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emptybits
6,408karma·1,004submissions·November 20, 2012
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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)
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I don't see the need for a word beyond "translator" for what you describe. It's a well known word and used correctly, I think, if I say "this program translates Lisp into J…
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Perhaps a nanopass framework is of interest? "a compiler as a collection of many fine-grained passes, each of which performs a single task" http://www.cs.indiana.edu/~dyb&#…
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The author comments, "We enjoy dark chocolate after dinner most nights, but I learned the hard way about its surprising caffeine content." It's worth noting that some people find (fortu…
2 pts
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introductory books for other languages which contain small pieces of their implementation I feel like two of the very few contenders for this might be books on Forth or Lisp, though still maybe no…
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> if I could get the [X] running it would be mine This is huge. As a kid, this would motivate me to learn everything about X. Heck, for many values of X, I would find this motivating today!!…
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From the study: "participants were exposed daily to 30 minutes from a fluorescent light box soon after waking up." But subjectively, I agree with you; the quality of most fluorescent light…
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Ronald Arkin (the robot ethicist in the article) says, “You see this in sci-fi: Star Trek, Knight Rider. It’s the natural progression.” Yikes. IMO, the presence of something futuristic on popular TV d…
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This was the nodder for me: "cameras transitioning into what they were bound to become: networked lenses"
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Words often spoken of great hacks.
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“True” full stack developers exist, but so do geniuses and people who have been coding since they were 12. Exactly. There's no need for the headline bait. Neither full stack developers, nor gen…
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I loved my Amiga A1000. I forgave the early, buggy floppy-based firmware (Kickstart) and OS (Workbench). I think this experience tempered me for a life working with good-intentioned but buggy operat…
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I have no idea if it was being smart or just making a mistake. When does a bold recommendation become a mistake? Can human recommendations be mistakes? (Both algorithmic and human recommendations …
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Just wanted to leave this here, for people who get off on alternate music notation... An amazing collection of functional/beautiful/arty alt music notation can be found in "Notations 21…
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Apple claims 12.5% longer life (from 8 to 9 hours) with only a 4.7% larger battery (95 Wh to 99.5 Wh), and without moving to Broadwell processors like in the 13" rMBP which we know are a big part…
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I worked in games in the early and late 1990s. It's hard for me to know if my love of great pixel art and great chip tunes is some romantic attachment to my childhood and early professional …
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To not be legally "at fault" is important, particularly for a company with liability and public image at stake. I genuinely look forward to future stats that will tell us self-driven cars ha…
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For balance: In the past eight months, four of the 48 self-driving cars licensed in California were involved in accidents. Three were Lexus SUVs from Google. http://www.startribune.com…
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Trivia questions, easily answered by programmers who appreciate the subtleties of time math: 1. If someone leaves Vancouver at 1 am and arrives in Seattle at 4 am on the same day, and you know the dis…
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The stock answers to "why raise?" reduce to 1) to achieve the same success faster, or 2) to achieve a larger scale of success, or 3) because raising money drops you into a new world of exper…
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Users buy Apple phones (++aapl_profit), they browse or search the app store, they find something , and they spend a few more bucks on an app (++aapl_profit). Users remain blissfully unaware of the f…
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One word makes that easier. Canada.
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It's a shame the headline stopped where it did. The article continues, "... or stop at the human-ability station." This makes for a much more interesting discussion (only because we&#x…
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“If anyone wants to make a living out of it, I don’t think it’s possible" ... challenge issued! (From a cardist, no less.)
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You do not even need to be accused of a cyber crime to have assets seized under this order. If you make any contribution to or provide any services to someone accused of criminal hacking, you may hav…
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Nice looking unit. I'm going to look seriously at it, instead of a MacBook Air 11, for a travel machine. Dell's claim of "a 13 inch display in the chassis of an 11 inch notebook" …
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Interesting. You know "too much" (or think too much) about these terminals! :) Cheers!
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What you say makes sense for Amex failures... I have heard merchants say "chips work with everything but Amex." But for the Visa chip failures I experience, it's generally happening at …
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Re/ "family business.." "Unlike in the U.S., where most adoptees are children, 98 percent of Japan’s adoptees are 25-to-30-year-old men." Why? "In Japan, a 2011 study fo…
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You're right, obviously, about having everything needed to clone a magstripe on the magstripe itself. > Any sane issuer will decline transactions made with the magstripe at a chip-capable term…