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gretful

94 karma · joined January 3, 2014

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gretful··on Microsoft's new foldable keyboard
Meanwhile, I bought an original iPad, and a first gen iPod Touch that my kids are still happily using today. My 19 year old daughter learned (via Youtube) how to replace iPod/iPad screens and has a small side business going...
gretful··on Programmer Passion Considered Harmful
my biggest f-up happened during a 4AM call - I deleted an entire filesystem... twice...
gretful··on When Nerds Collide (2014)
Before all those late-night commercials in the late '90's ("Make $70K a year!!!") only people that were interested in computers chose a career in them. We make, on average, twice the national average (for U.S.) salary of our peers: people that want the bucks will move in, whether they enjoy bits and bytes or not.
gretful··on Sexism in Tech: Don’t Ask Me Unless You’re Ready to Call Someone a Whistleblower
This is a sad article. There used to exist guidelines to beahvior, one being "don't fish off the company dock". Following that would eliminate almost all of the sexual harassment BS.
gretful··on It's Time to stop using the word 'Retard'
Pretty soon all descriptive words are going to be deemed bad and banned.

Whatever happened to "sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me"?

gretful··on Improving Linux networking performance
yeah, it's easy to cry when you see a real artist working on something, and you have to go back to your etch-a-sketch.
gretful··on [dead]
Quit yer whining. Wait until you're almost 50 and all your dreams are nowhere in sight, you have kids to feed, bills to pay, and a boss that has the intelligence of a cantaloupe.

It's called the human condition.

gretful··on Fractal compression for generating resolution-independent images (1992)
nah, the guy that demoed it talked about iterated fractals (hence the IFS company name). And this was EARLY 90's, a black and white laptop.
gretful··on Lazy Expert Syndrome
you're talking about chunking: at first you try to remember everything, then as you gain experience you learn you can abstract certain items away to a general model of them (chunk) without having to remember the specifics of each individual item.
gretful··on Fractal compression for generating resolution-independent images (1992)
I saw this back in '90, showing an aquarium, zooming into a goldfish, zooming into its eyeball, and then zooming into the Earth. I always wondered what happened to the tech. The company was IFS, IIRC.
gretful··on What the Courts Did to Curb Patent Trolling for Now
What? You don't expect them to act in a moral fashion, do you? Business is a game, and most business people play it like a game: how far can I go and still be within the rules?

When morality is divorced from business, this is what you get. I don't see it changing anytime soon.

gretful··on Letter to Amazon Board from Fired Ad Exec
because rules and regulations are links in the chains that bind you. rules and regulations created the corporations, rules and regulations tax you, rules and regulations throw you in jail for imbibing in herbs...
gretful··on Visual Studio 2013 Community Edition now available
The first hit is always free. This is a trap for new companies. Microsoft doing what it does best.
gretful··on Colorado communities secure the right to build their own broadband
ahh, but who provides the framework that denies the local governments the right to implement this? That's right, the Judicial branch (local, state or federal). So, while corporations initiate and shepherd the process through the court systems, it is the court systems that allow this process.
gretful··on Vote all you want. The secret government won’t change
The Iron Law of Bureaucracy at work:

http://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/iron.html

gretful··on Should people be eating more fat?
I see what you mean. I think the reason why it may be appropriate here is that poor health and being overweight are big risks in the field of sedentary occupations.

ftfy

gretful··on Should people be eating more fat?
ketogenic diets have loads of health benefits (reduction of insulin sensitivity, reduced incidences of epileptic seizures, etc). I am unaware of studies that point to benefits of high carb diets.
gretful··on The Gombe Chimpanzee War
same concept as applied to other human cultures: Aztecs, Incas, Native Americans, Africans - they're all considered 'at one with nature', superior to European culture, when in fact they were just as bad (and in some cases) worse than the culture that displaced or enslaved them.

We've gone from one end of the spectrum to another w/ regard to our perceptions of 'other'.

gretful··on Learn to Code, Get Hired
Yeah, most companies treat people as replaceable cogs, when they should be treating employees as (for example) plants that need cultivation and care. Training should be considered part of the cultivation of the employee.
gretful··on Once a Symbol of Power, Farming Now an Economic Drag in China
Put Drs/Hospitals/HealthCare in place of the other car, and your body in place of your car. The analogy works very well. ACA is acting as the bank in the car insurance analogy, demanding that you HAVE to have bumper-to-bumper collision insurance.

In the car insurance case you can forgo the car and thereby forgo purchasing car insurance, but with the ACA you can't forgo health insurance.

gretful··on Once a Symbol of Power, Farming Now an Economic Drag in China
Nothing? So the fact that young (presumably healthy) people HAVE to buy insurance to make ACA a success means nothing. It's pretty clear that the mandate IS Socialism.
gretful··on Once a Symbol of Power, Farming Now an Economic Drag in China
Looks like the US Constitution is becoming more of a propaganda document as we move along the timeline. So I would have to say it's not just a failing of a formal Communist Party, it's a failing of humanity.
gretful··on Once a Symbol of Power, Farming Now an Economic Drag in China
Obamacare is closer to car-insurance, with the caveat that even if you don't want a car you still have to buy the insurance. THAT is what has most of the nay-sayers agitated.

Medicare/Medicaid are, like the student loan programs with college tuition, at least partially responsible for driving up the costs of healthcare in the US.

We've backed ourselves into a very difficult corner, and getting out of it isn't going to be easy, and it won't be popular.

gretful··on Reading the Silk Road configuration
"This is unlikely to have happened under a system of legal drugs. I've never heard of Walmart -- where legal products are sold -- putting out hits on people."

Take a look into the dirty underside of the distribution (of legal goods) industry and you will find intimidation and violence used.

gretful··on Why women leave tech because they have good taste
If you want to be treated equal quit crying when you get treated equal! Being interrupted and having to prove yourself are things males require of each other.

Does sexism exist? Yes. But quit trying to turn men into women.

gretful··on Three Years on Rikers Without Trial
This is what happens when you replace judgement with rigid rules. The obverse is that you have good-old-boy networks that let friends and family off easy. There's always trade-offs when people are involved.

Sad that your gf had to go through that, I'm sure it must have upset her terribly.

gretful··on Booking.com donates $60000 to Perl development
But they want you to relocate. That's why they're having problems finding a developer. How many people want to leave their country/city/family/friends for a job?

This is 2014, not 1985. Let them work remotely.

gretful··on Physical activity can have a positive effect on children who suffer from ADHD
maybe so-called normal adults today are pathological - look at the obesity epidemic here in the US
gretful··on The Secret Goldman Sachs Tapes
I would say it is not Constitutional to restrict their choice of jobs. How about we provide a bounty for turning in wrong-doers? A percentage of the money involved and they wouldn't have to worry about a job after collecting the bounty. And the bounty, of course, would be paid by the offending bank.
gretful··on HFT in my backyard – II
it's almost as if capitalism works...
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