dean

According to the book "The Mosquito: A Human History of Our Deadliest Predator" by Timothy C. Winegard, the mosquito has killed an estimated 52 billion people from a total of 108 billion people that have ever lived. (Not sure how those numbers were determined.)

> We as programmers get paid very well, we're not in need of money.

Speak for yourself.

"the right way to build a remarkable life is to first identify the traits that define your vision of “remarkable,” then pursue only jobs that will reward you with these traits if and when you master rare and valuable skills."

That's a tough read. I think I read this sentence 10 times, and I still didn't know what it meant.

Finally moved on to the rest of the article to discover that he's talking about aspects of a job, such as having an impact.

So to rephrase, if you want to make an impact in your career, take the job that will allow you to make an impact if you do that job very well. Substitute 'impact' for whatever aspect of a job you'd like to have. Maybe a bit obvious when stated this way.

This thread is not talking about Vegas.

It's talking about genocide. If internal strife gets to the point of extreme hatred, then you don't need guns to kill each other. Not saying I agree that would happen in the U.S., but that's what they're talking about. Not Vegas.

To reiterate: See Rwanda. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwandan_genocide

I keep reading about how the "notch" is ugly and annoying, but "you get used to it". Like sitting behind someone with a big hat in the movie theatre, after awhile, you don't even notice. Personally, I change seats in that scenario.

I just find it hard square claims of "the future of the smartphone" with reviews like "you get used to it".

> They are instantly executable by a small VM written as a JS library

Guess you have download the VM on initial page load.

At least Ontario has increased the price for 1 million litres of water from $3.71.

The popular assumption that future wars will be fought over water is overblown when you consider water prices like this. I couldn't understand why the government was basically giving the water away, so I was happy to see the price increase to $503.71 per 1 million litres. Although the article says it still costs more than that to manage the ground water.

As of August of 2016, in B.C., the price for 1 million litres of water was $2.25 -- which is ridiculous. Hopefully that price will go up as well.

"The aerospace giant [Boeing] has received more state and local subsidy dollars than any other corporation in America"

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2015/03/17/t...

> The plain email—which took no time to design or code—was opened by more recipients...

That's interesting. I wonder how this would have any effect on opening an email. In my mail clients on mobile and desktop, I cannot tell if an email is styled or not just by looking at the list of messages in my inbox. I have to actually open it to see if it's styled.

Oops. Didn't even notice.

The conventional wisdom in software development is to never rewrite your application from scratch. Typically it's much more difficult than you thought it would be, and it takes too long. Meanwhile, competitors pass you by (remember Netscape?). Just wondering how you came to make the decision to do this, and what, if any, concerns came up along the way?

I find this title a bit misleading. I thought the article was going to be about how the typical interview process is broken, and that plenty of good programmers are being missed by the process. Or that employers are way too fussy about candidates already having the exact experience in the exact language and tools that the employer uses, instead of just looking for smart problem-solvers, and giving them time to get up to speed on specific tools and technologies.

Instead it's really about how to ensure an employer's offer will be accepted. In other words, it's about solving the problem where the employer has already found a programmer, but the programmer doesn't want to work for the employer. Not really sure how big of a problem that is.

My kingdom for a horse?

“Never memorize something that you can look up.” -- Albert Einstein

A few years back, I had a 6-year-old white uni-body MacBook with a swollen battery that was long out of warranty. I made an appointment at the Apple Store, and when I took it in, they took one look at the battery, gave me new battery and sent me on my way. They didn't even mention the word warranty. I was there for 5 minutes. I had zero expectations going in, so was quite happy and impressed with their response.

So...everything you do, no matter how selfless, is actually selfish if you look closely enough?

Better to discard obviously bad data altogether. The system certainly should not act on that data, as seems to have been the case here.

> I worked at a startup that died due to technical debt

That's interesting. I've never heard that before. My understanding is that most startups die because no one wants what their making. No market. Did you actually have a product that was selling? How did technical debt kill the company?

Starting is the hard part. Once I get started, it's actually easier to keep going than to stop. Inertia works both ways.

In Canada, Walmart is suing Visa for 'unacceptably high' fees. http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/walmart-canada-visa-1.363095...

> Another is that they don't own the vast majority of their content

Do any of the distribution channels actually own their content? The major networks? The cable channels? The other streaming services? Movie theatres? Don't the content producers typically licence to the distribution channels?

Same course, but this link goes to the course overview page: https://www.edx.org/course/artificial-intelligence-uc-berkel...

Your link took me to an internal page.

Geez. "Plagiarize" is a pretty strong word for this. The guy related one small part of a book, and anyone interested will likely check out the book for themselves anyway. The article is practically a rave review of the book. Give the guy a break.

Seems like a misnomer. The article's description of 'swarm intelligence' [1] sounds more like 'wisdom of the crowd' [2].

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swarm_intelligence

[2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisdom_of_the_crowd

Yeah, this is what I came here to say as well. And while we're at it, I got this great idea that we should cure cancer. The idea came to me when I saw someone sick with cancer. Next stop: patent office.

This also implies that atheists are more likely to commit suicide. Is there evidence to support that?

> only invest in companies that have the potential to return the value of the entire fund

I have a feeling this is much, much easier said than done. How do you even determine "potential" of a startup, when, according to Paul Graham, "the best ideas look initially like bad ideas".

This is exactly what I was thinking the other day when I saw a tweet from Jessica Livingston saying: "Denial is the silent killer of startups." How do you know if you are persevering, or if you're in denial?

Typing the wrong credit card number would be a legitimate error, not evidence of fraud. You can show that error. It won't affect how you deal with the actual fraud.

I admit I haven't read the CU decision, but whatever else it is, it has apparently opened the door to no-limit campaign financing. Which is bad for democracy.

There are already laws protecting freedom of expression, so I think it's disingenuous to suggest that CU is all about freedom of expression, and therefore good for democracy.