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mckoss

1,709 karma · joined January 23, 2009

Retired software hobbyist. Ex-Google, ex-Microsoft.
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mckoss··on A Little on V8 and WebAssembly [pdf]
"Almost late" === "on time".
mckoss··on Think Less, Think Better
I've never noticed the "web" link before - that works for me (should this not be "search", btw). Thanks.
mckoss··on Think Less, Think Better
True enough. I was just proposing, for a site like HN that is about open discourse between members, that posting content that excludes many of our members is a poor choice.
mckoss··on Think Less, Think Better
So now I'm left playing link roulette - maybe we could only allow nyt links for the first 10 days of the month!
mckoss··on Think Less, Think Better
I know that. So why not post the search link instead - i.e. one that will work for everyone? Or HN could implement a "search on Google" feature to get around it. Requiring readers to a) know this hack and b) perform it on a mobile device keyboard is the ultimate in poor usability.
mckoss··on Think Less, Think Better
Can we stop posting articles that are behind a pay wall? What's the point of sharing if the link won't work for many readers?
mckoss··on German WW2 code machine found on eBay
That got to me too with the museum representatives smugly ripping off the owner and telling her to "keep the change".
mckoss··on Mosul dam engineers warn it could fail at any time, killing 1M people
Yes, but it's not "fail-safe". Building a massive dam above a million person flood plain, that requires continuous aggressive maintenance seems short sighted at best.
mckoss··on A Message to Our Customers
A possible compromise would be to add a backdoor to the security module that would unlock the phone in exchange for a proof of work.

It would be relatively easy for the chip to offer a challenge and accept, say, a $100,000 proof of work to unlock the phone. This way, we prevent bulk surveillance but still allow the government to access high value targets' devices.

mckoss··on Marvin Minsky dies at 88
As a grad student, I remember shooting the bull with Minsky and Hillis (1983). The CIA had offices across the hall and we were discussing how we might grab one of their bags of shredded documents and use a computer to piece together all the fragments by hashing the pattern of edge fragments on each piece.
mckoss··on San Francisco Office Rents Pass Manhattan as Most Expensive in Country
For those that are not familiar with commercial rental quotes, they are stated in units of $/sq ft/year. A good rule of thumb is that you need about 200 sq ft per worker.

So, at $72/ft, your 10-person startup needs to spend $144,000 annually just for office space in SF.

mckoss··on Beyond the Bell Curve, a New Universal Law (2014)
"Suitably scaled, its summit sits at a telltale value: √2N"

Doesn't this statement apply the any function with a maximum?

mckoss··on Pirate needs 200k video views to avoid being sued
https://www.flickr.com/photos/scriptingnews/3116706556
mckoss··on Math.random in V8 is broken
Skimming on phone and I missed it-thanks!
mckoss··on Math.random in V8 is broken
Why no mention of window.crypto.getRandomValues?
mckoss··on Finite state machines as data structure for representing ordered sets and maps
Also called DAWGs (Directed Acyclic Word Graphs [1]). John Resig blogged about a similar problem 5 years ago, for which I wrote a JavaScript solution [2].

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directed_acyclic_word_graph

[2] https://github.com/mckoss/lookups

mckoss··on Shift.js: Swift to JavaScript Transpiler
A transpiler is specifically a "source-to-source" language translator.
mckoss··on A JavaScript Module Manager That Fits in a Tweet
Similar to a namespace package I've been using for 6 years.

https://github.com/mckoss/namespace

mckoss··on Population.io – The World Population Project
You are older than NaN people on the planet.
mckoss··on Schedule – Python job scheduling for humans
I personally dislike this style of "fluent api". It is not more "for humans" just because it reads as English sentences.

In fact, it can be quite difficult to reason about. What, for example is "schedule. every(10)"? By itself, it does not seem to represent a useful concept other than a "partial" schedule statement.

I would prefer to use an api using keyword arguments to set the various (optional) parameters to build a schedule.

mckoss··on A faster way to compute edit distance does not exist
Often times authors of articles are not the same people who write their titles ... it may even be changed without their knowledge (until the paper is actually printed).
mckoss··on 60 years ago: The famous Boeing 707 prototype barrel roll over Lake Washington
An aileron roll will experience -1G - something you really don't want to do in an airliner. A barrel roll is specifically named because its like driving around the inside of a barrel; the plane always maintains positive Gs.
mckoss··on Ask HN: Books with a high signal to noise ratio?
A Short History of Nearly Everything - Bill Bryson
mckoss··on Ask HN: Books with a high signal to noise ratio?
I was surprised to see a recommdation for The Information. Gleick seems the epitome of a rambling author who says almost nothing. I made it through Chaos, but could not get through Feynman or The Information. This kind of InfoJunk is what the OP is trying to avoid, I think.
mckoss··on Sandra Bland arrest video has continuity problems, anomalies
Ironically, you can only refuse to provide your name if you have a "reasonable belief" that doing so could incriminate you!

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Justice Kennedy wrote, "While we recognize petitioner's strong belief that he should not have to disclose his identity, the Fifth Amendment does not override the Nevada Legislature's judgment to the contrary absent a reasonable belief that the disclosure would tend to incriminate him."

mckoss··on Universal asks Google to take down 127.0.0.1 for piracy
A knowingly false DMCA claim can result in a perjury charge.

https://www.eff.org/press/archives/2004/10/15

mckoss··on Sandra Bland arrest video has continuity problems, anomalies
I would think that the only reason you can be arrested for refusing to answer #1 is because driving requires a license. Being stopped on the street or while not operating the vehicle does not require you identify yourself to the police. They would then need some independent probable cause to believe you are wanted in connection to a crime.
mckoss··on Why is the Northwest so warm?
Cliff is a highly respected meteorologist in the NW. He debunks your citation in his blog (see his response to comments in this post).
mckoss··on Uber announces suspension of UberPOP in France
BTW, pg is Paul Graham, founder of y combinator and creator of hacker news. So, "this guy" is generally very well respected by the the users of this site.
mckoss··on Uber announces suspension of UberPOP in France
Taxi services are primarily regulated at the behest of the existing taxi companies to keep out competition. The public interest of the regulation is just a cover story.

We just returned from Paris, and I can tell you that people in Paris are not happy with cab drivers (overpriced, and often refuse riders based on too many people, too many bags, or too short of a trip).

This smells like a campaign of a greedy and corrupt union hiding behind a law to protect its poorly performing industry.

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