Hacker News: alextgordon

New comment by alextgordon in "Myths about Integer Overflow in Rust"

alextgordon — Fri, 29 Apr 2016 21:12:09 +0000

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 to see that a failure has occurred.

Depending on the performance penalty you're willing to take, there's good alternatives to wrapping, such as: A) 64-bit integers, B) bigints, C) crashing on overflow.

Sure, saturation might be useful in certain circumstances, like manipulating audio samples, but it's generally something you want to make explicit. Using it everywhere? It's madness!

New comment by alextgordon in "A Password Manager That Doesn't Store Passwords"

alextgordon — Sun, 24 Apr 2016 03:23:24 +0000

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 with this, if someone gets access to my master password, they get access to recent passwords, and when I create new passwords they get access to those too. If I'm not aware that my master password has been compromised (why should I be?) then I'd be merrily creating new passwords that are compromised at the moment of their creation.

Don't roll your own crypto, kids.

New comment by alextgordon in "Amazon open-sources Ion – a binary and text interchangable, typed JSON-superset"

alextgordon — Fri, 22 Apr 2016 02:39:08 +0000

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("1.0")
    Decimal('2.0')

    >>> 2 * D("1.000")
    Decimal('2.000')

    >>> D("1.0") == D("1.000")
    True

New comment by alextgordon in "The Internet of Things has a dirty little secret"

alextgordon — Sun, 10 Apr 2016 19:26:31 +0000

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 need a learning algorithm for that?

The website says stuff like

> The babysitter calls to say she picked up the kids from soccer and they’re heading home. You adjust the temperature from your phone so they’ll be cozy.

..which is a first-world problem if I've ever heard one. Just wear an extra layer for 10 minutes while the heating warms up. Jeez.

New comment by alextgordon in "Algebrite, a computer algebra system in JavaScript"

alextgordon — Sat, 09 Apr 2016 05:29:13 +0000

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 without integers is like driving a car without wheels.

New comment by alextgordon in "What It’s Like to Almost Get Executed"

alextgordon — Sun, 03 Apr 2016 04:15:19 +0000

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?

New comment by alextgordon in "Spaced repetition and practice"

alextgordon — Sat, 02 Apr 2016 17:22:40 +0000

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 French for cat is "chat", then you will very likely remember that the English for "chat" is "cat".

New comment by alextgordon in "Amnesty International: Encryption Is a Human Rights Issue"

alextgordon — Fri, 01 Apr 2016 08:34:36 +0000

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 a different outcome. Encryption is built into so many products, it's part of daily life and most people don't even know they're using it.

New comment by alextgordon in "How to Get Out of Bed"

alextgordon — Sun, 27 Mar 2016 15:44:04 +0000

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.

The top comment is often a poor quality one, expressing some controversial view that gets replies, starving the lower top-level comments of upvotes, and cementing its place at the top.

It would be better to collapse replies to all top-level comments, and allow people to expand the replies to the comments they find interesting.

New comment by alextgordon in "Show HN: Kikked – check if any of your NPM repos is trademarked"

alextgordon — Sat, 26 Mar 2016 14:56:31 +0000

kik = a messaging app

kike = a jewish person

New comment by alextgordon in "People with names that break computers"

alextgordon — Fri, 25 Mar 2016 23:59:48 +0000

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#Mononymic_nam...

New comment by alextgordon in "Google parent Alphabet ushers in ‘fiscal discipline era’"

alextgordon — Fri, 25 Mar 2016 04:11:19 +0000

The curse of oil.

New comment by alextgordon in "Boom (YC W16) signs $2B letter of intent with Virgin, $5B total"

alextgordon — Wed, 23 Mar 2016 23:57:46 +0000

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 Luton to London, it's overall slower than a subsonic plane.

New comment by alextgordon in "I've Just Liberated My Modules"

alextgordon — Wed, 23 Mar 2016 01:28:38 +0000

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

New comment by alextgordon in "Boom (YC W16) – Supersonic Passenger Airplanes"

alextgordon — Tue, 22 Mar 2016 06:13:40 +0000

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

New comment by alextgordon in "Swift 2.2 Released"

alextgordon — Mon, 21 Mar 2016 21:35:45 +0000

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.

New comment by alextgordon in "Scientists use adult skin cells to regenerate functional human heart tissue"

alextgordon — Mon, 21 Mar 2016 04:15:26 +0000

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?

New comment by alextgordon in "Uber seeking to buy self-driving cars: source"

alextgordon — Fri, 18 Mar 2016 18:19:04 +0000

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

New comment by alextgordon in "Stand to Work If You Like, but Don't Brag About the Benefits"

alextgordon — Thu, 17 Mar 2016 20:53:53 +0000

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 stand, I have better posture and so I don't get the pain.

New comment by alextgordon in "Open Sourcers Race to Build Better Versions of Slack"

alextgordon — Wed, 16 Mar 2016 21:10:16 +0000

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