Viewing profile — TheCoelacanth

I'm not disagreeing that there are cases where it makes sense to implement a b-tree; I don't think there are any cases where it makes sense to implement a b-tree (in production) as…

Kobo is already by far the best e-reader brand and things like this just cement it further. It is the only mainstream e-reader I'm aware of where you can simply change a single lin…

That seems like a pretty niche problem. There are already numerous high quality browsers, databases, llm inference engines and 3d game engines and only a tiny portion of devs are w…

The only context where the overhead of a virtual function call matters is in tight inner loops. That's by far the easiest place to apply the "write something simple and readable an…

Google needs to be forced to divest Android and Chrome. It's the only solution to this problem.

Choosing the right data structure isn't in opposition to making simple, readable code; it's part of it. Nothing over-complicates code more than a bad choice of data structure. If y…

Yes, but there's not a chance that there's a material difference in performance between those options because of virtual functions. Unless you're doing something really stupid, not…

No, it's a false dichotomy. When working on large applications, by far the single most important factor in performance is having simple and understandable code. Understandable but …

There's a two-hundred year gap been it bring composed to capturing it in written form. It was in oral form and didn't written down (outside of some short fragements) for the ~200 y…

It's absurd to claim that there wasn't a enormous Arabic influence on European science. There's a reason that algebra, alchemy, algorithm, alcohol and alkaline all start with "al" …

To an extent, but insurance also serves a vital economic function of allowing people to spread out risk. The counter-parties in insurance are also sophisticated businesses who are …

The problem is that it completely eliminates the consumer surplus from the transaction and converts it to producer surplus. It basically erases all benefits of capitalism for the a…

Yeah, surveillance pricing might sometimes result in poor people paying less because they care more about low prices, but it can just as easily result in them paying more because t…

Where are you getting this information? Everything I can see puts that development well after the poems' composition around 800-700 BCE, though perhaps before they had been fully w…

Every translation has to make tradeoffs. There's no way to perfectly translate a 2500 year old poem whose audience had an almost unfathomably different world view than a modern aud…

I don't think Homeric Greek was archaic at the time it was composed. It would have been by the time it was finally written down instead of being passed down orally. There is a lot …

As the least "flowery" translation, I suspect Wilson would do a lot better if the test was repeated with longer passages. What seems good for a few lines can get very tedious after…

That's nonsense because it's trivial to move data internationally without ever crossing a physical border. There is no reason for anyone to ever try to smuggle digital data through…

Because preventing crime is drastically more important to having a functioning society than being able to target advertising slightly more accurately.

We will never remove all evolutionary pressures short of a totalitarian society that makes sure every single person has exactly the same probability of reproducing. We have changed…

"Cookie banner" is a colloquial name; not a technically accurate description of what the banners are for. GDPR is not about cookies; it is about tracking. Whether the tracking is d…

No, you don't need consent for that. It falls under the legitimate interest exception. You need to disclose it in your privacy policy, you need to delete it after a reasonable rete…

Most aspects of 18th century coal mining probably sound like really bad ideas. It's a notoriously dangerous job. The engine would also typically be at the top of the mine, not deep…

Transparently corrupt maybe.

I don't think you can plausibly claim that the US was a leader in technology until the 20th century, which is long after the US started having enormous amounts of immigration.