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This does not surprise me in the least.

Math was always extremely easy for me growing up. Up through my first differential equations class I found almost everything trivial to learn (the one exception is that I always found proving things difficult).

I made the mistake of minoring in math and that slowly killed my enjoyment of it. Once I got to differential geometry and advanced matrix theory it all just became too abstract and I just wanted to get away from it.

For several years after college I would routinely pull my advanced calculus text out and do problems "for fun". After a while I stopped doing that. Within a few years of no longer being exposed to math, I found it all incredibly foreign and challenging, to the point where I would say I have a bit of an aversion/phobia to it.

I'm trying to reverse that now by tackling a topic I'm interested in but have previously avoided due to the math-heavy nature of it - type theory.

Hopefully I can find the joy in math again through this.

I think my point is that you can lose competence in math very very quickly through lack of constant exposure.

The same is probably true of programming but I hope to never end up in that position.

So across 64-bit ARM and x86-64, what is the ratio of instructions across the same program compiled by effectively the same compiler (modulo of course maturity in code selection and peephole optimization)?

My guess is that x64-64 still saves quite a few pages of memory over 64-bit ARM on a large program.

That's already happening in the U.S. - State schools are heavily subsidized by taxes. I went to one which was (and still is) relatively inexpensive for in-state students and delivered fantastic value for what I paid.

Saying "universities should be free" and that it should be paid for "by taxes" without being more specific about which universities and what taxes paid for by which specific people doesn't really add anything.

Nothing is free. Even if the student isn't paying tuition, someone is.

So in your opinion who should that be?

Your experience is not my experience.

First, when a company lays off 20,000 people there is generally little regard for who the individuals are. You see this over and over again. Except for the very top performers who end up protected, these are usually projects / divisions / etc. getting killed en masse. Sometimes people have the opportunity to spend a few months interviewing to obtain another job in the same company, but not always.

I've not been out of work for a moment of the 22 years since I left school, and have no problem with the Visa programs, etc. I personally believe we all benefit from opening up competition for positions.

Having said that, what I've seen is that looking strictly at technical ability I would say that Visa employees have in general been no better and no worse than the average US employee, but when it comes to "soft skills" are typically much worse off (and not just communication because of language barriers, but in other areas as well). They've fared no better when it comes to upkeep of their skills. They've fared no better when it comes to "leveling off" and hitting a ceiling where they no longer advance in terms of salary, etc. Like the typical US worker, they get married, have kids, get a social life, and generally stop improving their skills. By that point most have green cards and/or citizenship.

All of the companies I've worked for are large prestigious companies, some of which have set records for number of resumes received per month in the industry at different points in time, so again your experience might be different if you're talking about IT shops or start-ups.

Found two errors back around 2000 or 2001. Cashed both checks. Figure he would want to keep the balance correct on his accounts. :) Only slightly regret it.

Enron was worth quite a bit at one point, too.

The first question that comes to mind for me is: Is it possible to export the generated mesh that is shown in the stills?

Possessions don't automatically make life simpler.

Possessions that you use regularly, value, and are worth more than the trouble they bring you might make life simpler. Possessions that are merely things you're storing "in case you need them", and are moving from one place to another, certainly don't make your life simpler.

I've known many people (including myself) who have found themselves in a position where they wanted or had to move and discovered in the process that when it came down to it, they could happily live without half of the stuff they had accumulated over the years. I did that in my most recent move, and a year later I do not miss any of it, and am still getting rid of things (30+ computer science books recently, and am now moving onto the photography equipment that just gather dust in the closet).

I agree that the article by Vivek is totally misinformed.

I've taken a couple stabs at minimalism (of possessions) in my life, staring when I moved from Austin to Seattle in 1995. I'm doing so again after relocating from Seattle to San Francisco a year ago.

There is absolutely no doubt that I've been happiest during those periods when I've had the fewest 'things'. I look back at the time when I downsized from a 1000 sq. ft. apartment in Seattle to 500 sq. ft. studio as the most productive and enjoyable time of my life.

Since moving here to SF, my wife and I have almost halved the space we occupy from a 1600 sq ft townhouse in Seattle to a very comfortable 850 sq ft. in San Francisco. I continue to get rid of the stuff and replace it with either 'virtual stuff' (e.g. electronic books) or just happily do without (e.g. espresso machine).

The main reason I 'upsized' from the small apartment to the large townhouse was that I felt like at my age at the time (30) I was 'supposed to'. I was the only one of my friends/work-mates that hadn't gotten married and/or had children, and bought a house. Oh, what a mistake! Now, ten years later, I'm so glad I'm back to shrinking the possessions in favor of a leaner, simpler life. For the first time since I was 16 I do not own a car. I have no debt (and with the exception of the townhouse and a couple years of credit card debt, I haven't since 1998).

I'm totally sold on continuing down this path, as she is as well. We don't plan on having children. We are both 40+ and enjoy the idea of moving around some more, perhaps even relocating overseas in time.

Here's a link to the relevant section: http://www.sbcl.org/manual/#Declarations-as-Assertions

Definitely. I really like Haskell's type inference, but have always been concerned about issues like those raised in: http://www.codecommit.com/blog/scala/universal-type-inferenc...

Agh, I hadn't gotten that far, but the first couple seemed interesting (if not terribly detailed). Sorry for posting.

Unfortunately Microsoft's documentation is horrible, and the books I've skimmed on DX likewise (they are all light on shader code and heavy on "so you wanna make a game?" content).

Although I love the idea, it would seem difficult for most of us to pry away from our family and go somewhere for a week to do this. It might be easier to send them off for a week, but with a wife who doesn't feel that she gets enough of my time, even that wouldn't be easy.