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80ProofPudding

132 karma · joined September 2, 2014

I write about things, mostly engineering and employment trends.

My 20% time is spent on SF and crime fiction. Sometimes both, sometimes neither.

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80ProofPudding··on Patent on the NFC Mechanics of Apple Pay Details Its Inner Workings
What you said about the relationship between products and patents is true and worth adding to the discussion, fwiw.

I think making it an absolute - ie, there is never anything to learn along these lines - is going too far, but there are certainly a lot of patents that never see further development.

80ProofPudding··on IBM Watson API
Waiting for my coffee to brew, I read that as "Emma Watson API".
80ProofPudding··on Google Stops Forcing You to Join Google+ When Opening a New Account
G+, you coulda been a contender.
80ProofPudding··on Robot writers collect and analyze data and turn them into readable narratives
Hear, hear.

There are some kinds of stories this can work for - ie, the earthquake bot - but this is not a good general solution. Modern users are sensitive to low-quality content writing as an indicator of product quality. Crappy writing is spam, high-quality writing in an authentic voice is someone worth listening to.

I'm not staking out the claim that this will never be possible, but I've yet to see it executed well.

80ProofPudding··on Tramadol Is Not a Natural Product After All
I think you're casting me as a proxy in a larger argument.

You're also being pretty insulting about it.

Life's too short. I've no time for people like that.

80ProofPudding··on Tramadol Is Not a Natural Product After All
Agreed. "Organic" is pretty widely abused, too - want to drink some crude oil? It's organic...
80ProofPudding··on I'm Leaving Mojang
Good for you, Notch. You made something awesome, got rich doing it, and stayed a mensch throughout.
80ProofPudding··on Mars One Candidate on Made in Space, SpaceX, and Generalists in Engineering
Is there any video of that around? I'd love to see it.
80ProofPudding··on The Satoshi Nakamoto SourceForge account has been hacked
Starting to wish these guys would hire writers. So much more exposure for saying something clever or funny... but no. Butts.
80ProofPudding··on Will Fusion Energy Ever Come Together?
Any you can recall? I'm curious, and tired of having it pointed out to me that almost anything but solar is just a fancy way of boiling water.
80ProofPudding··on Facebook is down
So, do we not like things anymore?

Can we be friends?

80ProofPudding··on The Games That Never Were: Sim Gotham
You'll need a lot of writing for dynamic dialog trees. Holler when ready.

Might never happen, but if it does? It'll be a blast.

80ProofPudding··on The Games That Never Were: Sim Gotham
This would possibly be the perfect simulator. The player-created narrative hook - something the Sims had, for example, while SimCity didn't (as much) - is the secret sauce.

I'd buy it. I'll write for it, if anyone here makes it.

80ProofPudding··on Engineers' Advice to Recruiters
This, so much:

>4 – Exact Match Experience isn’t as Important as You Think It Is.

HR is mad for keywords. I get it - there are only so many time-effective ways to sort through an applicant pool - but it applies to engineering candidates a lot less perfectly than some other industries.