Hacker News: nlogn

New comment by nlogn in "CoffeePhysics: A JS/CS Physics Engine"

nlogn — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 02:58:42 +0000

Yep I'm wrong. Mixed up factorial just like mistercow said. Thanks for the corrections. And here I was worrying that someone would complain that my loop wouldn't address the issues of collision response necessitating more checks, thus making a recursive solution necessary.

New comment by nlogn in "CoffeePhysics: A JS/CS Physics Engine"

nlogn — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 16:16:05 +0000

He's right actually if the code is written sensibly. Well it should really be (N-1)! but close enough. Think about it in terms of 3 balls. I check ball1 against ball2 and ball3 then move to ball2. It gains me nothing to re-check ball2 against ball1 so I just check it against ball3. When I reach ball3, I have already checked everything and I'm done.

The loop should look like this:

  for (i = 0; i < n; ++i)
      for (j = i + 1; j < n; ++j)

New comment by nlogn in "Microsoft kills Zune, Windows Live brands; Live ID renamed to Microsoft Account"

nlogn — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 18:08:39 +0000

I have to second the completely unbreakable part. I have dropped it whilst biking many times (seriously I'm embarrassed to say like 4 times) and it has only a few minor dings to show for it despite tumbling on asphalt at 10-15 mph. It seems like the thickness of the aluminum bezel coupled with the thinner screen width protects the screen better than the ipod touch's. I also prefer the UI and basically what it came down to when deciding between the two for me was what I wanted: a really good touchsceen mp3 player or a more generally useful device/portable gaming machine. I already have my phone for the latter purpose so I went with the best mp3 player.

New comment by nlogn in "Steve Jobs has passed away."

nlogn — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 06:40:17 +0000

Especially since we as a species have eliminated so many other "natural" causes of death thanks to vaccines, antibiotics, sanitation etc. What we are left with are what we have not yet solved: cancer, heart disease and strokes (mostly). http://imgur.com/6d3lK

Cancer also becomes naturally more likely as time goes on and DNA has become more damaged so as our lifespans increase, so do the odds of getting cancer.

New comment by nlogn in "The Problem with the iPhone's Home Button"

nlogn — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 22:00:19 +0000

>If it's not complicated, why do some Android users complain about it? If it's as intuitive as you say, shouldn't everyone be happy with it?

Don't you think this is a silly argument to use against Android's back button when the post we are commenting on is a complaint about iOS's home button? By your logic, that should indicate that the home button's behavior is not intuitive and complicated... you know, because somebody complained about it.

New comment by nlogn in "Google Nexus 4G detailed – 720p display, 4G LTE, Android 4.0"

nlogn — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 20:07:15 +0000

Another benefit is that manufacturers can't screw with the button order.

New comment by nlogn in "Parody Color Pitch Deck"

nlogn — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 14:54:21 +0000

Dibs on the color #80881E

New comment by nlogn in "Android 3.0 Hardware Acceleration"

nlogn — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 21:06:43 +0000

"horrible UX on Android"

This is more than a little hyperbolic. Sure, the animations may not run at 30fps all the time. Some animations running at 15fps != horrible UX. I am an iOS dev as well but use an Android phone and just completely disagree on it having poor UX.

New comment by nlogn in "The billion dollar Smart Cover"

nlogn — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 23:40:04 +0000

I googled it before I commented, thank you. Note that I asked if you had any numbers. In each of your sales comparisons links, they point to the very same short quote from an analyst. Not the most compelling data, wouldn't you agree?

New comment by nlogn in "The billion dollar Smart Cover"

nlogn — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 22:00:45 +0000

> The Xoom was superior in terms of all hardware, but it failed to make a dent against Apple simply because Apple executes the tablet exquisitely.

Do you have any hard numbers to back up this assertion?

New comment by nlogn in "Why Angry Birds is so successful and popular?"

nlogn — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 11:46:40 +0000

Not only that, but there is no reason that the physics loop would have to be run in real-time. They could just as easily run the physics loop for a few frames as fast as the hardware would let them with fixed deltas of average frame length (probably 1/30th of a sec). Chances are they could run half a second of simulation in just a few milliseconds without the need to render.

New comment by nlogn in "Ars reviews the Motorola Xoom"

nlogn — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 08:08:22 +0000

And yet there is a functioning work-around that is extremely simple: https://supportforums.motorola.com/message/332363

New comment by nlogn in "Steve Jobs' reality distortion takes its toll on truth"

nlogn — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 23:45:09 +0000

If you cannot honestly make this claim: "I believe in god/s", you are an atheist by definition. You may not be a strong atheist which is someone who would make the claim: "There is/are no god/s", but you are still an atheist (a weak atheist, which anecdotally appears to be the most common variety). Just think about the roots, atheism - without theism.

You're also an agnostic if you can honestly make the claim: "It is unknowable whether or not there is/are god/s".

I used to call myself an agnostic because, for whatever reason, people always assume that if you are an atheist you hold the position that there are no gods (which you also seem to hold given your assumption that atheism is a position that requires belief).

New comment by nlogn in "US Department of Justice investigating MPEG LA"

nlogn — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 11:16:35 +0000

Is there a reason that MPEG-LA isn't offering patent indemnification other than they aren't sure H.264 is patent free either?

http://news.ycombinator.net/item?id=2100601

This argument is total FUD.

New comment by nlogn in "Motorola Xoom a huge disappointment"

nlogn — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 07:16:50 +0000

Rather short and lacking in details for a "review" isn't this? Anandtech and Engadget have already reviewed the Xoom in more detail and I have to say, this reads very much like someone wanting to validate their own opinion instead of offering a fair critique. I have observed the iPhone 3gs/3g (I have little experience with the 4) lagging significantly when many apps are installed (not just running, but merely installed) so UI lag is not something unique to Android.

The power button placement and heavy weight seem to be, admittedly, poor decisions. As far as battery life goes, this review is very inconsistent with Anandtech's review which states that the Xoom's battery life is comparable with the iPad[1]. Not sure what exactly he is complaining about wrt widgets; I have several widgets working well on my phone and I'm sure they're fully compatible with Honeycomb. It is a shame that neither Flash or the micro-sd card slot are functional at release. I can only hope Motorola is working to remedy both of those issues.

[1] http://www.anandtech.com/show/4191/motorola-xoom-review-firs...

New comment by nlogn in "IPad 2 Official Specs"

nlogn — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 01:30:52 +0000

For "power users", the Xoom should be a clear winner, no? More free customization, tabbed browsing (and plenty of RAM to handle it nicely), and most importantly, it is free to develop for the Xoom from any OS.

As far as cheaper, maybe the Nook Color would be a smarter buy for the "penny-pincher".

New comment by nlogn in "Thunderbolt"

nlogn — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 01:27:36 +0000

I believe the new macs still have USB ports, no? So what incentive do peripherals manufacturers have to use Thunderbolt and target just the new macbooks vs USB 3.0 and targeting everything?

New comment by nlogn in "Thunderbolt"

nlogn — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 19:45:53 +0000

Thunderbolt may be technically superior in every single way, but unless other manufacturers use it for their laptops/motherboards, Apple's 10ish% market share is going to ensure that USB 3.0 "wins" ultimately. This will wind up being just like firewire where aside from Apple's stuff and a select few "Apple" manufacturers, nobody uses it and consumers either buy the more expensive Apple stuff, or use a dongle and see 0 benefit from the superior tech.

New comment by nlogn in "Apple to Unveil IPad 2 on March 2 in San Francisco"

nlogn — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 22:56:28 +0000

A display of that resolution is infeasible with current GPUs, though. The device would be a combination of too large, too heavy, and/or have too short battery life. I don't even think it will be feasible in the next iteration; perhaps the one after.

I honestly think they made the resolution only 1024x768 on purpose to reduce the amount of time it will take to be able to cost-effectively double it. If they had shipped with a 1280x800 screen (like the Xoom's) off the bat, it would probably tack on an extra iteration before they could double it.

New comment by nlogn in "Motorola Xoom will ship without Flash support"

nlogn — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 20:03:27 +0000

Dual-core and 4x the RAM offer no benefits to non-hacker customers? Sometimes page elements must be reloaded when browsing a SINGLE PAGE on the iPad. Surely you can admit that 4x the RAM would offer a notable boost to browsing experience.