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TravelAndFoodon Things I’ve learned in 20 years of programming

"Do you know what correlates more than anything else with undesirable codebase properties? The size of the codebase."

Well yeah, more code means more bad code. I'm interested to know whether more code means proportionally more bad code. If not, his statement doesn't mean much.

TravelAndFoodon Severely deficient autobiographical memory in healthy adults (2015)

I assumed, past tense, that it was integral, and with this new information I realize it is not integral, and now I'm curious about it.

(technically: I never heard anyone say they could not do this until now, but I have heard people say they CAN do this (including me). So as far as I knew all my N sample size of humans was positive for this, or at least not negative, previously indicating to me that the ability is "integral" to being human.)

TravelAndFoodon Severely deficient autobiographical memory in healthy adults (2015)

Is there any research into differences between people with a "mind's eye" and those without? (learned skills, chosen professions, natural aptitudes, whether it's genetic, etc)

All along, I've assumed this "mind's eye" ability was integral to being a human being.

TravelAndFoodon Algorithm allows video editors to modify talking-head videos as if editing text

Do these transformations leave any discrepancy or signature in the video or audio that would be detectable by a machine? (So, tiny, tiny discrepancies might work.) Someone could make a browser plugin to alert the user when video/audio has a good chance of being fake.

TravelAndFoodon It’s Hard to Learn French in Middle Age

This one is pretty good. https://apps.ankiweb.net/

TravelAndFoodon Coffee Cups Are Next

Yeah, good point, it would be great to see some stats on percentage of coffees bought in drive-throughs in America vs Europe.

TravelAndFoodon I Can't Do Anything for Fun Anymore; Every Hobby Is an Attempt to Make Money

Less time in the absolute sense, as in "you die sooner so you have fewer minutes alive remaining". Not "you choose to spend your time differently.

TravelAndFoodon I Can't Do Anything for Fun Anymore; Every Hobby Is an Attempt to Make Money

Interesting. But when you're older, you have less time. Scarcity usually drives up value.

How to reconcile these two ideas?

TravelAndFoodon Overview of differential equations [video]

It's a good book; we used it in my CS networking class.

TravelAndFoodon Anthrax Guitarist Turned Master Watchmaker (2012)

It seems absolutely ridiculous to assert you're the only one on Earth that can talk with authority about "a correlation between music and watchmaking." You don't need to be a highly successful musician turned master watchmaker to talk intelligently about that. There are surely many other people that know a lot about both music and watchmaking. For example, just me, n size 1, I have a friend who formally studied music and collects high end watches as a hobby and has built his own geared watch. I'm sure he could comment intelligently on this question. Not really understanding the downvotes here.

It didn't seem like he was saying "yeah I guess I do have a really rare perspective", it seemed like he was literally saying "I'm the only one." Maybe he's even the best person in the world to ask, if you could only ask one person. But the only one? Maybe his comment was playful/less literal, but it didn't come off that way to me.

TravelAndFoodon Anthrax Guitarist Turned Master Watchmaker (2012)

I don't know. Maybe. A quick Google search yielded no studies asking that question. Or was your question rhetorical?

TravelAndFoodon Anthrax Guitarist Turned Master Watchmaker (2012)

Q: Is there a correlation between music and watchmaking? A: I am the only one that could answer that question.

I enjoyed most of this article, but wow, what an arrogant response.

TravelAndFoodon List of things named after Leonhard Euler

Also can't forget the Houston Eulers of the NFL

TravelAndFoodon Full-stack developers are in fact stuck at mid-level. Don’t go down that path

"How much better are you really going to get at Python after spending 1 year, 5 years and 10 years with it? Surely at some point you're just learning obscure tricks or the ins and outs of libraries that are going to be outdated in a year or two anyway?"

Well said. Looks like no one else is expressing this; I completely agree.

TravelAndFoodon Ask HN: How Would You or Did Convince Your Boss That You Can Work Remote?

What's your industry? Can you give any other details about the company? I've always been interested in these "lifestyle" companies but I'm not sure where to begin.

TravelAndFoodon I Left a Buddhist Retreat in Handcuffs

How many meals do you eat a day and how many calories total? I eat 4 "meals", including right after I wake up. But they are usually 500-600 calories each.

TravelAndFoodon I Left a Buddhist Retreat in Handcuffs

The one I did was breakfast 7 AM, lunch either 11 AM or 12 PM (I forget), and no food after that. I didn't find it an issue since I ate a big lunch then used little energy and went to bed early.

TravelAndFoodon My Notes on How to Start a Startup by YC

"How do you tell which markets are growing fastest? Use instincts as a young student."

Welp, I'm over 22, guess I'm never starting a company.

TravelAndFoodon Python Developer Survey 2018 Results

7% of respondents do "software testing / writing automated tests" as a hobby? Bravo to those hardy souls.

TravelAndFoodon Google Memo on Cost Cuts Sparks Heated Debate Inside Company

"How does the system account for high-performing employees that are too busy working to prepare presentations for promotion committees? Is there no such thing as an unsolicited promotion based on performance under this system?"

I think maybe "high-performing employee", in this system, is simply defined at least in part as "one who prepares excellent presentations for promotion committees."

TravelAndFoodon 99% code coverage (2017)

Yep, TDD is quite hard when requirements are vague/changing... the reqs changed? OK now I have to rewrite my test AND the code that passes it.

Vague/changing reqs is of course a separate problem.

TravelAndFoodon Say no to Venn diagrams when explaining SQL joins (2016)

Really well done, but I agree with one of the comments in there: need to add patterns to the solid colors; it would differentiate for color blind folks and in general make the relationships easier to grasp.

TravelAndFoodon Minimalism: Practical Guide to Writing Less Code (2002) [pdf]

Yes, like if you see the same few lines of code in two different places, you leave it, but in three different places, you make a separate function.

TravelAndFoodon This is the United States’ third biggest housing boom in the modern era

Yeah, I took your comment to mean something like "2008 wasn't normal. But imagine a "normal" price in 2008, and how it would have risen normally over ten years. Then maybe it would reach the actual 2008 price, which is about what we have in 2018."

Not sure if that's correct, but sounds plausible.

TravelAndFoodon The Shinkansen Story [video]

Here's another nice video about Shinkansen origin story from a video series I enjoy ("Begin Japanology"): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHCl8z47bL0

TravelAndFoodon Ask HN: Is there a better way to document complex software architectures?

Is there any software that translates a picture or scanned doc into a powerpoint? Seems like that could be useful: quickly churn out lots of boxes/arrows/text by hand, scan them, modify as necessary when translated.

TravelAndFoodon Heavy multitaskers have reduced memory

I expect that most software developers don't spend most of their time designing beautiful, elegant solutions to interesting problems; they spend their time blundering around in an over-complicated and poorly designed code-base using tools that barely work and trying not to trip over myriad corner cases or buried in technical debt.

But oh man, when you actually do write that one function that does the cool thing in a neat way and fits into the other crap you're wading around in without breaking anything in a way that makes intuitive sense... man, does that feel nice.

TravelAndFoodon Side Projects are deadweight to employability

I call BS on the interviewer because as this thread and that question I linked on Stack Overflow demonstrates, "joint table" is not "the" term for the concept in question, and in fact there is no accepted one term. So, "marking down" for not knowing that term doesn't seem right.

Edit: On the other hand, asking the question in a way that gets at the concept, not the term, seems very reasonable.

I don't think it's relevant, but yes, I have interviewed at such companies.

TravelAndFoodon Side Projects are deadweight to employability

Potayto potahto https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3045034/whats-the-correc...

I call BS if they "take points off" for not knowing the exact term "joint table", and if so that's not the kind of company I'd want to work for.

TravelAndFoodon Side Projects are deadweight to employability

Uh, "joint table" was the term used, not "table join". Pretty sure "joint table" in this context is referring to something like the intermediary table in a many-many relationship, which I can see being quite intuitive to create without knowing this weird term that I've never heard of before, either.