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fierycatnet

200 karma · joined March 7, 2013

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fierycatnet··on Why Mental Health Disorders Emerge in Your Early 20s
6 years for a Bachelor's? Try 9. Yeah, I am a real winner...
fierycatnet··on Computers Beating Humans at Advanced Chess
It's fascinating how far computers have come. I remember Kasparov being pissed off at Deep Blue because it wasn't a "computer move."

I do think there is a down side for games being solved with computers. Mostly because games become highly calculated and right moves become computer moves.

Take a look at Paul Morphy's games. They are elegant and exciting to watch and analyze. I just don't see the same play happening today with human or computer players. Murphy would lose today but his games were beautiful, maybe even "incorrect" by today's standards.

fierycatnet··on Ask HN: What is your Linux distro of choice?
Used to be Fedora/CentOS, now it's Ubuntu with MATE. I think I still prefer Red Hat but Ubuntu makes it a bit easier for development, and a lot of servers tend to use Ubuntu.
fierycatnet··on Automate the Boring Stuff with Python
Any recommendations for similar material but for Ruby?
fierycatnet··on Programmers: Before you turn 40, get a plan B (2009)
After reading stuff like this I never know what to think. I am 28 and just getting started. I hope to land my first developer position by the end of the year. So what am I to make of it? By the time I am competent enough I will be expendable? I am not discouraged but articles like these don't make sense to me. Almost everywhere I look and in every aspect of my life I am always "behind" and I don't feel like it but everybody is telling me I am...
fierycatnet··on Ask HN: How do you deal with professional jealousy and getting older?
This sounds about right for me. I had the same problem as OP and still do, but I've come to realize that the points you've mentioned above are really important.

I actually never realized how anxious I was, I just never knew I had it. It was really crippling. I've been trying to elevate my anxiety and as a result I've been more productive. I use my github page as indicator, it was empty for 2 years until recently. Almost two months now of me working on new frameworks and my projects.

fierycatnet··on Ask HN: Should I use K&R to learn C?
Yeah I am not picking sides here but they really sold me against your book on freenode. As a newbie I didn't know any better. Come to think of it, I was doing just fine following your book, until I went on #C at freenode.
fierycatnet··on Ask HN: Should I use K&R to learn C?
Interesting, last time I asked on various C boards about learning resources, Zed's book got ripped apart.

http://www.iso-9899.info/wiki/Books

fierycatnet··on One Professional Russian Troll Tells All
Ukrainian situation is a complex one and brings out the worst in people, at least in post-Soviet countries. It's not uncommon for people to have different view on this issue. I know families who fight over it, people breaking up over it, it's pretty emotional subject. So with this in mind, I don't think there is some sort of conspiratorial force at work to post pro-Kremlin position on online. I don't doubt that there are paid people who spam forums but just because someone is voicing their opinion in favor of Russian official stance it doesn't mean automatic paid shill. I've been following this conflict since 2013 and I have to say that all involved sides are offenders of "their" version of events in mass media.
fierycatnet··on Ask HN: Do you meditate?
I've used Shaila Catherine books for guidance and instructions. It's hard to say which jhanic states exactly because I practice alone with no teachers. I would guess from first to third but not for long periods of time. I have experienced piti and after that entered 'equanimity' jhanic state, subtle but alert and content concentration.

I highly recommend the book Focused and Fearless, I haven't seen such clarity on meditation anywhere else, except maybe Buddhist texts but they can be cryptic and poorly translated.

My technique is comfortable freestyle sitting (as opposite to lotus that gives me pain and takes away from concentration) and breath counting from 1 to 10 and 10 to 1 until I reach more relaxed breathing, then I switch to counting 1-1 on inhale, 1-1 on exhale, repeat until 10 and backwards, this reduced mental activity and keeps me on a) breath at nostrils and b) concentration with counting. After 15-20 minutes I usually start hitting Jhanic states with piti coming in first and then going away to enter more subtle higher absorption.

But yeah, get the above book, I am not much of a guide, I was actually lucky to hit piti within several days of Anapanasati meditation and Jhanic states within a week. I hear that some people struggle for months.

fierycatnet··on Ask HN: Do you meditate?
Yes. I used to do Zazen with not much luck until I switched to Anapanasati meditation, completely blew my mind. Most of the Buddhist texts started to make more sense. Jhanic states and so on. With proper meditation technique I went from 15 minutes to sitting for an hour, easy, effortlessly. Mediation was pretty life changing for me.
fierycatnet··on All Major Browsers Fall at Pwn2Own Day Two
Here's the first lecture among many from FSU on Offensive Security, it looks like they are going pretty indepth, I started watching first few recently. Very relevant for those who want to explore how exploitation is done.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lk3rp53b2NA

fierycatnet··on Ask HN: How do you manage your passwords?
I use lastpass because it's been mentioned. It's been almost 2 years now and I like it. It's pretty cheap and works on mobile, pretty convenient. I haven't tried anything else.
fierycatnet··on How I built my first Android Game
kukuruku sounds like the waffles brand that they used to sell in Russia..
fierycatnet··on Afterglow: Dark Theme for Sublime
Is there an easy way to port this to IntelliJ?
fierycatnet··on Why the world's biggest military keeps losing wars
I can recommend "The Utility of Force" book for further understanding of modern warfare and it's evolution.
fierycatnet··on The Matasano Crypto Challenges
Something isn't right.

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http://cryptopals.com/sets/1/challenges/1/ruby

fierycatnet··on FBI – Cyber’s Most Wanted
Russian hackers/coders are good and there is no doubt about it. Former USSR mathematicians and scientists were always good so it so no surprise that Russians have strong cyber security and cyber crime minds. People like to downplay it but the trend is there. I recall carderplanet, one of the biggest credit card fraud community in the world, and some recent nasty malware that were developed there. Gotta give them credit.
fierycatnet··on CentOS 6.5 released
I use CentOS over Fedora because it's very stable and has a great support. Most distros that I've used crushed on me, fairly frequently compared to CentOS. CentOS and RHEL just seems very polished to me. I do run it as desktop on one of my machines but it's more of a server distro. I like Gnome2 too and I can't stand Fedora's Gnome3, it just gets in the way. One major draw back is software updates, they are a bit behind. But for the server I think its excellent. I'd compare Ubuntu to Fedora and CentOS/RHEL to Debian. Come to think of it, you can have extra repos on CentOS, like rpmforge and rpmfusion for newer software. I personally like CentOS.
fierycatnet··on Ask HN: Is it just me or has YouTube gone fanatical on ads?
Glad I am not the only one. In the last week or so I've noticed increase in ads as well. It's really annoying now, I frequently just skip watching video all together, I have a short attention span for this nonsense. 30 second ad so I can watch 1 minute video, no thank you.
fierycatnet··on AsicMiner's Immersion Cooling Mining Facility
The whole world is not waiting for the #1 economy in the world to tank with its currency.
fierycatnet··on Why Russians Are Not Smiling (2011)
You don't know what you are talking about.

>naive and ignorant communist country with uneducated working class

SU was one of the most educated countries in the world at the time.

I have to stop right here. The rest of your comment is just pure ignorance. You come off as very bitter man, Mr. Shiptsov.

fierycatnet··on Why Russians Are Not Smiling (2011)
What does it mean to be a Russian-American? He left the country when he was 5? He was born in US to Russian parents? His comment is pretty ignorant. The article is fairly accurate.
fierycatnet··on Why Russians Are Not Smiling (2011)
As a Russian living in US, this article was pretty much spot on. Let's not counter generalizations with more generalizations.
fierycatnet··on Udacity launching paid course enrollment
I like Udacity, I did... If they want to monetize some of their content, good, but I wont be participating.
fierycatnet··on Protean Echo – Fuse All Your Cards into One
One card to rule them all ;)
fierycatnet··on Coin
Coin aka Wallet...
fierycatnet··on Co-Founder of Youtube makes his first comment in 8 years
My account just disappeared one day, I was getting some error page that I am not eligible to make an account, didn't even do anything just watched videos. Everything is gone and now I am tied to G+. I don't like Google anymore but I never cared for their products to begin with. Gmail is the only thing I use, maybe its time for me to find something else.
fierycatnet··on The Cheapest Generation
I'm in my mid 20s and this is exactly how I feel.
fierycatnet··on Are You A Typing Hacker? Prove It
I guess I am not the only one. It lags pretty bad on my MBA 2013 with Safari.
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