killing me on a pedestrian crossing. The long arm of ... revenge.
346.
by smackay 13y ago
Nonsense, turning away from knowledge of God brought us the Age of Enlightenment. Apart from a few bumps in the road, I'd say humanity is way better off.
347.
by smackay 13y ago
There are many types of job where market forces cannot solve the problem. (Within the context of the Universal Basic Income) there may entire categories of types of job that could be created to solve social (in the most general sense) or ci
348.
by smackay 13y ago
This is slightly off topic. Work is rather a vague term. If you break it down into it's components: effort, compensation, social-benefit, etc. then you can start to assign relative merit to different kinds of work. For example financie
349.
by smackay 13y ago
you forgot the homosexual tyrants, the gypsy tyrants, the slav tyrants and not forgetting the tyrants with disabilities. The takeover of the German state by the National Socialist party was little more than a coup by a gang of thugs, psycop
350.
by smackay 13y ago
The gap between technological capability and the ability to deal with the consequences illustrates a problem with our collective intelligence and the ability or inability to contain the more volatile members of our species when they make us
351.
by smackay 13y ago
In other words the correct choice of algorithm and data structure can dramatically simplify a problem and the amount of code and time needed to solve it. It also means that having tools where you can quickly apply different techniques, ahem
352.
by smackay 13y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacteriophage
353.
by smackay 13y ago
Maybe, maybe not... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aflatoxin http://www.foodproductiondaily.com/Processing/Extrusion-cook... The real issue with advice on foods is that it requires a great deal of
354.
by smackay 13y ago
Instead of the semantic web trying to create knowledge from data the author wants to take all that data and create more chatter and noise, oops, I mean buzz. Don't waste your time reading this nonsense.
355.
by smackay 13y ago
But writing some fucking code gives a good basis for a more informed debate since there could be a pool of models in existence which could then be refined. It also makes it a lot easier to test various assumptions and determine the sensitvi
356.
by smackay 13y ago
The history is more complex than a few paragraphs can convey. For instance, The Royal British Legion was founded by Field Marshal Douglas Haig, commander of British Expeditionary Forces and commander at the Battle of the Somme where over on
357.
by smackay 13y ago
There are plenty of ideas for addressing the surveillance problem but perhaps it is time to take a step back and look at the "big picture". In any conflict, no matter how big or small, there is considerable advantage in having adv
358.
by smackay 13y ago
So instead of sprinting off the cliff, we are now merely going to run off it. There's lot of wishful thinking in the idea that emissions can be decoupled from GDP - in the same way that we can all return to ever-increasing house prices
359.
by smackay 13y ago
I remember in the USA when the Harry Potter books were starting to go mainstream (and the Christian Right were still trying to get the book banned because they promoted witchcraft). There was an short piece on an NPR program that talked abo
360.
by smackay 13y ago
Back in 2006 The Economist had a reasonably in-depth article on IKEA's corporate structure, http://www.economist.com/node/6919139

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