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galvanist

75 karma · joined August 24, 2012

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galvanist··on Poll: If Yoda was a programmer, what would be his go-to language?
Something about the old MIT AI koans convinces me that yoda would be a lisp hacker; http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_koan
galvanist··on Video Offers Glimpse of Biosafety Level 4 Lab
I hope they maintain their teletypes better than the wildfire people or someone is bound to get shot by anti-monkey-lasers.
galvanist··on The Swift Programming Language
Where are the low level lightweight concurrency/parallelism features?
galvanist··on Python is Dead Long Live Julia
Hyperbolic title considering that David Sanders is giving two Presentations at the upcoming SciPy 2014:

The wonderful world of scientific computing with Python Sunday 8 a.m.–noon in Room 101

Introduction to Julia Monday 1 p.m.–5 p.m. in Room 101

galvanist··on Are You Really Gluten-Intolerant? Maybe Not
That’s what I kinda suspected. It would be hard for me to imagine someone mistaking sensitivity to the listed foods with a gluten problem.
galvanist··on Are You Really Gluten-Intolerant? Maybe Not
On your gluten free diet, do you eat (in no particular order): apples, pears, peaches, milk, sugar, asparagus, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, garlic, avocado, cauliflower, mushrooms, and soft / fresh cheeses?

Do you have any issues with them? They are identified as high FODMAP foods.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1440-1746.2009....

galvanist··on Rumours swirl over credibility of big bang ripple find
See also the National Geographic coverage: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/05/140514-bicep...
galvanist··on Computers are fast
Do you have any actual data to back your wild assertions? Entire domains of computer science are dedicated to productivity languages and many are widely used with great success and little or no overhead relative to C. (edit: for example scipy)
galvanist··on Excellent Explaination of a PID Controller Implemented on an Arduino
I had to look it up. From wikipedia:

A proportional-integral-derivative controller (PID controller) is a control loop feedback mechanism (controller) widely used in industrial control systems [...] A PID controller calculates an "error" value as the difference between a measured process variable and a desired setpoint. The controller attempts to minimize the error in outputs by adjusting the process control inputs.

galvanist··on Glenn Greenwald: The NSA tampers with US-made routers
For some hardware attacks, like transistor-level dopant mask swaps, there isn’t any reliable way to detect them, not even optical inspection (because the layout is unchanged) nor functional testing (because passing BIST and external benchmark results can be faked). See the paper from UMass: https://people.umass.edu/gbecker/BeckerChes13.pdf

Since the “detection” I’m referring to is already extremely difficult before the chip even leaves the legitimate chip manufacturer’s facility, what hope could someone have of opening a modern IXP-scale router and determining if any of the zillion chips inside has been trojaned by double-0-mailman?

galvanist··on It's just wood
The DIY Garden Box That Destroyed A Nation!

You’ve got me wondering about startup culture. When you’re running a startup you presumably invest all your money, borrow from friends and family, get investors, expose yourself to various types of legal liability, sacrifice family time, risk your reputation, and endanger your retirement. A lot of stuff can go wrong. (Based on your garden box of doom example, I’m sure you could enumerate the risks of a startup better than I.) I wonder if people running the typical startup acknowledge the risk and deal with it, or is it mostly a “what could go wrong? / don’t think about it” kinda situation?

galvanist··on It's just wood
“It’s just wood” is also a great description of kale.
galvanist··on Ask HN: Would self-taught programmers be interested in such a book?
sounds useful. how did that work? were you auditing? did you enroll as a student? what was the cost?
galvanist··on The disappearing inventor
The phrase “Oculus Rift, which added an orientation tracker” glosses-over the chief technical accomplishments of the team. The Rift is defined by the affordable very low latency head tracking. We’ve had head-mounted 3D displays at least since the invention of the stereoscope in the 1800s.

It's like writing that Alexander Graham Bell* should get Apple stock because “iPhone, which added a multi-touch computer” just made $56 billion dollars.

* or whoever

galvanist··on Did Russia put compromised USB drives and charge cables into G20 "goodie bags"?
This reminds me of "Thing" -- a passive bugging device hidden inside a wooden carving of the American Great Seal and given to the American Ambassador to Russia by Russian school children. It operated for years and was discovered only by accident. Beware of Russians bearing gifts (if you are a diplomat).

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thing_(listening_device)

galvanist··on Russia: Hidden chips 'launch spam attacks from irons'
His usage of "powered" is a very common english colloquialism. For example the phrase “powered by wordpress” doesn’t indicate that someone is obtaining energy from the wordpress software product.

Some more examples: https://www.google.com/search?q=%22powered+by%22

galvanist··on Is Google building a hulking floating data center in SF Bay?
Maybe something like the Canon Canobeam DT-130 Type SFP: http://www.usa.canon.com/cusa/professional/products/free_spa...

But, you know, more than one... or something.

galvanist··on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (October 2013)
Wait. A gmail.com email address on an apple job listing? How can this not be some kind of identity theft/fishing scam?
galvanist··on How to start up a Boeing 737 [video]
I love this comment.
galvanist··on Why Apple is the cross-section of great hardware, design and shitty software
Not worth your time. At all.
galvanist··on Is iOS7 out yet?
One word of content. Six words of advertisement.
galvanist··on Brazil looks to break from US-centric Internet
Yes, let's look to the British to tell us how a country should keep to its borders, handle international relations, balance domestic surveillance/privacy concerns, run fair and impartial international trials, and teach us about India.
galvanist··on Nearly a fifth of scientists are considering abandoning the U.S.
What are you trying to say about the linked story?
galvanist··on Why Elance Wastes My Time- A Typical Experience
Why Apple Wastes My Time - A Typical Experience (Samsung.com)
galvanist··on Call Mom Maybe
This is some talented ad work. It was clearly cheap to make. They're going for viral. We're discussing it. The message isn't slimy. It's funny. It's more interesting than something like #tweetyermom. I say mission accomplished.

Also I still don't care much for twitter.

galvanist··on Poll: How much money have stock options brought you?
So I think you mean stock option grants... because otherwise you should have an equal number of choices for negative values.
galvanist··on George W. Bush: The role-playing game
This kinda thing already happens at the Ronald Regan foundation's "Air Force One Discovery Center," where a similar video-advisors-choose-your-own-adventure system is used. The Jan. 14 2011 "Kid Politics" episode of this American Life features a school group visit there.

- http://www.reaganfoundation.org/education-class-visit-discov...

- http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/424/t...

galvanist··on In the Lava Mountains
Nit-pick: The "real" "Mordor on earth" is Mt. Tongariro on the north island of New Zealand. The 3-4 day trail around Mt. Tongariro and Mt. Ngauruhoe is one of New Zealand's spectacular "Great Walks." If you have the opportunity to visit New Zealand, you should take the time for at least one of these walks.

http://www.tongarirocrossing.org.nz/the-lord-of-the-rings.ht...

galvanist··on Sex Machine: Get gender from first name in Ruby
I can't imagine making a dating site these days: "I'm (name text field), a (sexual identity text field) interested in meeting (sexual identity text field) for the purpose of (dating/friendship/sex/swinging/whatever text field)." Good luck with that business logic. Maybe we do need intelligent agents for this stuff.
galvanist··on [dead]
You are operating on some very questionable assumptions which you've masked with jargon to lend credibility to your position. Kinda like phrenology. Where is your evidence that these race/gender "signals" correlate with applicant quality in any way?

But you are absolutely correct that employers do factor race into hiring and recruiting decisions. My evidence: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2018047

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