cleaver

For a general-purpose problem, Perl won't be particularly fast. For a Perl-type problem (scanning and parsing big files), Perl is very fast.

Doing a Perl-type problem in a general-purpose language would be considerably slower. However, Python or others will perform much better in the "can I read my own code six months later" benchmark.

You don't have to go over the bars or go fast to get hurt. Back during my cycling days a teammate was out training on a quiet country road. He crossed wheels when a kid he was passing swerved. He hit his head, went into a coma and died two weeks later. While this was a competitive cyclist, he was riding solo and training for endurance—not terribly fast, nor anywhere near race pace.

You could also be struck by a motorist. Granted, Dutch drivers are more aware of cyclists, but people still make mistakes.

:) Years ago a colleague carefully crafted an ASCII escape sequence for VT320 terminals that would mess up the screen and program a function key to send a network-wide broadcast message.

He sent a note to an admin... something like: "This is cool. If the screen gets messed up, just hit Shift-F12." Everyone on the network received a broadcast message: "I've been had." Obviously, it could have been a lot worse.

Like any skill, I'd suggest this requires practice. One way I found as an introvert was to join Toastmasters. I don't have a big fear of public speaking—I can do it if I have to, but being in practice makes a huge difference. I've seen incredible improvement in people after 3 or 4 speeches.

Most clubs will have a social aspect and might gather for drinks afterwards. It makes a good way to practice smalltalk and keep in touch on a regular basis. There's usually a mix of people... some will be struggling with shyness and fear of speaking, others may be naturals and make good people to study for technique.

I've fallen out of regular attendance lately, but I'd highly recommend Toastmasters.

As a motorcyclist, I can sympathize... I become acutely aware of distracted drivers when I'm in traffic on two wheels.

Like you say, it's a terrible idea for a lot of reasons, but I always admire a good hack.

Thank you. Now someone please take on "set up"/"setup" and "back up"/"backup".

On the first day of my first consulting gig, as I was getting set up, an argument ensued over which server I should be doing my work on. In my old job I would have got caught up in the nonsense. This time I could just say: "OK, you guys figure it out, I'll just wait over here".

Sitting and reading while you count the dollars someone else is burning through can be rather therapeutic.

> I bet the PM already knows it's unreasonable to ask for 100% quality.

Yes. It sounds like a "give it 110%" sort of thing.

Making an espresso with a mostly manual machine is an enjoyable once or twice-daily ritual for me. The flavour is most important, but I actually enjoy the time spent making the coffee. However, each person may value the various aspects of caffeine consumption differently.

I remember scratching my head at the numbers from Apple... The PowerPC chips were four times faster than Intel (or some such number). Then they released on Intel and it became twice as fast. (Of course, this might have been somewhat accurate if PowerPC did not gain performance at the same rate over the years. Still worth a chuckle, though.)

SQL is a bit deceptive in that it cloaks set-based operations in something apparently simple. Iterative operations are easier for most people to conceptualize—you could create a flow chart, whereas sets require a bit of math. Once you can think in terms of sets, SQL becomes a lot clearer. The issue with sets is, in my opinion, the root of problems in Object-Relational Mapping.

There were other query languages that were less of a messy compromise. QUEL, for example was based more rigorously on relational calculus. I think it never took off because the dumbed-down SQL was a little easier for programmers to conceptualize initially.

Moustaches are twirling as we speak...

Sometimes I just need to confirm a particular attribute. I don't think W3S is very good, but I have been on the site enough times that I know I'll be in and out with what I need in about 10 seconds.

I've been trying to narrow in on that consistent moral philosophy for various ism's. I'm not sure I've gotten very close in most cases except the general concept of tribalism. Every ism seems to be willing to bend the rules if it is perceived to be the common wisdom of the tribe.

I gained a perspective that is a bit more in depth than the typical white guy. I went to university in a town in Canada where the police seemed to be very interested in guys with long hair. I had long hair. As a result, I got stopped, intimidated and threatened by the police. I was never arrested. No doubt I would have had it worse if I was black.

A few years later I moved to Toronto. I still had long hair, but the police seemed to ignore me. I was really curious and paid extra attention to the police. It took a while, but it finally hit me: "they're only interested in the black guys!" The black guys were being watched with the same sort of intensity that I had experienced. I didn't observe the same sort of interactions I had, but I could imagine.

Canada is a bit different from the USA and I didn't get the full "black treatment", but I think I got to see the curtain pulled aside just a crack. One thing that really struck me was how incredulous non-blacks were when I related my story years later.

Serious question: Would it be safe to say that not all self-professed libertarians agree on the definition of libertarianism? I've suspected this is the case.

And the first bar chart which is not zero-based! (groan)

I'm reminded of the author of BDS C compiler. He didn't know how other compilers worked using multiple passes, so he wrote one that ran in a single pass. The result was smaller (important in the 80's) and faster than other compilers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BDS_C

This doesn't strike me as a political question. Strong intelligence on foreign activities is the "right" side from an American perspective. It would be in the best interest of the nation and would be within the mandate of the NSA. It's right from a strategic sense and I wouldn't expect it to be partisan.

Other NSA activities, especially where they have exceeded their mandate would be debatable, and possibly partisan. Much of the leaked activity could be argued to be not in the best interest of the nation.

(I'm Canadian, so while I couldn't claim to be neutral, I have a bit of an outsiders perspective. Not to mention, spying on me with such a device would be within the mandate of the NSA.)

I've read that the most effective way for the state to control the public's behaviour is a combination of taxes and subsidies (sorry, don't recall the source). Simply tax bad behaviour and subsidize good behaviour. Other means are possible, but less efficient.

The user fee could work, depending on the scale... if it is possible to be small enough to not deter individual use, but large enough to deter mass use in agriculture, then it stands a chance.

As an aside, the common practice of municipal hotel taxes never made sense to me. Wouldn't a city wish to encourage people to visit?

My thought on the topic, after being shocked at the price, was that Apple must have some home automation products as their next big thing.

3.2B to head off Apple from creating the "iPod of home automation" is still a bargain.

I just reuse a foam soap pump bottle and fill with about 3 or 4 parts water to 1 part plain dish washing liquid (non-antibacterial, of course).

I consider foam soap to be one of the great advances of the past few decades.

I think I recall that feature in Quicken, although I've long since sworn off using products from Intuit.

I'd say the very fact that most Bitcoins weren't created in the first few hours is a good indicator that there are no time travellers. Or if travellers do exist, access to time travel has been restricted, or perhaps Bitcoins and possibly even currency is not of interest in the future.

In fact, time travel could render investments obsolete.

I was just thinking of that...

Also here: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2012/03/rubber-duck-problem...

Whenever I see one of these graphs that is not zero-based, I'm forced to expend the unnecessary mental effort to decide whether the author is intentionally deceptive or merely stupid.

Usually, to save the expenditure of this increasingly rare resource, I stop reading.

Unfortunately, "Don't do X" is better click bait than "You should think carefully when you want to do X".

There will be cases where you want to do "catch {}" — you don't always have control over the exceptions thrown by a lower-level library. It might be good to create a standard where you log them conditionally, or something that could aid in troubleshooting.

Mom?

I did similarly, but managed to squeeze out a few more points:

^(((((((((xx?)\9?)\8?)\7?)\6?)\5?)\4?)\3?)\2?)\1?$

(60 points)

That was my first thought. Based on the novels I've read, I would interpret it in a couple of possible ways:

- You receive a message, but the system can't tell you why your received it nor what you should do. (The Trial)

- It's not a distributed messaging system with bugs. Actually, you are the bug. (Metamorphosis)

As an aside, I went to a tech conference in Prague two months ago and visited Café Slavia, a hangout not just of Kafka, but also author Milan Kundera and president/poet Václav Havel. I had a glass of absinthe in their honour.