Viewing profile — dandrews

One misfeature of most "lithium ion" cells is that their cathodes produce oxygen under high temperatures. One very good reason for Segway (e.g.) to use lithium-iron-phosphate cells…

I occasionally receive spam via MC, which I then forward to MC's abuse desk along with a polite note. Every time they have responded quickly and effectively. (Don't forget to tell …

Hierarchical and network DBMSs can scream, but you have to have a competent DBA curate the so-called "physical" relationships (indexes, record and index pointers, child record loca…

Wonder if you could build a competitive search engine with $1b?

It was pretty much taken as gospel everywhere at the time that NO compiler could match the speed and size of a well crafted assembly language routine. Back then there were some nob…

I became severely anemic after a few months and the e/r did an MRI, looking for internal bleeding. They found the tumor then. My GP had x-rayed me, looking for a cardiac anomaly - …

Not chumming for sympathy here, but I've mentioned before on HN that my own pancreatic cancer first manifested itself as a vague feeling of unease at the sternum, and persistent ni…

My 2012 Moto X has a trained keyword (and in fact a dedicated low-power specialized processor to listen for it - one of the things I like about that phone). No "OK Google" for me; …

Rather than an "anonymous feature", how about a "please moderate this post" flag? A post that requests moderation would not be eligible for upvotes or downvotes, or would even appe…

Heh. I also ported Forgy's VPS5 to David Betz's XLISP around that same time, posting it to BiX (anyone remember BiX?). Ran a handful of guess-the-animal toys on it then turned my a…

Contrast with Bill Gosper's quote from Levy's Hackers : "Data is just a dumb kind of programmihg."

Thanks for your gentle correction. (I was thinking of Gray code, as taught to me during my Wonder Years. You're right as rain of course.)

Something I was unaware of: single bit (correctable) read errors are not immediately repaired in NAND. Subsequent in-error reads are repeatedly processed by ECC on the fly, while t…

You may be mistaken: there's at least one shareholder that wishes Apple all the best. ;-)

Because (at least on my Moto X 2012, Android v5.1 Lollipop) rebooting can take upwards of ten minutes. Some OTA updates apparently trigger an 80-some-odd module "optimizing" run, w…

My daughter would disagree with you in re: thinness. The newer thin iPhones are easier to pocket - women's fashion being more form fitting than men's. It's a trade-off that she and…

That sounds like the version told in Levy's Hackers. Maybe someone in HN-land can verify that; I can't find my copy.

" This guide is just a starting point for thinking about how to name things. " That's a novel way to introduce an "industry standard".

I'll easily second this recommendation. 30 years ago I was struck by Tom West's quote from Kidder's book: "Not everything worth doing is worth doing well".

Parent is probably taking the CNN article at face value.

Some pilots are just drivers - I'd certainly rather ride with the former, given the choice! While it's tempting to characterize some programmers as just coders, that sounds pejorat…

" Why do you want to 'grok' them? Just use them. " You remind me of my first ground school instructor. I'd asked her why it was necessary to use rudder in a turn, and she waved her…

Apologies - I fat-fingered a mobile downvote instead of the upvote you deserved. Aargh.

> "I think it's fair to call it a marketing ploy." Or rather, good business.

Podunk? Perhaps, but it was already well positioned for growth. I-4 (runs NE/SW through the state) was yanked over specifically to run through town, and we had that lovely SAC base…