thinkingeric

5 ms·

1.
by thinkingeric 15y ago
He doesn't mention emacs-starter-kit, so as a community service, I'm pointing it out. I had used Emacs for a long time, and switching to this made my life much easier. And my customizations still worked fine (although I was able to remove m
2.
by thinkingeric 15y ago
I would label it as "essentially correct". The odds are very slim that you will a) Find gold in California b) Become a rock star c) Win a lottery d) Strike it rich and famous as an 'entrepreneur' e) Achieve above average, long-term gains by
3.
by thinkingeric 15y ago
'The Little Schemer' is not intended to be a tutorial on Scheme. To quote the preface, "The goal of this book is to teach the reader to think recursively". Similarly, the other books in the series have well-defined goals.
4.
by thinkingeric 15y ago
When I first read the comments here, I imagined Gabriel knocking his head on the wall, Charlie Brown-style. But the more I think about it, the more I think he might appreciate the layers of absurdity.
5.
by thinkingeric 15y ago
And 'Write Yourself a Scheme in 48 Hours" http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Write_Yourself_a_Scheme_in_48_H...
6.
by thinkingeric 15y ago
"Then I added a little padding time because everything always takes longer than expected." If you are implementing something which is almost exactly like something you personally have implemented before, then your estimate will be almost ex
7.
by thinkingeric 15y ago
No. They are kvetching.
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by thinkingeric 15y ago
Mr. Yegge says, "it only takes a few people to poison a community" Yes, and it is the kvetchers that are putting a black cloud over a language and community that has been evolving quite nicely otherwise.
9.
by thinkingeric 15y ago
I use a slide rule regularly. It is neither quick nor accurate, but it is useful in the same way that making approximate calculations in your head is useful. That is to say, added precision doesn't help you understand the relationships in a
10.
by thinkingeric 15y ago
"most children classified as 'dullards' by the education system just don't understand how to cope with the traditional model of teaching" Can't say I was ever classified as a 'dullard' but my grade school scores indicated that I was. Even w
11.
by thinkingeric 15y ago
Not at all. I agree with Spolsky about needing two monitors for GUI work, but otherwise more screen real estate pretty much equates with shifting your focus between contexts, which in my experience is what kills productivity. Knowing what y
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by thinkingeric 16y ago
"teach them to estimate" I suspect that the 'calculator age' has caused kids (and kids that have now grown up to be parents) and maybe educators to over-value an increase in significant digits in calculations. It's interesting that the meth
13.
by thinkingeric 16y ago
If it makes you feel any better, the guy is talking about 1982. If you were 'in' to computers at all as a hobbyist during that era, it typically meant low-level tinkering. Not at all unusual. My own personal stories from that period sound t
14.
by thinkingeric 16y ago
Yeah, I caught the 'tort reform' misdirection as well. Also, I think earns north of $170,000 a year, which made his turning down the insurance 'on principle' a bit ridiculous.
15.
by thinkingeric 16y ago
Also, this is of course over and above what my company pays in premiums. Altogether it is a significant amount of money for a family of four that has no major medical problems. For a small business, the overall burden is problematic.
16.
by thinkingeric 16y ago
Something to add to the discussion: She says "my recent M.R.I. cost $1,300 at the “retail” rate, while the rate negotiated by the insurance company was $700." I have insurance and the insurance company (BCBS) will only pay what it thinks is
17.
by thinkingeric 16y ago
"lower the client's perception of risk" That is a profound way to put it and certainly accounts for a lot of the premium that clients are willing to pay.
18.
by thinkingeric 16y ago
His breakdown is applicable to service work in general.
19.
by thinkingeric 16y ago
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. This kind of analysis is required for any service business. Having done so for our company, I have the following observations on 'What to do?": Scale -- Bingo! The goal is to make the fixed overhead (incl e
20.
by thinkingeric 16y ago
I'd add to that having already been paid for it and needing to hand off to others to maintain. I guarantee that the next project you do will be at a whole new level.
21.
by thinkingeric 16y ago
I'm sorry I don't have time to go through your app more, but here some things that occurred to me (I have 17 month old and 3 yr old, so just out of your target): 1) Try to collect data and offer up suggestions 2) Try to get a good Facebook
22.
by thinkingeric 16y ago
Not to mention that they can inherit 'assets' other than wealth: connections, experience, confidence, cushion, as well as less consequential financial support that just makes their lives a bit more fulfilling.
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by thinkingeric 16y ago
Here is a quote from that essay that says it much clearer than my pithy 'guideline': "I prefer minimum-length but maximum-information names, and then let the context fill in the rest. Globals, for instance, typically have little context wh
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by thinkingeric 16y ago
I use an additional guideline: things that are created near where they are used can be abbreviated more than something that is created 'far away'.
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by thinkingeric 16y ago
http://www.treasurydirect.gov/indiv/indiv.htm Also perhaps money market funds.
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by thinkingeric 16y ago
The progression in your list of 'safety net' investments is 1) Cash 2) Savings accounts 3) Certificates of deposit 4) Bonds. That last step is a doozy. Considered this coursely, BND is perhaps appropriate. But it is hardly 'safe'. I think
27.
by thinkingeric 16y ago
Thank you pointing this out. The audio is nice to listen to with the slides.
28.
by thinkingeric 16y ago
The downvotes to my response to his self-proclaimed precociousness indicate that others find my implication to be 'irritating' as well. However, anyone who is bogged down in the math would most certainly benefit from the sources in this lis
29.
by thinkingeric 16y ago
This is a noteworthy objection, and applies to much of Harvey's course at Berkeley as well. I think the rationale for his approach is so that student's don't get tripped up by using only math examples. Several people have brought up HTDP, w
30.
by thinkingeric 16y ago
If you "did" this book at the age of 14 and came away with the idea that it was about "hard" math, your learning/time ratio might not have been as high as you imagined.

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