parallel

6 ms·

91.
by parallel 15y ago
The city of London has it's own police force called the Meltropolitan Police (the Met). This is a different organisation to the normal English police. I think the Met carry guns but the normal police don't. Rome has a similar thing with th
92.
by parallel 15y ago
Agree, but perhaps without the "be a man" part. The offer to to do "anything we can" comes across as an offer to do what is asked, so a passive stance. "We're here to help" is not the same as "we're helping by doing this."
93.
by parallel 15y ago
Is this sort of thing an issue in other countries. I'm a tech founder in Australia. I don't think we have the same level of anxiety about being sued for unknowingly breaching a software patent. Can anyone comment on this? Is our patent s
94.
by parallel 15y ago
Few downvotes there. Like to hear why people disagree or if I've said something clearly wrong. Note that my comment was specifically about criticism of the design being familiar and not innovative. I'm saying these things are ok if the de
95.
by parallel 15y ago
"Newer isn’t better. Better is better." Sometimes it takes courage to put forward a design that doesn't have the glamour of the new. Things that work well can often be boring. EDIT: quote is from http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=280368
96.
by parallel 15y ago
Right, I didn't realise that mechanism existed, thanks for the heads up. It makes sense, removing the opportunity for slippery dealings with preferential treatment of some debt over the rest.
97.
by parallel 15y ago
As I understand it you default on a loan, you don't default as an entity. So it's doesn't really make sense to talk about Greece defaulting without saying which loans they defaulted on. Hence the "kind of"/"selective" etc. I read this as
98.
by parallel 15y ago
The story here is, 'hide complexity'? Or perhaps 'Focus on the details of user experience'? I love the reference to "all of this business at the top". Perhaps there's a design principle in there. If a user is ever referring to "all this b
99.
by parallel 15y ago
Yeah - this works well and there are no catches. The data is in a few human readable files and there's a path in the config file (.taskrc) pointing to the directory where they live. So you just move the data folder to your dropbox and edit
100.
by parallel 15y ago
Somehow, no idea why, that seems really appropriate.
101.
by parallel 15y ago
I'm a big fan of taskwarrior, a CLI todo list for linux. I find I use it more than web based ones as I'm always in the console so there's little mental mode switching to use it. Basically not having to go to a browser or touch the mouse m
102.
by parallel 15y ago
Yeah, fair comment. The art is deciding if there is sufficient room for improvement or if a novel approach will work. If I were splitting hairs I'd say we agree in that if the "right" solution isn't there then we don't have a solution.
103.
by parallel 15y ago
I didn't say stop improving on solutions that miss the mark. I just think there is a lot of unexplored territory for software developers. People like to solve problems they have and understand. To do list apps are the classic example for
104.
by parallel 15y ago
My plea to the HN community; stop solving the same problems. If you really want to make something that people want then find something that people don't already have. This may be outside you area of immediate experience. (Note - this com
105.
by parallel 15y ago
I think we agree, but to elaborate; The point I'm making is that this shouldn't be the case (and needn't be a joke). I've raised funds from "friendly" sources a few times. In each case it's been made clear that the investor should be doi
106.
by parallel 15y ago
"We raised from nearly every friend and family member we could get excited about our idea. The joke is, if Earbits fails we won’t have a friend or family member left." Something is very wrong here. If people invest in anything they must t
107.
by parallel 15y ago
The statement is a little misleading. He's not saying you can't have a function that grows faster than e^x as you certainly can, for example the the gamma function. I think he's saying that for a process where the rate of growth depends on
108.
by parallel 15y ago
Perhaps this would be more intuitive if shown graphically. Something like; draw a curve where the gradient is the value. As the value goes up, so does the gradient, so does the value and so on. What you have drawn, e^x is the function wh
109.
by parallel 15y ago
Part of the reason for this is that the center of the galaxy is in the South, at about 30 degrees. So many astronomically interesting things are in that direction. Obviously not the case for a solar system object like an asteroid however.
110.
by parallel 15y ago
So, a question for you epochwolf. Why would you not say these things to people face to face?
111.
by parallel 15y ago
I don't think the concept of contributing anonymously is necessarily a bad thing. Your online personality might be polite and contribute positively where as your real world personality might very shy and unable to participate in discussion
112.
by parallel 15y ago
That idea was from a concept I came across somewhere on the web; "No one wants to read your s--t" . I think it's something of a mantra in the advertising world. It struck me at the time as I was working with a CEO who thought length == qu
113.
by parallel 15y ago
Yeah, I take the point. I wouldn't like to lead a work life where my only motivation comes from artificial rewards or motivational hacks. If there is no intrinsic motivation in the work then something fundamental has gone wrong, like care
114.
by parallel 15y ago
Perhaps "hack" isn't the right word but there are techniques or tricks that will result in higher productivity. One technique I use is to think about how I would tackle a task if I were to do it. So you start to break it down, think about
115.
by parallel 15y ago
Two quick points on this. 1. Some technical people deliberately explain things in an overly technical way as it boosts their ego. "You don't understand this => I am superior." 2. All communication must be for the recipient. You mu
116.
by parallel 15y ago
Yeah, I agree completely. What they had wasn't adequate and the proof is the outcome. All I'm saying is that from the outside it's easy to take a fairly simple view and propose a technical solution. This looks like a very malicious attack
117.
by parallel 15y ago
I don't think it's accurate to say they didn't have a whiff of this architecture. The hackers accessed and deleted their backups. If your employees can do this then you're vulnerable.