dandrews

15 ms·

1.
by dandrews 10y ago
One misfeature of most "lithium ion" cells is that their cathodes produce oxygen under high temperatures. One very good reason for Segway (e.g.) to use lithium-iron-phosphate cells - they're far less likely to burn, though
2.
by dandrews 10y ago
I occasionally receive spam via MC, which I then forward to MC's abuse desk along with a polite note. Every time they have responded quickly and effectively. (Don't forget to tell them that their efforts are appreciated - they
3.
by dandrews 10y ago
Hierarchical and network DBMSs can scream, but you have to have a competent DBA curate the so-called "physical" relationships (indexes, record and index pointers, child record locality, block sizes, buffers, what-have-you) that su
4.
by dandrews 10y ago
Wonder if you could build a competitive search engine with $1b?
5.
by dandrews 10y ago
It was pretty much taken as gospel everywhere at the time that NO compiler could match the speed and size of a well crafted assembly language routine. Back then there were some noble attempts at building optimizing compilers, and probably
6.
by dandrews 10y ago
I became severely anemic after a few months and the e/r did an MRI, looking for internal bleeding. They found the tumor then. My GP had x-rayed me, looking for a cardiac anomaly - he suspected an aortic aneurism. What he should'
7.
by dandrews 10y ago
Not chumming for sympathy here, but I've mentioned before on HN that my own pancreatic cancer first manifested itself as a vague feeling of unease at the sternum, and persistent nighttime acid reflux. No other symptoms. My GP didn&#x
8.
by dandrews 10y ago
My 2012 Moto X has a trained keyword (and in fact a dedicated low-power specialized processor to listen for it - one of the things I like about that phone). No "OK Google" for me; it's "Listen please", in Russian.
9.
by dandrews 10y ago
Rather than an "anonymous feature", how about a "please moderate this post" flag? A post that requests moderation would not be eligible for upvotes or downvotes, or would even appear until it passed moderation. Of cours
10.
by dandrews 10y ago
Heh. I also ported Forgy's VPS5 to David Betz's XLISP around that same time, posting it to BiX (anyone remember BiX?). Ran a handful of guess-the-animal toys on it then turned my attention elsewhere. As you say: fun times!
11.
by dandrews 11y ago
Contrast with Bill Gosper's quote from Levy's Hackers : "Data is just a dumb kind of programmihg."
12.
by dandrews 11y ago
Thanks for your gentle correction. (I was thinking of Gray code, as taught to me during my Wonder Years. You're right as rain of course.)
13.
by dandrews 11y ago
Something I was unaware of: single bit (correctable) read errors are not immediately repaired in NAND. Subsequent in-error reads are repeatedly processed by ECC on the fly, while the media rewrite is scheduled for sometime later. This in
14.
by dandrews 11y ago
You may be mistaken: there's at least one shareholder that wishes Apple all the best. ;-)
15.
by dandrews 11y ago
Because (at least on my Moto X 2012, Android v5.1 Lollipop) rebooting can take upwards of ten minutes. Some OTA updates apparently trigger an 80-some-odd module "optimizing" run, which I presume is ART doing its AOT thing. If yo
16.
by dandrews 11y ago
My daughter would disagree with you in re: thinness. The newer thin iPhones are easier to pocket - women's fashion being more form fitting than men's. It's a trade-off that she and presumably lots of other people are willin
17.
by dandrews 11y ago
That sounds like the version told in Levy's Hackers. Maybe someone in HN-land can verify that; I can't find my copy.
18.
by dandrews 11y ago
" This guide is just a starting point for thinking about how to name things. " That's a novel way to introduce an "industry standard".
19.
by dandrews 11y ago
I'll easily second this recommendation. 30 years ago I was struck by Tom West's quote from Kidder's book: "Not everything worth doing is worth doing well".
20.
by dandrews 11y ago
Parent is probably taking the CNN article at face value.
21.
by dandrews 11y ago
Some pilots are just drivers - I'd certainly rather ride with the former, given the choice! While it's tempting to characterize some programmers as just coders, that sounds pejorative and wouldn't be very charitable of me. S
22.
by dandrews 11y ago
" Why do you want to 'grok' them? Just use them. " You remind me of my first ground school instructor. I'd asked her why it was necessary to use rudder in a turn, and she waved her hand dismissively. "Just st
23.
by dandrews 11y ago
Apologies - I fat-fingered a mobile downvote instead of the upvote you deserved. Aargh.
24.
by dandrews 11y ago
> "I think it's fair to call it a marketing ploy." Or rather, good business.
25.
by dandrews 11y ago
Podunk? Perhaps, but it was already well positioned for growth. I-4 (runs NE/SW through the state) was yanked over specifically to run through town, and we had that lovely SAC base with the 12,000 foot twin runways that was recently
26.
by dandrews 11y ago
I think that GW2K was one of the first companies (if not the first) to ship PC-compatible machines without parity memory. The low-margin industry followed, and pretty soon all peecees were non-parity, non-ECC. The public doesn't unde
27.
by dandrews 11y ago
Yeah well, "K" means "1000", always has. The metric system got there first! We tried to co-opt "K" for years, but we should admit the error and use Kib when we mean 1024 bits.
28.
by dandrews 11y ago
Yes, clever. The dual hinges don't open up on a consistent arc, their action is recalculated each time based on sonar measurement.
29.
by dandrews 11y ago
Not advice you want to hear, but you did ask. Call me latter-day-hippie, mired in a non mercenary and somewhat apocryphal past, but I don't much care for domain squatters. You presumably bought your domain name for a song, then couldn
30.
by dandrews 11y ago
Originally published here: http://firstround.com/review/speed-as-a-habit/

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