191–200 of 472 posts
ReiserFS is the only Linux file system that has lost me data. Back in the day it had performance advantages when dealing with small files. But now I'd be very surprised if ext4 isn't superior to it in every conceivable way.
Being a computer scientist in prison until death must suck so hard. Jesus Christ.
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Because not being able to freely communicate with the larger society is part of the punishment? I dunno, always seemed like an obvious thing.
Why should prisons be about punishment rather than rehabilitation?
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"Ending another human's life" covers a wide range of cases. My recollection of this event, which is now long in the past, is that he was cold, calculating, did not value human life, and was quite comfortable with his kids moving on without their mother. He didn't just do something to her. He permanently damaged his kids, her family, and all of her friends. He made his decision knowing all of this. Redemption? Possibl…
> because he's not like the rest of us I don't think we can know this, and there's no point speculating. I would say that the letter doesn't read as someone who's imperfectly simulating regret.
That said, the premeditated murder of someone, let alone your wife and children's mother, is not something that the average person is capable of. It is entirely different than the crimes one may commit out of rage, fear, or passion (i.e. when your amygdala is driving).
I don't believe in capital punishment or lesser forms of punitive justice, but I have a hard time believing that psychopaths can ever be meaningfully rehabilitated. They are just humans that shipped with a fucked up firmware and that's all there is to that.
I found this to be a great story about mismanagement. It appears Hans made a multitude of small mistakes that ended up crippling his filesystem project. It's extremely interesting to see such a thorough reflection on all the things that went wrong.
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> ending another human's life leaves any possibility of redemption for a person You realize the volunteer soldiers that enter a battle to kill other humans also fall under this scope? Yet in many countries we celebrate their return and service, despite what they may have done. I agree these are not quite the same thing, in how a deed is carried out, but the end result is in fact the same.
> You realize the volunteer soldiers that enter a battle to kill other humans also fall under this scope? Yes. And I strongly believe there's something wrong with their brains. Not so wrong as with the brains of murderers. But to let someone's words override your innate blocks against killing is some weaknes of the brain, easily exploitable with disastrous consequences for humanity. It makes wars feasible.
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I don't believe he did. He's just angling for his next parole date as he got denied this year.
That's very possible. Some of his phrasing sounded like he hoped the parole board would be reading it: I accept responsibility for my crime, I'm using the skills I'm learning in prison, etc. etc. Still, if you asked me about my own sins, I might say similar things: I accept responsibility for acting like a jackass, I'm using the skills I've learned from mentors and through meditation and mindfulness, etc. etc. I'd be…
This is true; but it also struck me as being very similar to things I've heard from recovering addicts going through 12-step programs -- I'm an addict, I'm sorry for all the harm I caused through my addiction, I'm learning skills to help me overcome my addiction, etc. -- so my hunch is that it's there as a result of the anger management program he's going through in prison.
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I think the difference between logical and physical connections is what drives the confusion here. If two nodes can reach each other somehow then for Metcalfe's law they are connected, even if there is no direct connection between them.
Yes, I realized that shortly after reading the replies. Thanks for stating it explicitly. Once again, my brain's inability to parse english caused a multi-decade misunderstanding. Realistically, the only metric that I can think of that makes sense here isn't proportional to |V| or |E| but to the betweenness connectivity of the graph and the average distance between nodes.
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I consider it a Bayesian approach to understanding potential internal drivers. Someone who is not cold and calculating likely has less capacity to completely present the appearance of redemption whereas someone who is calculating has that capacity. So, someone who is demonstrated to be calculating has higher odds of faking a behavior if it is beneficial to them (e.g. leaving prison). It's for him to know, but I don't…
I'm with you on that one. I read the whole thing closely and my conclusion is that some of what's there is playing to an invisible audience. And some of the rest of what's there feels like 'the real Hans' shining through because he hasn't really changed, but is actively trying to change how he is perceived. I could try to enumerate those bits but it doesn't matter all that much, it's just the feeling that I get from…
My impression was that he got an assignment in class to write a letter where he reflects on bad interactions in the past, apologize, and try to put them behind him.
I also got the impression that he really wants people to write/call him and discuss computer stuff, so this might be part of the motivation for writing it.
But I don't know him, so who knows what's going on in his head?