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biotechon Tutorial: How to use Git in a team development environment

This kind of thing is key to selling git to other members of my team.

I haven't used it, but there is a tortoisegit project: http://code.google.com/p/tortoisegit/

Anyone know the status of EGit? I can't download source or binaries; it looks like the server has been down for a couple weeks. http://www.eclipse.org/egit/

biotechon Ask HN: What do you drink?

Outside of California it's $2.99 a bottle, but still often called "Two Buck Chuck". It is of comparable quality to wines in the $8-$10 range. Almost any $15 bottle of wine will be better than Charles Shaw, IMHO. Still, for $2-$3, it's a good value.

But to answer the question:

virgin: water

ethyl alcohol: ...I guess whiskey (bourbon or irish). Maybe a nice red wine [Not $2 Chuck]

caffeine: coffee

biotechon How to Screw Up an On-Site Interview

"...I figured I should just stick the interview out"

I had that experience at an interview. Among other things, the interviewer was late, I was stuck in a tiny office with three people interviewing me, etc, etc. It was quickly apparent to me that they didn't respect their programmers. I decided half way through the interview that I had no interest in the job, and considered politely departing right then, but I stuck it out. I figured it was good interview practice.

biotechon Ask HN: At what point am I a useful developer?

You have a few years of programming experience, and you are aware that that's not a lot. It sounds to me like you are useful now.

On a team with more experienced developers, I'd probably have you working with parts of our test suite and the build system. Of course, you'd have to understand object orientation, which I can't assume from your description.

biotechon Ask HN: What should we eat?

It seems to me that humans evolved as herbivores. I've never heard anyone argue that humans should be carnivores, but it seems like that's what you're arguing against.

1. Our teeth evolved to chew plants and veggies, true. As omnivores, we have to eat plants, not just meat. Plants are more difficult to digest, so most of our teeth resemble herbivores' teeth (chewing is the first step in digestion). Notice that we also chew meat just fine. I don't know anyone who can't chew meat because their teeth are too flat. We can even rip it right off the bone with certain teeth. Is that not an evolutionary adaptation?

My point is that just because we chew plants relatively well, that does not mean we also don't chew meat well.

2. Cooked foods kill the nutrients

Since I'm addressing the herbivore vs. omnivore argument, I'll ignore this one, as it obviously applies to plants and not meat.

3. Our digestive tract is long, apparently to process plant[s]...

Similar to #1. A long digestive tract may be necessary to process plants, but it does not preclude digesting meat.

4. Animal meat is the only food that gives us colesterol [sic].

.... which is okay in moderation. People can't survive on fruits alone, either. That doesn't mean that fruit should be eliminated from our diet.

biotechon Bioethicist proposes adding lithium to US drinking water

I think the gp was referencing the movie "Serenity". Good movie :)

biotechon I need a software that ....

There are certain terms (like "a software") that are never used by people who's first language is English. IANAL (I am not a linguist), but I'd consider myself a "descriptivist" when it comes to defining a language. I think that a living language is defined by its usage by native speakers. Forms that are never used by native speakers can be defined as "incorrect". Of course, languages change (especially English), so those forms can and do become incorporated into the language over time. But, as English stands in 2010, "a software" is less correct than simply saying "software".

biotechon Street-Fighting Mathematics is published under CC [pdf]

you have kids hitting Multivariate Calculus and Differential Equations who haven't seen a proof in their lives.

Really? My AP Calc class was not very proof-focus (probably because the AP Calc test was not), but 10th grade (~15-16 y.o.) Geometry was mostly just proofs. As was Trigonometry. This was 10 years ago, but those same teachers are still at my old school. Presumably they teach the same material. I guess this is atypical? That's too bad, because those trig proofs were actually kinda fun.

biotechon Ask HN: Good enough vs excellence -- which do you favor?

When programming life support software for spacecrafts, A and B converge. Nothing less than excellent is good enough. I know there are other industies like this too, where 'release early and often' can result in death or some other disaster.

biotechon Amber Waves of Pain (Do Not Buy Commodity ETFs)

They do both. For example, compare the ETFs "United States Oil Fund" (ticker USO) with "United States 12 Month Oil Fund" (ticker USL). Every month, USO buys the next month's future as the previous month's future expires. Also every month, USL buys the next year's future as the future bought a year previous expires.

You can look at their charts here: http://bit.ly/ar6Kxm

biotechon Ask HN: What would alien code look like?

The hardware and software would not necessarily be as distinct as it is in our technology. Alien technology might more closely resemble that of organic life, where the decision making processes are built into the physical structure of the system. Conceivably, these systems could also be designing through an evolutionary-like process, instead of the human engineering process.

biotechon AT&T 1993 "You Will" Ads

That's the interesting thing about this type of predicting: they usually fail to account for certain technologies being pushed out by others. You probably won't send a fax because faxing is nearly obsolete. Everyone uses email instead. And you probably will use your tablet to send email.

It's the same as with the phone booth. The same technology that lets the guy send a fax from the beach allows him to make calls from almost anywhere, (even video conferencing if you have an Evo or similar phone) pushing the phone booth out of common use. And, when everyone has a computer with an internet connection, why would someone have to go to a cash machine to buy concert tickets?

It is almost impossible to get everything right, and if there are certain key technologies that aren't predicted correctly (like desktop computers, high-bandwidth cell signals, internet everywhere, etc), then it has a cascading effect of invalidating many of the other predictions.

biotechon Somebody please hire me before I take a job in weapon development

I don't know the whole story, but I have known very good, moral people who worked for companies that they didn't completely agree with ethically because they put their family or their health first. Ethics isn't always so simple. If "a very good salary and benefits" is the difference between being very sick or getting that surgery you need, or if it's the difference between sending your kids to a good school or a bad one.... Let's just say that I wouldn't be so quick to judge.

biotechon And, Why Didn't Dijkstra Like Lisp?

The article quotes McCarthy musing about a possible successor language to lisp:

"[the language] will be more like a declarative description of the facts about a goal and the means available for attaining it than a program per se."

It sounds like he's talking about Prolog.

biotechon 'Artificial life' breakthrough announced by scientists

Yep! There is some error-checking built into dna-replication. The protein that does the replication is called DNA Polymerase. From its wikipedia article:

Error correction is a property of some, but not all, DNA polymerases. This process corrects mistakes in newly-synthesized DNA. When an incorrect base pair is recognized, DNA polymerase reverses its direction by one base pair of DNA. The 3'-5' exonuclease activity of the enzyme allows the incorrect base pair to be excised (this activity is known as proofreading). Following base excision, the polymerase can re-insert the correct base and replication can continue.

biotechon Code as photo-op

All of these work, sometimes. Especially the last one.

biotechon Unsettling thought

"I'd rather have someone who's a very good EE who didn't quite grok recursion working on my power grid software than a very good programmer who can't tell an amp from a volt. At least the EE can tell when its broken."

A great deal of terrible, buggy, unmaintainable software has been written due to exactly this type of sentiment. I have maintained, re-written, built on top of this type of software. The correct way to build power grid software (or any science/engineering-related software) is by having very smart software engineers (who do understand or can quickly figure out things like recursion), working closely with electrical engineers (or biologists/chemical engineers/etc). As in, they should be in constant (at least weekly) contact with each other. The software engineers learn about electricity, and the electrical engineers learn a little about software architecture.

This is based on my experience developing software for engineering applications. I currently work on software in the Aerospace industry, and I communicate regularly with other engineers. My software team is full of brilliant software engineers. Smart people can learn about other fields on-the-job. If you accidentally hire one that can't, don't fret: there is always work that doesn't require an intimate knowledge of electronics, such as build scripts, support software, utilities, etc.

That being said, I do think there is a place for a software engineer with a passion for other types of engineering. My degree is in Bioengineering, but my greatest experience (and greatest interest) is in software engineering. So, while I grok differential equations, control systems, and metabolism, I also understand recursion and polymorphism. And deterministic finite automaton. And closures. And I'm not the only one.

My point is this: If you have a really hard engineering problem that requires really smart software, hire really smart programmers, really smart engineers, and a couple really smart people who understand both sides. Like me!

biotechon 23andme for only $99 today only

For those who are concerned about privacy, you could request that they delete your information after you have received the product. It says in their refund policy:

You can, however, request deletion of your genetic data by providing us with written notice to help@23andme.com. We will delete your genetic data from our records within 30 days of receipt of such notice.

biotechon Bump

The first time I ever used Bump, I "bumped" in the air (just moved the phone back and forth). It asked me if I wanted to exchange contact info with someone who I had never met; I tried it again and it asked me to accept contact exchange with another unknown person.

All of my attempts since had no effect. Granted, I haven't tried to bump that many times.

My theory is that they use a GPS location to determine where you are. Then when the phone senses a particular type of motion, it considers that a "bump". The server looks to see if anyone else is "bumping" in that GPS location, and, if so, they connect and exchange contact info or whatever.

If this is true, it explains my original success with bumping into strangers: these two people were probably in a nearby house trying to bump! The server thought they were close to my GPS location, and connected me to the stranger.

biotechon Pay It Forward

Please put me on the list too. Thanks proexploit!

biotechon Best Writing Advice for Engineers I've Ever Seen.

That format was driven into our heads in high school. When I was a freshman in College, I was amazed that very few of my peers could write an essay - a skill I had thought to be pretty basic.

At the time, I wondered, "if they didn't learn how to write an essay in high school, what did they learn?" I never really found out.

biotechon Is Apple destroying a generation of tech whizzes?

At a family event recently, my 13 y.o. cousin was playing with his new iPod Touch. So I started asking him questions about it, and he tells me about how he's going to root it, going into some decent detail. I was pretty impressed! It just goes to show, Apple engineers can't keep kids from learning about their iPod Touch/iPhone/iPad, no matter how hard they try.

biotechon Objects are a poor man's closures (2003)

> Fix your language implementation....

This is a perfectly valid response if this was LTU or comp.compilers, but here on hacker news only a small percentage of us are actually in a position to "fix our language implementation".

Know your audience! If you are talking to language users (not makers), this comment just... well,

>> made yourself look like an ass.

biotechon go to xkcd.com: The webcomic XKCD now has a command prompt

.. and now the second link is a reddit page. Since I wasn't able to use the original link (xkcd.com), I used a google search. I probably should have used the google search with the query "q=xkcd" instead. Unfortunately, I can't change the link target.

biotechon go to xkcd.com: The webcomic XKCD now has a command prompt

http://xkcd.com/

The front page has an embedded command prompt. You can navigate the comics by typing "prev" and "next". It also supports some unix commands.

According to "license.txt":

    Client-side logic for Wordpress CLI theme :: R. McFarland, 2006, 2007, 2008
    jQuery rewrite and overhaul :: Chromakode, 2010

biotechon The Dense States of America (Map)

If we filled the entire area of the United States with that population density, we could fit 132.8 billion people!

biotechon Kurt Vonnegut: I want to share with you something I’ve learned.

After doing some light google research, I was not able to find the origin of the phrase "there's only two stories in the world: man goes on a journey, and stranger comes to town." It is generally attributed to peoples' literature or film professors. The quote is prefaced with "They say that...." very often, suggesting that the origin of the quote is largely unknown even by those who study stories professionally.

biotechon The world's only immortal animal

Good observation. A spike in population implies a recent change in the organism or its environment. Since most multicellular organisms cannot evolve that quickly, it's more likely that there was a change in the environment which this organism was able to take advantage of. I doubt that their numbers are spiking because "they are bale to bypass death".

biotechon Germans Cringe at Hitler's Popularity in Pakistan

Are you referencing the episode of Faulty Towers in which Germans are visiting? John Clease repeats "don't mention the war" several times to his fellow English hospitality workers, but he himself fails in this endevour, with hilarious consequences.

biotechon RethinkDB is hiring C/C++ engineers with irrational desire for world domination

I am impressed by the inclusion of the salary chart right there in the job posting, as an engineer who dislikes the salary negotiation game (I am inevitably at a strategic disadvantage, playing against managers who have far more experience at the game than I). At least this way, the engineer knows where he/she stands.