PotatoEngineer

6 ms·

1.
by PotatoEngineer 9y ago
If the advertisers can see the MAID for each ad impression, then there's no need to be too specific about who you target - it'll just cost you more. On the other hand, if the advertiser doesn't get to see the MAID-per-impress
2.
by PotatoEngineer 9y ago
If you like something, upvote it. If you're only saying the equivalent of "+1", please don't post - it's just (well-meaning) clutter. Also: check the guidelines link at the very bottom of the site (in tiny, nigh-unr
3.
by PotatoEngineer 9y ago
Outcomes! Right, that's what they were called. Thanks for naming it.
4.
by PotatoEngineer 9y ago
This question of "what skills are students missing?" reminds me of the new teaching methods they were trying out as I started high school. The new teaching program centered around objectives. The idea was that each objective was a
5.
by PotatoEngineer 11y ago
The Microsoft campus in Redmond would most likely not be knocked over by the tsunami: a rather hilly Seattle is in the way, then there's the large Lake Washington, and then Redmond is another ~40 feet above the lake on the far side,
6.
by PotatoEngineer 12y ago
No; I lost the starmap when I still had some 5 1/4" diskettes that said "Star Control II" on them.
7.
by PotatoEngineer 12y ago
Star Control II uses a starmap as copy protection ("tell me the constellation at these coordinates..."). I lost the starmap at one point, but if you can remember just one of the answers, you can just keep running the game until
8.
by PotatoEngineer 12y ago
Using a socket wrench rather than, say, a crescent wrench means there's more nut in contact with the wrench at any given moment. So the wrench doesn't have to be quite as strong, since the torque is distributed over a larger surfa
9.
by PotatoEngineer 13y ago
The current knowledge of jellyfish intelligence is "we've figured out they have memories." Jellyfish are extremely simple creatures; the "brighter" ones are known for their ability to avoid obstacles. [1] These are not particularly sentie
10.
by PotatoEngineer 13y ago
You convince your loved ones to switch to something else. If they won't, then you must realize that, deep in your heart, you love freedom more than you love your loved ones, and must switch to non-video calls or other methods of communicati
11.
by PotatoEngineer 13y ago
Maybe the market is small enough, and the transactions small enough, that the competent hackers are attacking other systems.
12.
by PotatoEngineer 14y ago
Almost every single non-reply post on this article is criticizing how much the app isn't AirBnB. Maybe the new measure of success on HN is finding the excellent discussions under those criticizing posts? Those criticizing top posts always h
13.
by PotatoEngineer 14y ago
It's not just jacking up prices; it's about keeping competition down to reasonable levels. If you have the world's best restaurant that everyone needs to eat at, then great; but most restaurants are going to be in the middling end of the s
14.
by PotatoEngineer 14y ago
I wouldn't expect most "handshake deals" with a friend/spouse to require that level of formality - unless money is changing hands.
15.
by PotatoEngineer 14y ago
That first one reduces your privacy even further: not only does Group A track you, but now everyone knows that Group A is tracking you, allowing Group B to ask Group A for data on you.
16.
by PotatoEngineer 14y ago
That's the point - it's "kind of" true. But the takeaway from that NYT article is "you'll get stranded," which is much more painful than the truth: "be careful in the cold."
17.
by PotatoEngineer 14y ago
Probably because there's limited wireless bandwidth. It'll work, but it doesn't scale - doubly so for colocation, where other customers might eat your bandwidth. The "short distances" would help, but there might not be enough throughput to
18.
by PotatoEngineer 14y ago
A note on how gerrymandering works: In a perfectly gerrymandered system, the party in power can win using only 25.1% of the vote - and that's if all districts have equal population. You can get by with even less if the districts have imbala
19.
by PotatoEngineer 14y ago
"Sponsored" implies an advertising relationship, even if it avoids the dread word - sponsors pay you. "Inspired by your browsing history" is accurate, and is Amazon advertising Amazon - you're on a shopping site, seeing more links to shop
20.
by PotatoEngineer 14y ago
Can you live on 60%? That is, how hard is it if a large customer decides to ignore that last payment?
21.
by PotatoEngineer 14y ago
One additional thought: anyone who buys patent troll insurance instantly becomes a highly-cooperative target. Why fight it? Why ignore it? Just send the contact info for your insurance company, and let them pay it.
22.
by PotatoEngineer 14y ago
It probably has to do with Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT), which is calculated under different rules. It hit some of the Silicon Valley millionaires hard when they exercised their options before the dot-com bust, then held onto the shares fo
23.
by PotatoEngineer 14y ago
Patent troll insurance skirts the line of being just as bad as patent trolls themselves: "Pay us some money and maybe you won't get hit by patent trolls." It's a great idea, but when I look at it closer, it looks pretty similar to trolling:
24.
by PotatoEngineer 14y ago
I do want to hear it, actually. Thorium looks especially good in the long term, though it's still in the research phase.
25.
by PotatoEngineer 14y ago
We're going to need something as fossil fuels run low and coal becomes increasingly stigmatized. Solar is an interesting field to explore, as is wind, hydro, tides, and other non-fossil energy sources. Sooner or later, one of those fields
26.
by PotatoEngineer 14y ago
And his solution was simply to find different drugs. Considering there's a 53% failure rate for this surgery, the results sound similar.
27.
by PotatoEngineer 14y ago
If the media is focusing on it, it's rare. If the media stops running stories about violence (or runs fewer), then violence may be getting out of hand. If a single story about violence runs for a week, then it's rare, so violence is goi
28.
by PotatoEngineer 14y ago
The trouble with dynamic terrain--and especially walls--is that it's hard to place a cost on destroying walls to get to where you want to get. A* is simple enough, but adding tactical considerations to it is much harder. It's a balance of
29.
by PotatoEngineer 14y ago
Ouch, that's nasty. A patent claim that lists a bunch of compounds, of which only one works? No wonder the court struck it down; the filing itself is actively obstructing knowledge.
30.
by PotatoEngineer 14y ago
That's why the article talks about looking for "2 or 3" warning signs rather than just one. Just about any customer can show one of those warning signs and be a perfectly acceptable customer, but when they have several, they're almost cert

More ›