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Retardo_88

33 karma · joined April 13, 2020

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Retardo_88··on Ask HN: What tech job would let me get away with the least real work possible?
If you don't mind me asking, what does your wife spend her time on?
Retardo_88··on Nobel Prize speech from the inventor of PCR, Kary Mullis (1993)
Getting a PhD in biochemistry from the University of Berkeley is a third-rate credential?
Retardo_88··on Controversial Programming Opinions (2012)
"For beginners, BASIC is great and Python is terrible." I am curious about this. Do you mind elaborating?
Retardo_88··on The Case for Unique Email Addresses
I agree. I gave up halfway through. The author is exceptionally long-winded.
Retardo_88··on Kazuo Ishiguro (1989)
I think I know exactly which line you are referring to.

I have read the book multiple times, and that line never fails to move me to tears, even when I know it is coming.

Retardo_88··on So You Want to Learn Physics (2016)
I have no doubt she is smart and resilient. But there is a huge gap between "smart" and "one-in-a-million genius".

You quoted a marketing blurb. Of course it is supposed to sell the author.

Retardo_88··on So You Want to Learn Physics (2016)
I still find it implausible. Would a university realistically allow someone who didn't know anything beyond 6th-grade math (in her own words) to sign up for such an accelerated syllabus that she went from doing introductory physics to quantum field theory in 6 months (also according to her own account)?
Retardo_88··on So You Want to Learn Physics (2016)
"In only a year and a half" --> How do we know she is not exaggerating? People have strong incentives to lie about their own accomplishments.
Retardo_88··on Ask HN: What's the worst piece of software you use everyday?
This question sounds snarky but is actually valid, I think. Most of the parent comment's complaints about extremely popular technologies simply boil down to "Nothing works" and "No one gets it", without any further elaboration. Perhaps the problem lies with the author of the parent comment rather than the technologies themselves.
Retardo_88··on Ask HN: What's the worst piece of software you use everyday?
What do you not like about Zoom, and which video conference product would you recommend instead?
Retardo_88··on Covid-19, Civil Unrest Could Trigger Mass Migration in Post-Pandemic World
I am not sure how you define "amazingly competent, well-trained, and effective", but in at least one respect the Japanese police is highly negligent: https://www.businessinsider.com/afp-getting-away-with-murder...

Additionally, this statement does not depict what many (most?) people would consider an effective or competent police force: "she was not [Japanese], which meant that the police were... less incentivized to help her".

I am currently a foreigner living in a Scandinavian country, and I simply cannot imagine facing the same kind of discrimination from the police force (nor from other authorities) here. I think many (most?) people would agree that an effective/competent police force is not one which ends up driving foreigners out of the country by virtue of being unwilling to afford foreigners equality before the law.

Retardo_88··on Qatar Airways demands payment for training from terminated flight crew
I can't access the page. Can someone kindly provide a summary?
Retardo_88··on Ask HN: Programs that wasted you 100 hours?
The Unity game engine. Backwards compatibility is low; documentation is scant or out-dated; error messages are misleading or opaque; stack traces for crashes are sometimes impossible to reason about.