Viewing profile — fshaun

I have never understood the argument that taxes on e.g. gasoline are regressive and this should not be raised. When we find an externality that is not accounted for in costs, are w…

Yes, agreed. It is a step backward to manipulate and recombine bytes. "Extracting an integer from a packet, then changing it's internal format" is exactly what is being done, and t…

Every thread about high speed rail seems to have this response to an argument no one is making. NY-LA doesn't make sense, but it is nationally embarrassing not to have the BosWash …

My experience in London was much better... sure, a hot market meant you needed to move fast, but no hoops around local guarantors or months of pay stubs. It was easier than most lo…

Skimming the benchmark, I didn't see any negative tests (checking for words not contained), which can be as or more important than the positive case depending on the expected use.

Thinking things through isn't necessarily pessimistic. When I have a contingency plan already in mind, I worry less about the event actually happening.

As a visually impaired user, this is my single biggest gripe with PDFs. Its also annoying that zooming on many websites completely breaks the layout, often overlapping text or push…

> Venmo was one of the few (maybe only) system that allows you to pay users who are not on their system. Say you need to pay Joe and you were a Venmo user but Joe wasn't. You could…

I agree re: favoring Oxford comma, but I don't think this reasoning supports it. Jane && Tom || Bill && Wendy || Susie && Frank is unambiguous in e.g. C++, as the language specifie…

Good point about incompatible goals. One way out is to align the value as perceived by users with the value as perceived by engineers. If users aren't willing to pay for reliabilit…

For learning a new language, if I have enough time, I read through the entire book. This helps me learn the terminology and names for concepts. It's much easier to search for more …

> discussion websites like reddit/HN are better than Usenet I strongly disagree with this, as Usenet and even mailing lists offer many advantages over web forums. With web forums, …

This was my thought as well. I recall reading that IQ/"G" and work products were the dominant predicative factors for good hires. Can anyone help with a source that confirms/refute…

I don't undrstand this. You know the seat can recline. I always position my laptop so the screen would be pushed closed instead of being jammed, in case the seat in front of me sud…

It's not just the space; reclining can be the difference between being stable or not. Often when sleeping in an upright seat, my CoG is such that I'll lean left/right/forward. Recl…

Demand is proportional to perceived threat, not actual threat. This "ROI" is one of the reasons terrorism continues. A city can be quite safe even if its residents are not rational…

Another difference I appreciate is that UK traffic lights cycle red -> yellow -> green. So, given a red light I have at least 1-2 seconds that's safe, and usually more since the ti…

The issue is that the slowness is unnecessary. No, I cannot give it a second when it should only take 100ms. There is such a thing as pride in craft that seems sorely lacking today…

I don't think introducing an unbounded liability is the solution to this (or perhaps any) problem. Would this work for 99% of flights? Sure. But it's just asking to be gamed.

Ignoring your age generalization, the amount of free time should not be a hiring consideration. The only question is "can you meet our expectation of working X amount of time." Of …

But inappropriate != illegal. The union of what each person considers socially inappropriate is a rather large set... both undesirable and impossible to legally enforce. As other c…

C-q (quoted-insert) will insert the next input character ignoring any other bindings. So: C-q C-\ C-q C-] C-q C-^ C-q C-_

Ah, memories. My inspiration to study CS, though probably fortunate that it was mostly dead by sophomore year, or my college GPA would have been much worse. Netrek's macro system w…

If everything is wired and functioning correctly I believe you are correct; the article mentions the case of electricians mixing up hot and ground wires. Presumably an appliance ma…

I suspect not, but I'd be happy to hear otherwise. Certification is as much about process and traceability as it is about the code itself. Open source naturally tends to give visib…