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epo

2,535 karma · joined September 24, 2010

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epo··on [dead]
That is a different argument and may or may not be relevant. Really, read Mythical Man Month, the problem with large teams is that their size leads to internal communications overheads, politics ...
epo··on Hewlett-Packard Plans to Break in Two
Only if they start making programmable RPN calculators again.
epo··on Obesity research confirms long-term weight loss almost impossible
It is not about reversing obesity, it is about long term weight reduction. Different problem.
epo··on Obesity research confirms long-term weight loss almost impossible
Very sloppy writing. People diet, they lose a bit of weight. People stop dieting, they put the weight back on again.

The fundamental problem is the abundance of overly calorific food in many societies which the final comment hints at, ever so gently. People want a quick fix but there is no quick fix for the problem of over consumption except eat less.

epo··on State of MetaFilter
Your caricature of what MF is like is so grotesquely at odds with my experience that I would suspect that you are exaggerating or making it up. Metafilter, by and large, has an informed, intelligent and very helpful community. There are always jerks or people having a bad day but the mods deal with that promptly. That said, people who are just asinine, like perhaps those making unfair generalizations, are often dealt with by gentle ridicule. I have never seen anyone unfairly snarked, ever.
epo··on Popular fish oil study deeply flawed, new research says
In my experience, there are two types of vegeterian: those that just get on with it and the smug evangelising types who feel it necessary to preach at the flimsiest opportunity (e.g. what have leather shoes got to do with diet?). A balanced diet is necessary and in most Western societies this is easier to achieve for omnivores. Your friend's mum thought she was doing the best for you and all you can do in return is be self-righteous. Grow up, you'll probably stop being a hipster vegeterian when you do.
epo··on Popular fish oil study deeply flawed, new research says
But wishful thinking is a powerful influence, it triggers all sorts of internal processes which may indeed be more powerful and beneficial than medicine. Similarly, religion is nothing more than placebo, but that has influenced (and perhaps benefited) mankind since forever.
epo··on Apple Said to Be in Talks to Buy Beats for $3.2 Billion
Apple make very smart acquisitions and have a track record in creating markets where others have failed to do so. They are also good at spotting opportunities in existing markets.

That said, I think this is a deception to get Samsung to do something costly and stupid.

epo··on Apple set to get Beats in $3.2B deal
Cue all the people irately claiming that sampling is artistic.

Anyway, somehow who gets to be a billionaire just "by putting his name" on consumer items has got something going for him, even if it just luck.

epo··on Apple set to get Beats in $3.2B deal
Citation required for such a handwavy assertion. Beats is a fashion brand and those are notoriously ephemeral. If Beats want to sell they may know the game is up, but then so would Apple.
epo··on Apple Said to Be in Talks to Buy Beats for $3.2 Billion
Who not only never paid for them but are probably paid to wear them.
epo··on Bootstrap 3 Tips and Tricks
"I'd call a trick something that is not part of the documentation core .." I'd call this particular definition a pedantic, artificial nitpick invented soley for the purpose of picking nits in the post.

If on the other hand you use a conventional definition of trick, "a clever or particular way of doing something", then the post is indeed about a set of tricks.

epo··on Customers You Do Not Want
Fairly trivial article which fails to state its primary assumption: it is talking about mass-market FMCG (fast moving consumer goods) which want immediate success. This is why we have tens of varieties of instant coffee but no 'cold concentrate' type liquid coffees.

Claiming that niche consumers are the kiss of death is obviously news to many makers of luxury goods (and companies like Apple who do not cultivate mass markets but end up creating them because the niche users ended up being right).

epo··on 2048, success and me
Oh dear, the children are downvoting you. This is the inevitable consequence of an educational system where copying and pasting from the web counts as original work. These people actually believe that copying is being creative.
epo··on 2048, success and me
You thought? Just not very hard, clearly.
epo··on 2048, success and me
He isn't being cynical, he is reacting to pretentiousness and pomposity, and quite rightly too. And of course developers do not have a monopoly of such self aggrandisment.
epo··on Ledger, a powerful CLI accounting tool
The problem isn't ledger is that you have been spoonfed by GUI applications which do all the work and thinking for you. If you bothered to read the documentation you see all this clearly laid out. Ledger requires you to do your own thinking and some people find that hard. The ledger itself is a set of text files, if you can't figure out how to automate data entry (say excel for bulk data entry, then processing a CSV file) then maybe you're right, ledger isn't for you.
epo··on Chinese Number Websites
These days if you have them in your address book you can just start typing their name and then pick from a list.
epo··on Firefox 29
Do pay attention. This sub thread started with a mention of Apple.
epo··on Software Checklist
Automated tests are automated checklists.
epo··on Pelican books take flight again
Their proposed market is the original market for Pelican books: intellectually curious people with the attention span to read a non-trivial book. If you think that TED talks are anything like reading a serious in-depth non-fiction book then you don't understand enough to have an opinion on this topic.
epo··on Inside the Operating System Edward Snowden Used to Evade the NSA
The audit occurred because testing revealed the presence of a problem. Shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted is no vindication of open source.
epo··on Google Services Updated to Address Heartbleed
The patch prevents future attacks.

Replacing certificates and advising users to change passwords prevents exploitation of any previous successful attack. Google have not done anything about previous attacks, but nor have they said such attacks could not have been successful.

epo··on Google Services Updated to Address Heartbleed
This does not say if there had been a risk of certificate theft (sorry, sharing) prior to patching and so is completely useless. I want to know if and when I need to change Google passwords. Ditto Amazon, Dropbox ....
epo··on S.F. cracks down on Airbnb rentals
Subletting rental property means you are abusing your landlord's assets, almost certainly violates the terms of your lease and probably violates their insurance policies. Eviction is an appropriate and proportionate response.
epo··on Serious reading takes a hit from online scanning and skimming, researchers say
If you scan or skim then you miss stuff. You have no idea whether or not what you missed is important because you didn't see it. And so comments by people self-importantly declaring themselves to be more effective by scanning/skimming are in effect saying "I didn't read that bit because I knew it wasn't important and, despite not having read it, I know I was right not to read it". What you mean is you have an impaired attention span.

Scanning or skimming can only be optimal with carefully structured texts where you know what to expect, e.g. textbooks where the beginning and end of chapters contain synopses.

epo··on The less Americans know about Ukraine’s location, the more they want ...
Has Washington state been on the news in Europe a lot recently?
epo··on MariaDB 10
What use is replication if the data itself has been mangled by MySQL? The significant arguments against MySQL revolve around it doing a poor job of enforcing data integrity. You go on to claim he hasn't bothered to read the documentation but give no evidence other than wild fanboy accusations that you have read it either. There are plenty of assertions in that blog post, none of which you refute; from which I can conclude you have no arguemnts against what he actually said.
epo··on Nest thermostat released in the UK
Ill-informed and condescending. Radiator thermostats are very common (whether they work or not is another matter), boilers also have a maximum temperature setting.
epo··on Threes: The Rip-offs and Making Our Original Game
This is complete rubbish. 2048 succeeded because it was a blatant 2nd generation copy of the threes gameplay and concept (albeit a poor long term game). It would not have attracted any attention had threes not been so hot. Its principal advantage over threes was being free.
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