penrod

6 ms·

1.
by penrod 11y ago
Hear, hear. The freedom to vote with your feet is one of the most important characteristics of the American experiment. Among all voting methods it is uniquely effective and accessible - you get a large roster of fifty 'candidates&#x27
2.
by penrod 11y ago
Any discussion of Singletons is incomplete without https://sites.google.com/site/steveyegge2/singleton-consider...
3.
by penrod 11y ago
Quite. Who cares whether the NYT revised the article? The more salient criticism is that the article is a deeply lazy and tendentious exercise in using insinuation to push a predetermined narrative.
4.
by penrod 12y ago
I wonder how many people would cite the War on Drugs as the primary reason they identify as Libertarian.
5.
by penrod 12y ago
It is no surprise that Treasury made a profit on its investments in troubled companies, since the fact of investing in them effectively rigged the market in their favor: If the government declares that it will not allow a company to fail, t
6.
by penrod 12y ago
"Unfortunately, as a result of my work, several more Linux storage developers came out publicly in favor of harassment and assault." I really would like links to these public statements. I'm not a fan of shaming, but if peopl
7.
by penrod 12y ago
It seems like you are also selling something. And the price, which you do not mention, is the curtailment of free speech, a steep price to pay for the privilege of having my delicate eyes protected from what those bad salesmen are selling
8.
by penrod 12y ago
"Well, you are aware that the roads were built for cars right?" Unless you're referring only to freeways, that's a nice bit of revisionism. Especially in any city older than 100 years, the streets were built to carry tro
9.
by penrod 12y ago
The horror - horror! - of rich people having more stuff than poor people is not alleviated by preventing prices from rising in times of scarcity - rich people can just pay others to stand in line for them. Equity of distribution doesn&#x27
10.
by penrod 12y ago
The more positions are elected, the more power the majority have to impose upon minorities. It is well known that pure democracy does not invariably promote liberal society, which is why the Founders of the US Constitution specifically reje
11.
by penrod 12y ago
Speaking without specific knowledge of the junction you mention, but with 20 years' experience of urban cycling, my observation is that this type of accident is usually a function of cycling too close to the curb. I've learned to
12.
by penrod 12y ago
This might be of interest to you: https://github.com/gilesjb/copalis.sql
13.
by penrod 12y ago
> In the modern American cultural context, monkeys are associated with bananas. Actually, code monkeys are associated with Fritos.
14.
by penrod 13y ago
A nitpick about terms, but not all discrimination against women is 'institutional' sexism. Institutional prejudice may be sufficient but is definitely not necessary for acts of sexism to occur. People are quite capable of acting o
15.
by penrod 13y ago
The article is a little unfair to Seattle. Note the alacrity with which the city clamped down on Lyft and Uber - clearly you can get some things done here if you know the right people.
16.
by penrod 13y ago
It should be abundantly clear at this point that the established media is antipathetic to the tech sector. Part of this is economic - journalists (with some justification) blame the web for undermining their economic security. Another part
17.
by penrod 13y ago
Quite. I am puzzled by the article. As even the author points out, binary search is tail-recursive, and therefore trivially transformed to an iterative form. So why on earth profile a recursive implementation?
18.
by penrod 13y ago
Appeal to authority and all that, but.. "the pressure on the legislature to license an occupation rarely comes from the members of the public . . . On the contrary, the pressure invariably comes from the occupation itself." Milton
19.
by penrod 13y ago
It is not just that large companies are more efficient at dealing with regulation; Large companies actively lobby for regulation as a way of protecting themselves from (smaller) potential competitors. It may be that regulation for the publi
20.
by penrod 13y ago
The self-regard of journalists never ceases to impress me. What other profession would believe that they have priveliged claim to the most fundamental of the rights enumerated in the Bill or Rights?
21.
by penrod 13y ago
The difference between disability and a stipend is that you lose disability benefits the minute you engage in any productive activity, whereas the stipend dispersed by the Cherokee tribe came with no such conditions. Unsurprisingly, people
22.
by penrod 13y ago
I hate hipster hackers as much as anyone, but what we have here is a case of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Two_Cultures The arts and culture establishment, with their refined humanities backgrounds, and accustomed t
23.
by penrod 13y ago
The Dymaxion car had three wheels, two at the front, with rear-wheel steering and the engine mounted at the back. Imagine a car with the dynamic qualities of a Reliant Robin. Driven backwards. Unsurprisingly, the car rolled over at the 1933
24.
by penrod 13y ago
I initially read the title as "Drawing fractals with PostScript," which is also fun. Here's a fractal fern in ps: /t0 [ .85 -.04 .04 .85 0 1.6 ] def /t1 [ .2 .23 -.26 .22 0 1.24] def /t2 [-.15 .26 .2
25.
by penrod 13y ago
My only objection to Hyperloop is that it's so damned ugly . What ought to be an inspirational feat of engineering looks, under the proposed pillar design, like an elevated oil pipeline. I can't imagine anyone wanting to look at
26.
by penrod 13y ago
Quoting from the Hyperloop alpha paper: "To further reduce the inertial acceleration experienced by passengers, the capsule and/or tube will incorporate a mechanism that will allow a degree of ‘banking’." A banked turn transf
27.
by penrod 13y ago
I share some of your puzzlement. Fuller's reputation seems to far exceed his actual accomplishments: Most of his inventions were never put into practical use, and some such as the Dymaxion car were actively lethal. It appears Fuller wa
28.
by penrod 13y ago
You may believe that you have taken a principled stand on these issues, but unless your psychology is different from everyone else it's probable that your elevation of these specific issues, and the solutions you advocate, owes more to
29.
by penrod 13y ago
These are good examples of information that you rationally choose not to learn. The second part of my question was whether you believe some third party should be able to require that the information be withheld from you even if you want
30.
by penrod 13y ago
I find this perspective interesting. What information about yourself do you think you would act badly on if it were made available to you? And who would you trust to make the decision about withholding information, and to not abuse their au

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