semiotagonal

14 ms·

1.
by semiotagonal 7y ago
Git uses hashes to identify commits, but does it actually chain them, i.e. include the previous hash as an input to the current hash?
2.
by semiotagonal 7y ago
Sure. It's the world Americans already live in, except for certain specifically defined types of lies (e.g. fraud, perjury, libel of non-public figures, etc). Of interest: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/arch
3.
by semiotagonal 7y ago
In the US it is almost impossible for a public figure, especially a political figure, to win a libel lawsuit. In theory, a deliberate, malicious false statement against a public figure would count as libel; but in practice basically everyth
4.
by semiotagonal 7y ago
If you want a short-and-simple username, you need to do what it takes to defend it, even if that means logging into twitter once in a while. Even registered trademarks require active defense, or they lapse[0]. Why should it be as easy as
5.
by semiotagonal 7y ago
I don't think a smaller number of dumb startups will have much negative impact, considering the huge numbers of highly paid employees the giant "fang companies" have.
6.
by semiotagonal 7y ago
There's nothing about GPS that says it should provide continuous information to others about one's location.
7.
by semiotagonal 7y ago
Also if you sit near the Android people, let them know I'm going to be irritated if I find that my parents have been tricked into activating location tracking on their phones again! It seems like I have to shut off all the various Goog
8.
by semiotagonal 7y ago
Thanks for the response. I'm mostly familiar with Google Docs in the workplace, where it was apparent who was reading what document at a particular moment from a list of users at the upper-right. Separately, on my personal account, at
9.
by semiotagonal 7y ago
I wish he'd keep it running, then write on lessons learned turning $200K into something much less, should such a loss be manifest.
10.
by semiotagonal 7y ago
I think you're missing my point that even if you willingly impose Google surveillance on yourself, Google Drive is still worse than Google Analytics because your personally identifiable activity is visible to the author and/or oth
11.
by semiotagonal 7y ago
I should have made it clear I was assuming that people were authenticated to their Google account. I think most people who use GMail never log out, and might not check the URL and realize they were navigating to a Google doc.
12.
by semiotagonal 7y ago
Doesn't Google Drive show the identity of someone reading the document to other people reading it, or at least the owner? That's worse than just collecting analytics internally at Google.
13.
by semiotagonal 7y ago
> The good news is that there is one way to avoid this (the only way AFIK) I managed to recover from a similar level of burnout/pissed-offedness by changing my domain of software development completely. I got out of high-stakes ser
14.
by semiotagonal 7y ago
If I were the sixth person at a five-person startup I'd be forever worried that I was just on the wrong side of the get-rich-if-it-succeeds line.
15.
by semiotagonal 7y ago
That's actually pretty minimal. It only looks cluttered because the desk is small. The shelves are only half-used, and mostly in proper stacks.
16.
by semiotagonal 7y ago
Learning on the job in an unforgiving domain can be costly.
17.
by semiotagonal 7y ago
I did about 0.1% of the amount of research you did a few years ago and was really struck by the irreversibility of mistakes. Other engineering domains can have irreversible (e.g. fatal) mistakes as well, but they don't have as many en
18.
by semiotagonal 7y ago
Discovering new physics doesn't move us away from a unified theory, it just means we were wrong about how much farther we have to go.
19.
by semiotagonal 7y ago
This is why having a social safety net is so important. If society can put a floor under how badly people can lose, they'll feel more free to try low-probability high-payoff endeavors.
20.
by semiotagonal 7y ago
From a professional perspective, does it make sense to get on a train that is so crowded already? Step 0 is probably to take Andrew Ng's on Coursera, but as of right now, you'd be among "2,647,287 already enrolled!" [0]
21.
by semiotagonal 7y ago
A person who made his name manipulating unwitting people probably isn't the best spokesman for social responsibility.
22.
by semiotagonal 7y ago
Every laptop should ship with a charger and a roll of electrical tape.
23.
by semiotagonal 7y ago
On Reddit, several weeks ago, I strongly objected to an author singling out a presidential candidate with a nickname, while not doing the same for the others. It's fair to say I was outraged since I threw an "F" word in there
24.
by semiotagonal 7y ago
How hard would it be to run Slack in a special VM that brokered UI events from another application? I.e. the latest Slack would be running in a VM that made everything seem normal to it, but in reality the UI input and output would be suppl
25.
by semiotagonal 7y ago
I don't believe it will happen, but if it did, I think cities and outlying areas would return to a division according to desired excitement level, instead of who can afford what.
26.
by semiotagonal 7y ago
The number of people involved in the authentication would have to exceed the other party's ability to bribe them. Corrupt practices could extend to both companies involved in a deal.
27.
by semiotagonal 7y ago
Perhaps a deal could be worked out where the satellite companies also have to launch Atacama-scale telescopes, where Musk et al have to pay for the difference in cost between Atacama and orbit.
28.
by semiotagonal 7y ago
> ...the serial entrepreneur and investor. I still don't understand the virtue of being a "serial entrepreneur", especially with no indication of what businesses were created. It just sounds like someone who bailed on sev
29.
by semiotagonal 7y ago
I would add... * Supplier relies on middleman because they can't write convincing sales pitch in the target market's language. * Supplier relies on middleman so they can get into (and out of) business more quickly; don't need
30.
by semiotagonal 7y ago
The vast majority of the time I don't notice noise at all, but when I'm doing something at the edge of my ability, when I can't quite nail it , noise becomes extremely distracting.

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