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british_india

131 karma · joined February 10, 2016

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british_india··on Ask HN: Which books have you read more than once?
“Time Enough For Love”, by Robert Heinlein. It’s the life story of a man who lives 2,300 years.
british_india··on Ask HN: I’m already fluent in English. How can I improve further?
Read fiction.
british_india··on The Marvel of Mozart’s Letters
I own a copy of "The Letters of Mozart and his Family" and they are a wild bunch, especially the letters addressed to: "Cousin Buzz Fuzz".
british_india··on Open-plan offices decrease face-to-face collaboration: study
Laying the groundwork for the attack on Bloomberg
british_india··on Where Is the Sun Located in the Milky Way?
Sol (our sun) is located between the Sagittarius and Perseus arms of the Milky Way spiral galaxy. Specifically, our home is located on the Orion Arm.
british_india··on 51% of young voters believe humanity could be wiped out within 15 years
Methane clathrates in the Arctic sea floor.

Methane from decomposing formerly-permafrost in Siberia and Canada.

Methane.

british_india··on What Kind of Problem Is Climate Change?
Thank you!
british_india··on Prescription drugs and grapefruit a 'deadly mix' (2012)
Also Fresca is packed with grapefruit juice.
british_india··on Employer health plans are getting pricier and skimpier
My BCBS plan has a $4,000 deductible per insured person per year.
british_india··on Researchers are racing to find out why methane levels are increasing so fast
There is no mystery.

Arctic sea floor

Canadian permafrost

Siberian permafrost

The Arctic sea floor is releasing Methane Clathrates, i.e. the so-called Methane Clathrates Gun is firing. As for the two instances of "permafrost", both are melting en mass and that is leading to organic matter that has been frozen and accumulating for millenia to now be decomposed by bacteria, leading to massive methane releases.

Methane is 30-times for damaging than CO2.

british_india··on Expert Says Indians Will Soon Be Water Refugees Heading for Water-Rich Europe
The British left India with a pressurized, always-on water system. Through lack of maintenance, most of that water system is no longer pressurized--the water comes on intermittently. That leads to the common practice by water consumers of having a pump on their end to fill their local cistern.

Since the originally-British water system was not maintained, it now leaks. So, unlike a pressurized water system--where leaks cause water to LEAVE the system, a non-pressurized system--as Indians now have--combined with the aforementioned pumps, makes it so leaky pipes cause outside filth to ENTER the system. Combine that with the practice of co-locating sewer lines in the same trenches as water lines, means that when the water comes on and individual pumps kick in, causes sewage water to enter the water system and be pulled into people's cisterns. That's why any Indian household like this must use reverse osmosis to make their water potable.

All because the pressurized water system was allowed to go derelict.

british_india··on Ask HN: What is key to good technical documentation?
If the system you are facing is object oriented, then the traditional flow-chart is a bad match. Still, you need to create a map of how the entire system works. Learning to do that is the single greatest predictor of your success.
british_india··on Introduction to Event-Driven Architectures with RabbitMQ
Nothing is worse than trying to debug Camel.
british_india··on Software Vulnerabilities in the Boeing 787
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hC-JCvFyjlo

The 787 Dreamliner is a nightmare. Bad code produced by offshore teams. International teams totally violating safety procedures.

british_india··on The High Price of Multitasking
Multitasking is harmful for left-brain dominant persons, because the left brain processes information in a linear-sequential manner. This does not permit the resumption of interrupted tasks.

Multitasking is not as harmful for right-brain dominant persons, because the right brain processes information in a visual-simultaneous manner. This ALLOWS the resumption of interrupted tasks.

british_india··on A new book on Renaissance mathematics makes a bold case
I will add that taking calculus in high school was the final stake in the heart of my belief in god.

Calculus shows you that complex outcomes can result from quite simple causes.

british_india··on Is software development really a dead-end job after age 35-40?
I didn't start being a developer until I was 35. Going strong 20 years later.
british_india··on How APIs Work – An Analogy for Dummies
Think of a restaurant: you use the menu to order things from the kitchen. If an item appears on the menu but is not actually available from the kitchen, you would be pissed off.

The menu is the API, what comes out of the kitchen is the implementation.

british_india··on The Obscure Economist Silicon Valley Billionaires Should Dump Ayn Rand For
The author of the piece, Michael Kinsley, is a flat out genius. That is and has been apparent going back to his both incisive and funny comments on Crossfire.

I started reading the article and was blown away within the first paragraph by the quality of the writing and I scrolled up to see the author and.... Michael Kinsley.

british_india··on Java.­math.­BigDecimal toString is not thread safe
Was just looking at this problem!
british_india··on The rich are hoarding economic growth
No, stop permitting companies to give their IP to a foreign subsidiary to pay license fees that wipeout their domestic US taxable income
british_india··on [dead]
What a ridiculous article. It just takes a lot of experience to become an actual Full Stack Developer. Most developers begin in the front end and then have to claw their way out of that to become back-end developers. But that doesn't mean a back-end developer suddenly forgets everything they used in the past.

Also, there are developers working in smaller companies who have no choice but to be a full-stack developer. It just takes a lot of work. Disparaging the concept just because you've not mastered both ends does not in any way disparage the concept itself.

british_india··on Can we wean Elon Musk off government support already?
The author is another Republican looking to dump on anything that helps the Environment.

Jump in a lake, Jenny Beth. I'm sure you're a-okay with subsidies to Petroleum companies on the taxpayer's dime.

british_india··on Can we wean Elon Musk off government support already?
The author is another scumbag Republican looking to shit on anything that helps the environment. Fuck you, Jenny Beth. I'm sure you're fine with fossil fuel exploration subsidies on the taxpayer's dime.
british_india··on Al Gore's Home Energy Use Surges Up to 34 Times the National Average
So, you're making the argument that annihilating humans from the earth is okay.
british_india··on Apple Gives the MacBook and MacBook Pros a Kaby Lake Refresh
Unfortunately, anyone who wants to fork over $5K for one of these gems has to consider how brittle Apple products have become. Who wants to spend that kind of scratch only to have it become a brick in a year.
british_india··on Warren Buffett says health care costs are a bigger problem than corporate taxes
The real problem with health care is that it's a gravy train for all involved. Doctors, who don't invent anything new and who just practice garden-variety medicine are wildly overpaid. They don't like it be known, but the average doctor earns a quarter-million a year. Totally unjustified.

Then there are the medical device manufacturers, big Pharma and the hospitals. They all are getting rich off the current system. That's what needs to change.

british_india··on Ask HN: How many are 30+ years and still active programmers?
This is a joke.
british_india··on Ways to Read More Books
Read hardbacks in the bath tub. That's the secret.
british_india··on Ways to Read More Books
When you get comfortable reading a lot, you don't need to re-read books. Certainly, a rare few books benefit from multiple readings but not all. I retain a surprising amount of details and can describe passages from Dickens and the main argument of David Cay Johnson's "Perfectly Legal" or the amazing survival story of "Mawson's Will" or an amusing passage in Ernest Hemingway's journalism story "A Free Shave" or the images of the amputation tent in Tolstoy's "The Sebaastopol Sketches--to name a tiny few.

Once your reading is not going "put-put-put" and your unbroken attention span reaches an hour, you may feel like you need to re-read. Certainly, it's a nice experience but it's really a waste of time re-reading everything.

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