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thoughtexprmnt

56 karma · joined June 11, 2017

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thoughtexprmnt··on Thoughts on the potato diet
I think just making any significant change to one's diet can, in the short term anyway, have noticable positive effects, especially depending on what the previous diet looked like. But over time those effects tend to level off and eventually into net-negative consequences from whatever's being restricted out. I can definitely see that being the case for a prolonged potato only diet.

I also think the best long term strategy is to focus first on eating plenty of nutrient dense, minimally processed foods which will naturally tend to crowd out the junk. Junk being anything consisting mostly of the cheap subsidized ingredients like wheat, corn, and soy.

thoughtexprmnt··on Dozens of high-traffic websites vulnerable to ‘account pre-hijacking’, study
Maybe I'm missing something in the description of the exploit, but don't sites that use email address during account creation typically send some sort of link/code to the provided email to verify ownership? So does this vulnerability assume the attacker has access to the victim's email? If that's the case it seems like "pre-hijacking" would be the least of concerns.
thoughtexprmnt··on New study suggests handwriting engages the brain more than typing
Does higher measured brain activity for one task relative to another performed by the same individual conclusively mean that task is "better", or maybe just that individual is more efficient/practiced/comfortable with the other task?
thoughtexprmnt··on Google cuts jobs at cloud-computing group
Not discounting your experience, but we have clients in all three, and our own experience is that Azure support and service is _significantly_ better than AWS and GCP, to the degree that we primarily recommend Azure for that reason.
thoughtexprmnt··on Ask HN: A New Decade. Any Predictions? (2010)
Interesting to see that many of the predictions weren't far off.

But one recurring prediction that was notably wrong was of Microsoft's declining prospects. It would have been difficult at the time to argue otherwise, but WOW did things turn out differently.

thoughtexprmnt··on Edge vs. Chrome: Microsoft's Tracking Prevention Hits Google the Hardest
> simple text files called Tracking Protection Lists (TPLs) to allow or block third-party requests from specific domains

Sounds like a hosts file, and the same end result could be achieved in any browser/system-wide by using a curated one such as:

https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts

Or is Edge Tracking Prevention more effective in some way?

thoughtexprmnt··on IRS budget cuts cost $34.3B in lost revenue from big business
I'm sure that strategy of "simply not paying" works great, right up until the day it doesn't and you find yourself facing huge fines and prison.
thoughtexprmnt··on Why Does My Remote Control Need to Know My Location?
I recall ditching a relatively high-end router a year or two ago after a firmware update required me to accept that in order to use most of the advanced features supported by the router, essentially all of my household's web activity would be sent to a 3rd party data collection service. Thanks but no thanks.
thoughtexprmnt··on Slick Olive Oil Label Designed to Deceive
Two things to look for when selecting olive oil at the supermarket - a dark glass bottle, and a harvest date printed on the label. Granted, this doesn't guarantee you're getting a high-quality, non-blended EV olive oil, but without these you most assuredly are not.
thoughtexprmnt··on SQL Is No Excuse to Avoid DevOps
Even though I've given in to using the "automated schema updates", or migrations, approach (Technique 1 in the article), I'm still uncomfortable with the idea of the application tier having permission/ability to manage database schema and execute DDL. I feel that it removes a key layer of defense-in-depth, and opens up the possibility for bugs and exploited vulnerabilities in application code to have hugely negative impacts.

Even ORMs make me nervous for similar reasons, since they essentially enable the application tier to pass into the database any/all queries and DML. But like migrations, I allow ORMs for the convenience they provide during development.

thoughtexprmnt··on Ask HN: Anyone else see Amazon Prime 2 day shipping 9 days away?
Yes, I was surprised to see a delivery estimate of 8 days on the Prime order I placed last night. I'm not in an area directly affected by Florence, but I assumed the longer than usual delivery time was somehow related to the storm.
thoughtexprmnt··on “I-Cut-You-Choose” Cake-Cutting Protocol Inspires Solution to Gerrymandering
I feel like this might go a little too far in formalizing the two-party system in a way that would have undesriable consequences. A better approach to drawing Congressional districts would be something like this:

https://bdistricting.com/

"Impartial Automatic Redistricting... optimized for equal population and compactness only."

thoughtexprmnt··on How Much Should the Met Cost?
I was visiting Baltimore's Inner Harbor recently with my wife and our two kids. With a couple of hours available, we thought we'd checkout the aquarium. Then we learned our 4 tickets would cost $130 ($40/adult, $25/child), so we found something else to do instead.

I know an aquarium is not an art museum, but still...

thoughtexprmnt··on Java 10 and beyond – a look at the potential language change
>which is the reason for .NET core existing, I suppose.

True, .Net Core exists because Microsoft eventually realized its mistake of tieing its programming framework too closely to its operating system. But... that mistake is now in the past, for some years now.

>all the interesting things in cloud happen outside of Redmond.

We're getting a bit off-topic from OP with this, but can you please give an example of some other cloud provider's service for which there is no Azure equivalent?

thoughtexprmnt··on Java 10 and beyond – a look at the potential language change
Agreed. Java was first, so that's primarily why it is where it is today in terms of market share. But C#, and its functional cousin F#, are now leading the way in the evolution of modern programming languages. With .Net Core now being open source and all-platform, we should all look forward to it supplanting Java and JVM as the ubiquitous language and runtime.
thoughtexprmnt··on Hiring and the market for lemons (2016)
Most teams should not waste their time searching for a “great” developer (whatever that is, exactly). Instead they would be better off just hiring the first candidate that comes along in whom they have reasonable level of confidence will soon be a productive contributor to the team's goals and makeup, and then move on with business. Everyone involved in the recruiting, screening, and interview process should not lose sight of this as the objective, and resist any temptation to get sidetracked by silliness like “pedigree” and “trendiness”.
thoughtexprmnt··on Vanguard Founder Jack Bogle Says ‘Avoid Bitcoin Like the Plague’
Isn't the "value" of a currency in it's relative stability over time? That is, the confidence by those who use it that it will be exchangeable for roughly the same amount of goods and services today, tomorrow, six months or a year from now (accounting for nominal inflation, of course).

If you accept that premise of what a viable currency should be, then it seems like the volatility of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have thus far made them failures. I mean, if a national currency had similarly rapid changes in value, wouldn't we see financial chaos, riots, and revolution?

thoughtexprmnt··on Steve Wozniak announces tech education platform Woz U
No real mention here of what will differentiate this from existing "tech education platforms".
thoughtexprmnt··on AWS IAM Down
I'm in an AWS dev ops training class as I write this. We're still experiencing a lot of timeouts related to IAM.
thoughtexprmnt··on We Evolved to Run But We're Doing It Wrong
There are a lot of reasons to run, but if general fitness is the goal, I've found that sprinting, and in particular uphill sprinting, is the most effective and time-efficient.
thoughtexprmnt··on AMD Ryzen Threadripper 1920X and 1950X CPUs Announced
Since the article does refer to these as desktop CPUs, I'm curious what kind of desktop workloads people are running that could benefit from / justify them?
thoughtexprmnt··on All-Girls Teen Engineering Team Creates a Solar-Powered Tent for Homeless People
I think you mean qualifiers.
thoughtexprmnt··on Microsoft is laying off thousands in a major global sales reorganization
This makes sense. The financial future of Microsoft is dependent upon the continued success of Office 365, Azure, and Xbox. Everything else, probably including Windows OS itself, should be viewed as a distraction.
thoughtexprmnt··on Can a Diet That Mimics Fasting Turn Back the Clock?
As is often the case, it depends on the context. For someone obese and/or diabetic, extended fasts of 3-7 days as recommended by Dr. Fung can be very beneficial.
thoughtexprmnt··on What’s the Best NoSQL Database? Cassandra vs. MongoDB vs. Redis vs. ElasticSearch
Seems incomplete without any mention of Microsoft Azure options like Cosmos DB, Blob and Table storage, Data Lake, etc.