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lignuist

1,394 karma · joined January 20, 2012

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lignuist··on So You Want to Write Your Own CSV code
Nitpicking much?

As I wrote above, by making sure that I use a placeholder that does not appear in the data, I make sure that it does not cause the issues you describe. And if I was wrong with that assumption, I can at least minimize the effect by choosing a very unlikely sequence as placeholder.

I really see no issue here. How do you find valid grammars for fuzzy data in practice?

lignuist··on PHỞ: Automated workflow for front-end
I'm not sure if interchangeable is the right word. 'phởne' and 'phone' yield different result lists.

At least Google seems to have a way to detect visually similar letters.

lignuist··on PHỞ: Automated workflow for front-end
I wonder how many potential user are lost due to ungoogleability. :O)
lignuist··on New Haxe website
The idea is to be able to write code in one language and use this code in many different languages.
lignuist··on So You Want to Write Your Own CSV code
I used that strategy for parsing gigabytes of CSVs containing arbitrary natural language from the web - try to get these files fixed, or figure out a grammar for gigabytes of fuzzy data...

My approach never failed for me, so telling me that my strategy does not work is a strong claim, where it reliably did the job for me.

Your examples are all valid, but what you are describing are theoretical attacks on the method, while the method works in almost all cases in practice. We are talking about two different viewpoints: dealing with large amounts of messy data on one hand and parser theory in an ideal cosmos on the other hand.

lignuist··on So You Want to Write Your Own CSV code
> What if there is #COMMA, in one of the fields (but no #COMMA#)?

What should happen? Since #COMMA is not #COMMA#, it gets not replaced, because it does not match.

Please keep in mind, that I replied to suni's very specific question and did not try to start a discussion about general parser theory. In practice, we find a lot of files that do not respect the grammar, but still need to find a way to make the data accessible.

lignuist··on So You Want to Write Your Own CSV code
You just choose a placeholder that does not appear in the data. You could even implement it in a way that a placeholder is automatically selected upfront that does not appear in the data.

When it comes to parsing, the thing is that you usually have to make some assumptions about the document structure.

lignuist··on So You Want to Write Your Own CSV code
I was referencing to "What if the character separating fields is not a comma?".

And there it clearly works. I used this technique a few times with success. If you find a CSV file that has mixed field separator types, then you probably found a broken CSV file.

lignuist··on So You Want to Write Your Own CSV code
You can replace all commas with a placeholder (e.g. "#COMMA#"), replace the delimiter with a comma, parse the document and then replace all placeholders in the data with ",".
lignuist··on Wu-Tang Clan Offered $5M for New Album Only Available as One Copy
My perspective on art is a reaction on the elitism of the art scene, so basically my comments are art.

Edit/addition: Honestly, I could have much more respect for this project, if Wu-Tang made it only accessible to homeless people, or only to prisoners, but effectively, they make it only accessible to the riches. I really do like the Wu-Tang Clan, but I am really not impressed by this stunt.

lignuist··on Wu-Tang Clan Offered $5M for New Album Only Available as One Copy
> He continued: "I don't know how to measure it, but it gives us an idea that what we're doing is being understood by some. And there are some good peers of mine also, who are very high-ranking in the film business and the music business, sending me a lot of good will. It's been real positive.

So Wu-Tang Clan fans in Kazakhstan or Tanzania (or even every country other than the U.S.) will probably never be able to listen to this album...? I guess these will be the people who don't "understand" what Wu-Tang Clan is doing, while only the privileged ones "understand" the concept.

That's artificial shortage, not art (not talking about the music itself).

lignuist··on Sony releases the Holy Grail: A flexible e-ink screen
What is wrong with just offering a reader without forcing its users to also buy the books from the same source?

I own a Sony reader and I actually enjoy that it is not tightly bundled with a bookstore.

lignuist··on Pending Comments
This is what I feel too. It expect it to streamline the comments and kill the discussions.
lignuist··on Microsoft killed my Pappy
> Is Microsoft circa 2014 worse than Google, Apple, or Facebook? We're not nearly as organized as we'd need to be to be as evil as you might think we are.

Microsoft is not any worse than the other companies. They are all at the same terrible level.

But Microsoft became a bit better over the last years, I would say.

lignuist··on Ask HN: How to create an anonymous site?
Better use Anonymouth: https://github.com/psal/anonymouth

The translation method is not really effective:

> We also show that automated attempts at circumventing stylometry using machine translation may not be as effective, often altering the meaning of text while providing only small drops in accuracy.

https://www.cs.drexel.edu/~sa499/papers/adversarial_stylomet...

lignuist··on You might not need jQuery
Citing the AngularJS FAQs:

Does Angular use the jQuery library?

Yes, Angular can use jQuery if it's present in your app when the application is being bootstrapped. If jQuery is not present in your script path, Angular falls back to its own implementation of the subset of jQuery that we call jQLite.

Due to a change to use on()/off() rather than bind()/unbind(), Angular 1.2 only operates with jQuery 1.7.1 or above.

http://docs.angularjs.org/misc/faq

lignuist··on Show HN: Unbabel API – Human Corrected Machine Translation
> Human Corrected Translations for 1 cent per word

"Per word" of the source language, or the target language? Sum of both? What about languages which have a different concept of "words" in written text (e.g. Chinese, Turkish, ...).

And by the way... "cent" of which currency? :)

Edit: I just saw that the list of supported languages does not contain languages with "exotic" types of word boundaries (yet).

lignuist··on A positioning engine to make overlays, tooltips and dropdowns faster
Reminds me of the position helper in JQueryUI. I was able to extract the helper into a small file for using it, without having to load the rest of the framework.

http://jqueryui.com/position/

lignuist··on We want your old T-shirts
I thought the same. I recently saw a jeans couch and think that this fabric is much better for this purpose.
lignuist··on Research shows how MacBook Webcams can spy on their users without warning
They usually don't even have indicator leds and most smartphone have cameras on both sides. It is almost as if these devices are built to spy on their owners.
lignuist··on NSA phone surveillance program likely unconstitutional, federal judge rules
> but decades in jail ought to be reserved for violent types and people who you can easily demonstrate have ruined people's lives (through ponzi schemes and fraud).

Like Manning?

lignuist··on Doctors and nurses need to be replaced by computers and robots
Just imagine a robot holding your hand while you are dying.
lignuist··on German president to boycott Olympics in Russia over human rights
> I personally think it's a bad idea to mix sport and politics. We already had it in 1980 and 1984

As soon as there is big money involved (which is definitely the case with the Olympic Games), sports and politics are always mixed. Countries have to spend billions in order to make the games happen. This is not just a few people doing sports for just the sports.

lignuist··on NSA tracking cellphone locations worldwide, Snowden documents show
> I think putting in Airplane Mode should be a good idea.

And then you still would have to trust this Airplane Mode.

Honestly, I have absolutely no idea what is happening in my phone. Is it maybe still collecting data while it is in Airplane Mode and sending it somewhere once it is set back to regular mode? Or is it even sending data all the time, because the NSA knows that never a single plane has crashed because of active cellphones? Probably some smart people out there are checking their phone's internals and activities more than I do...

lignuist··on NSA tracking cellphone locations worldwide, Snowden documents show
> You can choose to only sometimes carry a phone or turn it on.

Easier said than done. Unfortunately.

lignuist··on NSA tracking cellphone locations worldwide, Snowden documents show
I know a guy who does not have a mobile phone. Sometimes I am a bit envious of him.
lignuist··on The Fair Price of a Bitcoin is Zero
The fair price of an ounce of gold is one Bitcoin. More or less. Currently.
lignuist··on Confession: I Could Have Made $128 Grand in Bitcoin But Lost $1,500.
Reminds me a little of the typical investor curve:

http://www.financialjesus.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/inv...

lignuist··on Why are software development estimates regularly off by a factor of 2-3?
Another reason is, that there are the first 90 percent and then there are the other 90 percent.
lignuist··on Carry Your Instrument On The Plane – It's The Law
I guess airlines fear orchestras.
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