vadman

13 ms·

91.
by vadman 14y ago
I didn't try to invalidate your words :), just sharing my experience. I was also more Russian-looking, especially at a younger age. Perhaps I was just caught in a bad moment (just after the collapse of the USSR, on the wave of "independenc
92.
by vadman 14y ago
Same thing happened to me, only it was in Armenia and grown-up Armenians were talking sh*t to me for being a half-Russian kid (think 1st-grade age). I wouldn't say "Russians are discriminatory", just "people from the former USSR are usuall
93.
by vadman 14y ago
I sent my Nexus 7 back because the screen made my eyes seriously hurt. That was on mid brightness. Might have been the LED backlight flickering due to PWM or something along those lines, I don't know. E-ink seems like the way to go for n
94.
by vadman 14y ago
I didn't check the roof for snipers, but I had nightmares of heavy cavalry charging at me in the open field while I was one of the poor underequipped peasants. That's what Total War games can do to you :) BTW - a heavy cavalry charge is v
95.
by vadman 14y ago
I would guess (based just on observing people in the New York subway) that around 20% of people, at least in the USA, do not have education/income/some other contributing factor to provide a healthy diet for their kids. And they themselves
96.
by vadman 14y ago
The drinks used to be much smaller in the 1950's, so 3 martinis would not derail your day. Source: http://www.amazon.com/Hows-Your-Drink-Cocktails-Drinking/dp/...
97.
by vadman 14y ago
I don't entirely agree that "absolute numbers are pointless here". If you look at the amount of human suffering, your world is 2x worse.
98.
by vadman 14y ago
I didn't study the topic in depth, so take it with a grain of salt, but I recall reading something like this: * the % of people capable of highly intellectual work is quite low * as time goes on, more fields of activity require those people
99.
by vadman 14y ago
Code that was well-engineered 3 months ago may suddenly become lacking in light of a client having a brilliant new idea/requirement. And a programmer is not always in charge of his estimates. He may have to arrive at it together with his t
100.
by vadman 14y ago
Why should the grandparent jump through the hoops though? Also, isn't stripping DRM from Amazon ebooks against the TOS? Potentially exposing him/her to some legal trouble?
101.
by vadman 14y ago
Indeed. I don't know much about the designer subculture, but there are a bunch of "iconic" industrial designs that they (should) know about. Another famous one is the IBM wall clock: http://vimeo.com/40953003 (one of the Windows clock g
102.
by vadman 14y ago
That was exactly my thought as I was reading the OP. Pissing off the waitstaff at restaurants is not only rude, but incredibly stupid. As is, there is already a chance that they don't like you for some reason and spit in your food regar
103.
by vadman 14y ago
Touchpads are IMO less ergonomic and less intuitive than mice, sounds like her grandfather could use an extra bit of both.
104.
by vadman 14y ago
Real response from the cops: install a chip in everyone's brain. When a citizen happens to be within 10 ft of a "forbidden" object without authorization, his/her body experiences violent seizures. Should be possible within 10 years, no?
105.
by vadman 14y ago
Do you go to "Doctors" much? You have an extremely idealistic image of them.
106.
by vadman 14y ago
Thanks for this. Added to the "read-when-I-get-home" list.
107.
by vadman 14y ago
Do you have github/sourceforge? I'd love to read some of your non-trivial code. I'm not trying to be an a$$hole btw. I am not a coding guru, I genuinely want to minimize the need for comments in my code and am willing to learn from exampl
108.
by vadman 14y ago
Your comment reminded me of this video on black holes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYKyt3C0oT4
109.
by vadman 14y ago
I hated it too and then I installed the "Tree style tabs" add-on. It's great, they should add that functionality in the vanilla Firefox IMO.
110.
by vadman 14y ago
"[Rotator cuff tear] also commonly affects orchestra conductors, choral conductors, and drummers (due, again, to swinging motions)." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotator_cuff#Rotator_cuff_tear I wonder if this could be a side effect of
111.
by vadman 14y ago
I have to enable way too much stuff in NoScript to proceed when I actually click on an editor button. Giving permissions just to shortcutfoo is not enough. NoScript also shows airbrake.io, stripe.com, olark.com. I don't know what any of
112.
by vadman 14y ago
The article had the bit about Microsoft shutting them out of the market. In any case, superprogrammers != super marketplace conquerors, and IMO should not be judged as (un)impressive on that metric.
113.
by vadman 14y ago
Hmm. Well I was thinking in the context proposed by the grand-grand...parent, even though he backtracked: "...eugenics. This is not something I am opposed to from a scientific point of view. We do it with livestock, so why not us?" You can
114.
by vadman 14y ago
If you want to prevent individuals who are e.g. predisposed to certain disorders from being born, I don't see how money as criteria can help.
115.
by vadman 14y ago
The last paragraph of the article (about the chip in one's brain) is quite scary. Force brain chip implants that keep the serotonin levels artificially high to keep the unwashed masses content; some kid at school is too active - put a chip
116.
by vadman 14y ago
If the general population programs as much as it applies math and sciences, Atwood's worries about "more bad code" would be completely moot.
117.
by vadman 15y ago
Or a smaller rock moving really fast. "The Killing Star" describes it well, here is an excerpt: http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/spacegunexotic.php#id--Rela...