Hacker News: finnw

New comment by finnw in "Why not inherit from List?"

finnw — Sun, 16 Feb 2014 16:09:33 +0000

Are you sure you don't mean COBOL? Fortran is still evolving (albeit even more slowly than Java) and still used for new projects.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortran#Fortran_2015

New comment by finnw in "Money can buy happiness"

finnw — Mon, 13 Jan 2014 14:30:42 +0000

This does not necessarily conflict with the diminishing returns theory. If you are 4x as rich as your neighbours, you will probably want to move to a more affluent area. At which point you will have richer neighbours (i.e. stronger competition.) There's a good chance you will again be dissatisfied with your relative wealth and be motivated to increase it further.

New comment by finnw in "Poll HN: What is your personality type?"

finnw — Thu, 09 Jan 2014 23:21:31 +0000

And pseudo-entrepreneurs (who may be real coders)

New comment by finnw in "Poll HN: What is your personality type?"

finnw — Thu, 09 Jan 2014 23:15:52 +0000

Typical Model-D kafkatrap [1] :-)

    [1]: http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=2122

New comment by finnw in "If you move your mouse continually the query may not fail. Do not stop moving"

finnw — Sun, 05 Jan 2014 00:59:50 +0000

Probably not in this case. Windows' RNG does not block when it runs low on entropy. AFAIK only Linux does that. And the task is a database query so probably does not use the RNG.

But yes, I have seen a similar case involving linux /dev/random - the user reported that outgoing emails were sometimes delayed for hours and that moving a mouse over a VNC window would sometimes speed it up. I did not believe that at first, but it was exim4 running out of entropy when generating TLS session keys. Worse, it was on a VPS with about 20 exim4 processes competing for the entropy.

New comment by finnw in "Academics Against Mass Surveillance"

finnw — Sat, 04 Jan 2014 02:14:32 +0000

Another way to look at it: Of the 9 most populous countries in the world, the US is the only one with any names on that list. So it could be worse.

Edit: Technically wrong: There is one name under "Hong Kong."

New comment by finnw in "The Lost Art of C Structure Packing"

finnw — Thu, 02 Jan 2014 21:49:22 +0000

Not the only way. You can interleave fields in a ByteBuffer.

New comment by finnw in "Bitcoin and positive vs. normative economics"

finnw — Mon, 30 Dec 2013 00:33:09 +0000

You could solve that problem by reading your politician's blog (and donating of course) then voting the way they recommend on each issue.

New comment by finnw in "A Soft Murmur – Ambient sounds to wash away distraction"

finnw — Sun, 29 Dec 2013 02:04:22 +0000

It has always seemed strange to me that some people find hostile weather sounds calming - Wind, heavy rain, thunder... those can all potentially damage the building you are in. Fire too (I like the sound of a fire only if I can see it.) Leaves would be a good addition though. So would a waterfall (there is a significant difference between a waterfall and rain.)

New comment by finnw in "A Soft Murmur – Ambient sounds to wash away distraction"

finnw — Sun, 29 Dec 2013 01:56:09 +0000

Thanks. I find some ambient sounds (especially birds & waves) help me focus on work. (Instead of rain I use pink noise from another site)

New comment by finnw in "A glimpse into a new programming language under development at Microsoft"

finnw — Sun, 29 Dec 2013 00:48:23 +0000

The language is better, but the backend and ecosystem are not.

New comment by finnw in "A glimpse into a new programming language under development at Microsoft"

finnw — Sun, 29 Dec 2013 00:46:11 +0000

It comes with the territory, I'm afraid. Some users will try something once, find a bug or limitation, decide the platform sucks and never touch it again (and if the platform is worthless, why bother filing a bug report.) I've been guilty of it myself quite a few times. First impressions count for a lot, and they can be difficult to control.

New comment by finnw in "The 7 Habits of Highly Overrated People"

finnw — Fri, 27 Dec 2013 02:09:14 +0000

Justified, because they are very amusing to watch.

New comment by finnw in "Code != computer science"

finnw — Tue, 24 Dec 2013 17:11:57 +0000

> How the hell does this lead to stereotyping an entire race?

It does not. It is just an anecdote, from three people I know, who were required to memorize stuff, and found their coding ability did not contribute much.

> Just so you know India and China have produced a large bulk of academics in computing science, across various educational institutions in North America and Europe.

Yes, I did.

New comment by finnw in "Royal pardon for codebreaker Alan Turing"

finnw — Tue, 24 Dec 2013 08:03:35 +0000

They already did that. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8249792.stm

New comment by finnw in "Code != computer science"

finnw — Tue, 24 Dec 2013 06:03:29 +0000

> I have friends with computing science degree yet they cannot code or have shipped software.

So do I, but CS degrees are not about memorization. At least not in North America or Europe. For my CS degree, I had to follow the math and deliver code. Toy code of course, but its a long way from "recalling and reciting references." If it had been about memorization I would probably have failed.

I also know people who say they got CS degrees through memorization and the ability to recall and recite references. They are Indian and Chinese. And they can code (even if they believe their degrees do not help.)

New comment by finnw in "The Great Big Porn Block is coming"

finnw — Mon, 23 Dec 2013 14:22:27 +0000

Please don't joke about censoring political parties' websites. That is one of the biggest dangers of systems like this after all.

New comment by finnw in "My Hardest Bug"

finnw — Thu, 19 Dec 2013 20:32:52 +0000

> My favorite technical interview question is to ask the candidate about the worst bug they ever wrote.

Are you sure you are getting honest answers? Some candidates may be thinking "He'll never hire me if I admit how stupid I was, so I'll use this secondhand or dumbed-down story instead."

New comment by finnw in "Bitcoin Private Key Necromancy"

finnw — Thu, 19 Dec 2013 15:56:21 +0000

I don't know whether a nearly-empty drive is better or worse than average. But the point is, you had a 1000-block file full of secret data and when you do

    > secrets.txt

the file is truncated, freeing blocks 1-999 (usually block 0 is zero-filled.) If you proceed to write random data it will go to newly-allocated blocks. Then a raw read of the original blocks will expose your secret data.

With dd and notrunc, the random data goes to the original blocks, overwriting your secrets.

New comment by finnw in "oDesk to merge with Elance"

finnw — Thu, 19 Dec 2013 15:49:09 +0000

> Later I found out that elance has a loophole where buyers who disputed or cancelled projects are not able to leave feedback.

The mistake many clients make is to request "cancellation". You should request a refund instead (and in the common case where a contractor goes silent, you will get back 100%.) Then mark the job as "complete" and leave feedback, which will be visible in their history (though it will not affect their average star rating.)