Viewing profile — alextgordon

Literally the definition of the integers is that (x + 1) != x. Wrapping is bad enough, but at least tends to makes failures noticeable. Saturating arithmetic makes it really hard t…

It also lacks what you might call 'forward secrecy'. If someone gets access to my master password and an old 1password backup, then they get all the passwords in the backup. But wi…

The use of != there is very confusing but what they mean is stores a precision along each number, not that -0 != -0.0 e.g. in Python: >>> from decimal import Decimal as D >>> 2 * D…

Maybe it is a failure of imagination, but I don't get how nest can be more efficient than manual control. Cold? Switch the heating on. Hot? Switching the heating off. Why'd you nee…

You're right, but I guess you're being downvoted because nobody wants to hear it. JavaScript will never get anything like numpy, because it doesn't have integers. Doing mathematics…

It's interesting that you give the example of Breivik. Don't you think that a far-right nutcase like him would relish the reinstatement of the death penalty?

I don't bother reversing decks. It's more efficient to do more repetitions of Native->Foreign than it is to do equal repetitions of N->F and F->N. i.e. if you can respond that the …

The average person isn't even aware that VLC is an illegal circumvention tool in the United States under the DMCA. I fail to see how restrictions on encryption software would have …

The comment system on HN discourages discussion of the article, because threads cannot be collapsed and so there is only space for 2 or 3 top-level comments to get much attention. …

kik = a messaging app kike = a jewish person

And there's at least tens of millions of people who only have one name: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mononymous_person#Modern_times https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesian_names#…

The curse of oil.

This has the same problem as hyperloop, then. Sure the main part of the journey is quicker, but if you have to take a connecting flight from New York to Boston, and a train from Lu…

If he wants to control where people get his software, he should have published it under a proprietary license. Not saying he does, though.

People are only trying to help. Better now than when the press hears about it and starts taking the piss out of them.

Xcode works fine for me. I can't say the same for Android Studio, which seems to require a machine more powerful than a top-of-the-line MBP.

I don't think I understand. If they could rehabilitate unsuitable donor organs and didn't have to worry about rejection, there wouldn't be a shortage. Isn't that the end game?

Still, Uber knows who you are. If you damage their car they can invoice you. Presumably they will have CCTV in these things?

Useless clickbait. Nobody ever claimed that the one and only benefit of standing is to "burn excess calories". Personally I had developed back pain from too much sitting. When I st…

On OS X, Adium, Textual and Colloquy are predominantly built in HTML. It's hardly groundbreaking.

Or fruit juices. Orange juice has almost as much sugar as coca cola.

They could use multiple signing keys. One in America, one in Hong Kong, one in Germany, etc. If a firmware update is not signed in all (or N of M) jurisdictions, the secure enclave…

Totally awesome! I was just about to make exactly this tomorrow, now I don't need to. My problem is that I would like to generate wrappers for an API, in a variety of popular langu…

What is our purpose if computers can do everything better than us? It feels like computers have taken one aspect of humanness: logic. Computers could do arithmetic, do algebra, pla…

…as is Swift with NSOperation/GCD. Apple's process isolation tech (XPC) is built upon their multithreading tech (GCD). The two are complementary, not antagonistic.