back
user profile
emptybits
6,415karma·1,004submissions·November 20, 2012
about
LOAD "*", 8, 1
Darren Stone, Vancouver, BC, Canada
"Once men turned their thinking over to
machines in the hope that this would
set them free. But that only permitted
other men with machines to enslave
them." - Frank P. Herbert, Jr., 1965
"The programmer, like the poet, works
only slightly removed from pure
thought-stuff. He builds his castles
in the air, from air, creating by
exertion of the imagination."
- Fred P. Brooks, Jr., 1975recent activity (1,004 total)
comment
> A city should be happy to have the tax revenue with none of the burden. This is true. The city (actually province & city) receive the tax revenue. Unfortunately, rental stocks are so low in V…
comment
> Twitter puts no intermediary between speaker and listener. Actually, Twitter puts ads, filters, and clever curation algorithms between the speaker and listener. Now an IRC channel ... that puts…
comment
The article makes a good point. But one reason I favour watching such an event live is to get ahead of the mainstream analysis before it starts to influence me. i.e. I only have one shot at a blank sl…
comment
I know this is politically naive but I'll say it. Self-declared police nations (like USA & UK & France & their allies) are so quick to intervene in Not Their Country when issues like …
comment
When I occasionally start to think my work in technology is overly important or that the woes of my startup projects are unbearably heavy, I'm glad I can be humbled by something like this. This d…
comment
A couple of these have been named and I've upvoted them, but this is my list: * "Flow" by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi. Being fully immersed and engaged in an activity. 1) Knowing the value …
comment
I think it's worth noting that caffeine is a vasoconstrictor, at least with respect to blood vessels in the brain. (Aside: This may be why it provides partial headache relief for some.) So while …
comment
Good call. Done. Also cathartic.
comment
Sad face. Right now, on my iPhone: "iOS 9.3.5 provides an important security update for your iPhone" 40.5 MB. Great! Tapped "Download and install". It's greyed out. Huh? Oh…
comment
Zika should receive more attention if we discover it now affects all adults and not just a minority of them. That's reasonable. (If your point was about male privilege/priority then I do…
comment
> This completely misses the key factor: (most) computers were not big or fast enough to run high level languages back then. The first paragraph leads with that key factor: "Even back then, t…
comment
So... asking on behalf of a friend ;-)... my local dealer stocks both Arduino and Genuino brand boards. Is this unusual or about to change? I feel like a curtain of innocence has been torn away for m…
comment
From the 2009 study in the article: "Half the students were asked to recall something which had irritated them and write a short essay about it. The other half of the group were made to feel sad.…
comment
Here's a paper on the topic: "Spontaneous knotting of an agitated string" [1] From the abstract: "We performed experiments in which a string was tumbled inside a box and found that…
comment
This reminds me of that AI-written screenplay earlier this year [1]... it's interesting, it may be progress, but it's partly carried by its presentation and production value and the promo va…
comment
Perhaps, according to the Europeans in this thread, also the "busy man's internet"? It sounds like there's less fluff, trash, and noise to wade through.
comment
Since we're spitballing ... screen with portrait orientation and a split keyboard.
comment
I was able to save it as RTF and it preserved formatting quite well. (Used DEVONthink, FWIW.)
comment
> A square is very "round" in the sense that it is very close to a circle in terms of shape, compared to all other possible polygons out there. Regular convex n-gons approach a circle in …
comment
You can use their data and (fast?) order fulfilment to test your algo to the point where you know it performs well, and then go off and do whatever wherever you want with it. You wouldn't "h…
comment
> No income this year, fine, you're off the hook. Some locals are concerned that a disproportionate amount of the very highest value properties now being purchased are owned by those with no i…
comment
From a research POV ... the study focussed on exactly three cherrypicked, successful artists. It's a very small sample from a very different time and culture than today. Can a conclusion with…
comment
Vancouverite here. I applaud this as a reasonable question. I understand why immigrating to Vancouver from China makes sense. It has great climate, is postcard attractive, easy China-YVR flights, ha…
comment
You're right. I guess the connection being reached for is "lymphatic transport" (title of paper) -> "waste transport" (synonymous) -> "toxin removal" (a very s…
comment
The doc does say this: "If you’re choosing a Python interpreter to use, and aren’t opinionated, then I recommend you use the newest Python 3.x, since every version brings new and improved standar…
comment
> relying on something simply thrown up there on the web ... They don't feel like being left to your whims should you choose to change license Fair enough. Naive question... Does the Wikimed…
comment
It's common for boards to have formal and informal transition plans upon seat changes. Brain dumps, "sessions" overlapping incoming and outgoing members, etc. The only time that may no…
comment
Thanks to the author -- it does like like your labour of love and written with some personality. (That's a good thing!) Attractive layout, lots of insets/quotes/diagrams, and sources. W…
comment
It's an interesting example you use because I think it still serves the previous point. Peter Drucker wrote, “To sell the Eskimos a refrigerator to keep food cold, is finding a new market; to se…
comment
> the trip to Alaska seems unnecessary. Staying in one easy 70°F place did not satisfy the project goal. From the meteorologist behind it (emphasis mine): "Imagine that you really like days wh…