demallien

6 ms·

1.
by demallien 9y ago
The problem with testing algorithms is that it in no way tests intelligence. I would think that 9 out of 10 programmers that know an algorithm would not be able to derive the algorithm from first principles. So you are just testing esoter
2.
by demallien 10y ago
Regardless, Enigma was pretty low-value intelligence. It would give you things like the daily position of u-boat packs, but generally speaking there isn't much you can do with this type of information - maybe increase the ability of y
3.
by demallien 11y ago
10ms is the absolute maximum difference in time, if the source was located on a line running through the two detectors. If the source was located on a perpendicular bisector of the line running through the two detectors, the difference in
4.
by demallien 11y ago
Because Falcon9 is a big launcher taking a serious payload into orbit. This means that the first stage has to have very large engines - so large that they can't be throttled down to hover, they have to kill velocity at the point of tou
5.
by demallien 11y ago
"The markets thought Lehman had big exposure to the US residential and commercial mortgages, hence they couldn't borrow, hence they went bust." This is the sort of thing I mean when I say derivatives are hard to evaluate corr
6.
by demallien 11y ago
If this was true, Lehman Brothers would still be in operation today. Derivatives, by their very nature, are harder to truly evaluate in terms of value, and the chance of them going horribly wrong has already been demonstrated as being non-
7.
by demallien 11y ago
It's not so much the problem being simple, but more about it being a problem you have already solved. If you give me a blitter API and ask me to write a composited then yes, I can churn out the required quantity of code with ease each
8.
by demallien 11y ago
I think you'll find that andreyf codes on SarcasmOS..
9.
by demallien 11y ago
Firstly, you assert that everyone wants their own big car. This is not true. I don't want one, and I'm not alone in that amongst people living in cities with good public transport. I choose my mode of travel (including cars) as a
10.
by demallien 11y ago
Cars are still bloody expensive. Many many people make the decision not to buy a car when they live in a city with good public transport. It's only in places like Australia and most of the US where you practically need a car that own
11.
by demallien 11y ago
I'm not convinced that people linking immigrants and terrorism are particularly worried about the actual immigrants turning out to be terrorists in disguise. It's more a worry that they will just add to the ghettoisation of Islami
12.
by demallien 11y ago
Well, because the comments being made are laced with gender, so the gender of the comments is surely relevant, no? I mean, I understand where you are coming from - the title can be interpreted to apply to all men, when it only applies to
13.
by demallien 11y ago
Maybe I'm being obtuse, but wouldn't that be an argument for prohibition? As in, drugs that aren't prohibited cause much more harm than those that are?
14.
by demallien 11y ago
The tube line is a custom one-off system. The components aren't though.
15.
by demallien 11y ago
I'm a regular Autolib user in Paris, and I have to say Autolib is just pure awesome. It's the piece of the puzzle that has been missing in public transport, because sometimes you just need a car. Some examples: Moving large bulky
16.
by demallien 11y ago
Orbits are not intuitive. To head "downwards", you have to slow down your orbital velocity, which reduces the radius of the orbit. In other words you have to decelerate. When you do the maths, you actually have to decelerate more
17.
by demallien 11y ago
Just don't call it Rapture
18.
by demallien 11y ago
All maintenance on aircraft is closely tracked. They can probably find evidence of maintenance operations that were conducted on the found piece and confirm that it matches the maintenance records for the aircraft. It's a similar idea
19.
by demallien 11y ago
I also use Siri to send text messages if I'm driving or riding my bike, or to find the answer to a piece of trivia, or to launch applications, rather than having to hunt for them. That makes quite a lot of use cases, but nevertheless I
20.
by demallien 11y ago
Many members of my female-only netball club use 'guys' to refer to ourselves...
21.
by demallien 11y ago
Noooooo, that's the whole point! The question that is being asked is not "how to make gun owners less likely to shoot people" but rather "how to make it less likely that people get shot". Per capita is absolutely th
22.
by demallien 11y ago
This accurately catches the reasoning behind my approach to testing though. When you fix a bug, write a test that reproduces the bug first. That way, when someone tries to refactor the messy code, they'll know that they broke something
23.
by demallien 11y ago
I was just going to down vote you, that's all trolling deserves on HN, but on the off chance that you're just ignorant, and not actually trolling: 1) there are 5 OSes with more than 100million users. Apple makes two of them 2) the
24.
by demallien 11y ago
Stick with the pricing. The application is niche, and as such should have a higher price. It has been noted many times over that software has a bimodal pricing scheme - very cheap for off the shelf software, and very expensive for bespo
25.
by demallien 11y ago
Wouldn't you just use Siri for that? I have enough apps that it's mostly too hard remembering where all but the most commonly used live, so I just tell Siri to open the app. Works like a charm.
26.
by demallien 11y ago
Whilst it is true that there has only been one launch abort so far, if the Shuttle had a launch abort system it would have saved the seven astronauts aboard. Just mentioning this in case someone mistakes your post as arguing that launch abo
27.
by demallien 11y ago
I'm betting on Chuck (as in Yaeger)
28.
by demallien 11y ago
That's not at all what that report says. The graph in the report is talking about the energy usage and production of one household, not global demand. Peak global demand of energy in Australia is very much in the middle of the day as
29.
by demallien 12y ago
Paris already has a very successful shared electric car device called Autolib. I use it at least once a week, and it's brilliant. The scheme works because the battery has a range of about 150km, but the typical trip is only 5-10km. The
30.
by demallien 12y ago
Is this news? I don't know about anyone else, but ever since my undergrad days, I see repeating patterns in nature and I just say to myself "oh, there's another partial differential equation"

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