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spiffworks

634 karma · joined July 25, 2010

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spiffworks··on Turn any link into a suspicious-looking one
You must be a Richard Herring fan.
spiffworks··on Ggplot2 for python
Nope, numpy needs libblas and scipy needs libatlas, both of which have to installed from the system package manager. I slap my forehead every time I move to a new system and find that the pip install in the virtualenv failed.
spiffworks··on Samsung Plugs Remote Wipe Flaw, Urges Galaxy SIII Owners To Update
CM7 user here. Can confirm that it is vulnerable. Easily fixed by installing a second dialer so that you'll always get a prompt. Also I can't find any info on whether cm7 supports USSD factory reset. Anybody aware?
spiffworks··on Comparing Go and Java, Part 2 – Performance
Is this right? Java really has better latency than Go right now? And with 2 processors, Go's latency is 25ms for 50 concurrent requests. Anybody with better experience care to comment on this?
spiffworks··on Free Book: An Introduction to Programming in Go
Going through the source code for that tour is also a very good way of getting familiar with the http package and a good introduction to channels.
spiffworks··on Free Book: An Introduction to Programming in Go
I have been really impressed with Go's portability. I recently cross compiled a binary from a Linux machine for an ARM target and had it running from scratch in less than 15 minutes. Go could become a serious option for embedded Linux targets.
spiffworks··on Google Fiber Plans & Pricing
https://fiber.google.com/legal/privacy.html

Read this first, and read it well.

spiffworks··on The future is specific
> But you know what else is pretty good? PyDev

It's not. It's really not. I've heard good things about PyCharm, but the best environment for Python that I have seen so far is Emacs. And Light Table definitely looks like an improvement on that. My only concern with this is the speed. I want this to have the same response time as Emacs or Vim. Then there would be no reason not to use it.

spiffworks··on The future is specific
Thank you!
spiffworks··on The future is specific
As an Indian who cannot access Vimeo, this is what I see. http://i.imgur.com/ojTVQ.png May I ask for a link to the video on another service?
spiffworks··on Indian drug company slashes crucial medicine prices by 76%
As someone who once worked at an IIT, money is not lacking, imagination is.
spiffworks··on Let's Start Something
I very much understand the motivation behind it, it's just the means that is shockingly tacky and uncharacteristic. A slogan contest for the importance of the open web? Really?
spiffworks··on Let's Start Something
Good heavens. What the hell have they done to Google?
spiffworks··on Google Glasses are real, will use two 0.52-inch micro displays
Software freedom becomes more and more important in this world. Let's hope Google follows their policy with the Nexus line and makes room for custom firmware.
spiffworks··on Why apps are not the future
How does iOS handle multiple apps registering for the same type of URL? In Android, I get a popup asking which app I want to use for this action, and an option to make that the default for future actions. Is there something similar on iOS?
spiffworks··on Apple's suggestions to Samsung to work-around its iPhone and iPad design patents
What is that photo supposed to show? All I see is that the iPad's physical design is as much a derivative of all those that came before as the rest are derivative of the iPad's.

Do you really not see the flaw in your argument or are you just being willfully dissonant?

spiffworks··on Poll: Facebook usage
Maybe I'm just odd, but social networks don't really bring me any value. I have a few close friends who I stay in touch with no matter where we are, and I do it on a medium that is a little more personal than the digital equivalent of an announcement to all your friends. I thought maybe I just didn't like Facebook, but I saw the same thing with Google+. Sometimes I wonder how many people on HN are the same way.
spiffworks··on iOS is anti-Unix and anti-programmer
It was just that these people were happy with having limits on their computers. I guess the difference in mindset is that while normal people want computers to be appliances, we want everything to be computers.
spiffworks··on iOS is anti-Unix and anti-programmer
Eh, I can understand the outrage the author feels. I used to be so pissed off when people were contented with their iOS devices. But I have my Nexus One, I can hack the hell out of it, it is state of the art, and I don't really care what anybody else uses. If people find that trading freedom for convenience is acceptable, then that is their choice to make.
spiffworks··on A Peek at Emacs 24
Vim is better designed than Emacs for editing. Emacs is just better designed for everything else. To this day, there is no better way of scrolling text than j/k. That doesn't change the reality of Emacs' incredible flexibility.
spiffworks··on A Peek at Emacs 24
I agree with you on many points, but there are a few things for which I prefer to have a dedicated shortcut. Specifically, basic functionality such as copying a line. More importantly, by your logic, we shouldn't have the C-k shortcut either. Wouldn't we be poorer for such a lack of divergence from bedrock abstraction?
spiffworks··on A Peek at Emacs 24
You should look in to one of the functions listed here:

http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/CopyingWholeLines

Not having to use 3 keystrokes in the place of one is the whole point of using Emacs.

spiffworks··on A Peek at Emacs 24
Nothing is impossible in Emacs, but it did not ship with the function previously, yes. It also does not ship with a function for copying a line. It does, however, ship with a lisp which lets you do whatever the hell you want.
spiffworks··on To my fellow Hacker News contributors
The system he is suggesting is exactly what /. had, and that didn't work out too well. I have a theory that the decline of any great community begins with a conflict. In the case of /. when the SCO matter started, the issue was so black and white that there was no need of discussing it - and the community itself was so homogeneous in their opinion on this matter that there was no real discussion going on. In the case of HN, I think we're seeing a variation of the same thing - it's Apple vs everybody else, and the issue is so polarising that the discussions are almost never real discussions, they're just a bunch of people trying to prove they're right. And that is where the rot starts.

I am as guilty of this as anybody else - since I find myself rarely able to comment on any technical discussion on HN, most of my posts have been on these topics, where one does not need any more than an ideological standpoint from which to talk. Perhaps the recent precipitous decline in the quality of the comments is directly linked to the kind of stories that we've been discussing, and the kind of people who tend to comment on them.

spiffworks··on Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda Resigns From Slashdot
Sometimes, while on HN, I miss the playfulness that made /. a true joy in the past. If we cannot scorn ourselves, we run the risk of taking ourselves to seriously.
spiffworks··on Your problem with Vim is that you don't grok vi
I just started using emacs as my primary editor for work, and I face this all the time. I'm completely sure that most of the things I do can be done more efficiently and with fewer keystrokes. But to stop and think about it breaks my flow, and stops me from thinking about the code itself.
spiffworks··on Why Arabic is Terrific
Pretty much every Indian language I can think of satisfies these criteria, actually. The lack of centralization and a generally rich heritage naturally gives rise to this, I think. Also, glad to see other Tamil speakers here.
spiffworks··on Balls
As you can see, I'm being downvoted, and that's fine. Gruber is a polarising topic on HN. I just find that he has long since departed from any actual insight and instead works mostly with snark and misdirection to the point where it is pointless to even discuss his opinions. Perhaps I should be downvoted for the previous post, because it is not pertinent to the discussion, but I felt it had to be said.
spiffworks··on Balls
Gruber has for a long time made his living off of propping up strawmen and beating them down, much to the amusement of his readers. Everyone knows that Leander Keahney and Dan Lyons are insane, only Gruber goes to the pain of proving them so, with little insight or value added to the discussion, other than to incite his audience to gleefully laugh at the stupidity of the 'other'. I can't believe it actually took me so many years to realise this, but he is off my rss now.
spiffworks··on Why My Father Hated India
I don't disagree with the article per se, I disagree with this method people seem to have of painting a large and diverse country with a single brush. I am entirely ignorant of Pakistan's inner workings, so I don't have an opinion on the article itself, other than noticing the obvious logical flaw and the fact that this article and its discussion are entirely inappropriate for HN.
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