thunk

24 ms·

211.
by thunk 17y ago
Buddhism refers to it as the Two Truths: conventional and ultimate truth: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_truths_doctrine It's a very nuanced and often misunderstood concept. Leaning too far to either side (hyper-reification of and attac
212.
by thunk 17y ago
That's true, although before we get too smug about those "out of touch with the realities of building software systems" academics, we should remember that often those seemingly absurd and fanciful little corners turn out to be serious game
213.
by thunk 17y ago
Heh, it did me too. I charged into the abyss all alone, eager to demolish my self. And ... succeeded. It very nearly turned out badly. When I say guidance, all I mean is someone who has been there and can pull you back if necessary. An exte
214.
by thunk 17y ago
Even the concept of "me" turns out to be fuzzy around the edges if you examine it too closely. Try not to examine it too closely without proper guidance, though: it's a little more than just fuzzy.
215.
by thunk 17y ago
The biggest benefit of having it would probably turn out to be being able to say Arc has it in conversations like this. That might be a bigger deal than it seems, although I feel dirty suggesting the "nitpick preemption" philosophy of langu
216.
by thunk 17y ago
Eh, I'm going to break with the theme here and just respond, because the last thing I want to do is give the wrong impression about emacs: I'm not getting RSI. My fingers feel great. It just sort of fit in the haiku. Swap caps and ctl. Use
217.
by thunk 17y ago
I absolutely agree. Humans have a lot of dedicated hardware for learning through imitation, which is virtually ignored by mainstream education. I'm an autodidact, as I'd guess a lot of people here are -- you sort of have to be if you plan o
218.
by thunk 17y ago
This is Hacker News. A place for haikus, but not lame internet memes.
219.
by thunk 17y ago
Keep the books. Skip the school. I think mentoring is both the past and the future, but in the present it's hard to find.
220.
by thunk 17y ago
This is going to totally re^H^Hinvent social raytracing.
221.
by thunk 17y ago
The point can't be taught. QWAN will always elude you. You code but don't hack.
222.
by thunk 17y ago
nascent RSI 100 emacs buffers yet love at first hack
223.
by thunk 17y ago
1) I'm going to leave this one here, because I think we might be having a semantic disconnect. 2) ... the result is the same. Ahh, but it's not. When looping over consecutive subseqs, i's scope is the inner loop, and you lose i's value on
224.
by thunk 17y ago
Admirably put.
225.
by thunk 17y ago
1) I get it. If your array is that big you already have code dealing with array indices approaching MAXINT. Since it's already a special case it's not introducing extra complexity to change your test in that one place. Edit: When I say "tes
226.
by thunk 17y ago
1) MAXINT is already a special case, so testing inclusively doesn't introduce extra accidental complexity. 2) If you test the upper bound inclusively, then the upper bound of the previous subseq is not the lower bound of the next subseq. 3)
227.
by thunk 17y ago
1) The memo has nothing to do with testing for MAXINT. Just test it inclusively. 2) You frequently want to know the length of a subseq, and you frequently want successive subseq ranges to dovetail. 3) What in the world does rand() have
228.
by thunk 17y ago
Heh, seriously. Google: "We didn't do it." T-Mobile: "Well, we didn't do it." Apple: "Well, WE didn't do it." AT&T: "Well, WE didn't do it." Apps: "Goodbye, cruel world!" BANG
229.
by thunk 17y ago
That's false. You'd be forced to sacrifice the exclusive upper bound, which would then force you to sacrifice the difference between the upper and lower bounds being the number of elts in the collection. Unless the lower bound was exclusi
230.
by thunk 17y ago
Assuming you're not being facetious, I happen to think mathematics would be more advanced today if a little attention was paid to standardizing its notation: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=733265 But don't take that as enthusiasm for
231.
by thunk 17y ago
Absolutely. His penmanship is as thoughtful as his bearing. I just hate pdf links.
232.
by thunk 17y ago
But he was making the point that there are valid human reasons for zero-based indexing - e.g. keeping the lower bound within the natural numbers; having the upper bound be the number of elements in the preceding sequence, etc. The "way c
233.
by thunk 17y ago
Er, that's all worng. The question isn't number of , but index of . The index of the first element in a collection is 0. The index of the first sheep in a flock is (conventionally) 1. The total elements up to index n (inclusive) is n+1 --
234.
Dijkstra: Why numbering should start at zero(cs.utexas.edu)
48 points by thunk 17y ago|71 comments
235.
by thunk 17y ago
Note for posterity: I meant in the middle .
236.
by thunk 17y ago
Yeah, it needs a little more OT in the middle.
237.
by thunk 17y ago
Woah, thanks! The Cyberiad is one of my all time favorites. If the rest are as strong as it, that's a serious list.
238.
by thunk 17y ago
Indeed. Out of curiosity, are you an SF fan? And if so, any favs?
239.
by thunk 17y ago
tor V ~tor => T
240.
by thunk 17y ago
RFS1 asks what the content site of the future might look like. I think what it might be driving at is a deeply entertaining and aesthetically pleasing narrativization of some hardcore data-mining and pattern recognition on current events --

More ›