Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit | morty16's commentslogin

what I took from that is that inertia is more significant than total energy.

if you've got a tank of gas you can go a long way slowly, a short way quickly.

a flywheel takes a lot of effort to spin up or spin down. once it's going at a certain speed it tends to stay there.

so if you tend to get home, eat burritos, and watch netflix, you'll keep doing that.


The original JS borrowed heavily from Scheme (lisp1 + everything evaluatable) and Self (prototype model of inheritance) and then was covered with a bunch of Java-like nonsense, which (IMO) just made things more complex.

There's been a nice functional language buried in JS all this time. It's still buried in there someplace.


If you make it through the tooling, clojurescript is magical.


From early on in the article

> asyncio.get_event_loop() returns the thread bound event loop, it does not return the currently running event loop.

How can these be different objects? In order to ask for the thread-bound event loop, you must be in the thread, right? When/why would you expect anything else?

fyi, I don't have any background with asyncio/twisted.


Amen.

Further, C helps you think like a particular evolutionary path of computer, and the language and architecture developed mostly in parallel. It's like saying that giraffes have long necks because they need them to reach the tall branches.


I'm just going to leave this here...

http://sqitch.org/


My understanding is that English is a natural second language for the Dutch and is taught extensively in schools (i.e. learned by everyone). Also, they are close enough to the U.K. to receive broadcast television, etc. so they also have that level of immersion.

Every Dutch person I've met has had a terrific command of the language, much better than average native speakers. I suspect that at least some of this is due to the fact that as second-language students they actually take time to learn the rules of grammar, etc. Most native speakers pick it up "on the street", so the Dutch (that I've met) tend to sound more formal and educated, especially when there's no discernible accent.


The allies (the RAF) had fairly specialized bombs in WWII to blow dams. They would fly in from upstream and drop a bomb shaped like a barrel (picture a barrel of oil) from very low altitude. The bomb would skip along the surface as it lost momentum and then sink close to the dam wall. At a certain pressure it would blow and take advantage of the hydrostatic shock to break up the wall.

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Chastise


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dam_Busters_%28film%29

One of the most interesting things IMO was how they used angled lights under the planes - shone onto the surface of the reservoir to make sure they were at the correct altitude to drop the bomb (incorrect height and it wouldn't skip)


They were trying to do something completely different, with different limitations than Islamic State has. They can get a few operatives up to the dam and place the explosives, but they probably don't have access to planes or the ability to build such specialized bombs.


"Bouncing Bettys"


That's slang for a jumping anti-personnel mine


Yes, they are also called that. I think the dam-buster bombs had the nickname first.


"do the right thing" for a corp. is to maximize profits, full stop.

Labour laws exist to keep unfettered capitalism in check.


I think the GPS receiver comes "for free" with the phone hardware (the DSP/antenna package).

So, I doubt it, just because it wouldn't add much and would cost significantly more (both in components and battery life).

With this kind of device, you're only online when in wifi, so location-aware services are limited too. i.e. what would you do with the GPS info? Maybe photo tagging?


I make Gaia GPS, so I care about people being able to locate themselves on a downloaded map, while offline.


GPS receivers are getting absurdly cheap, and I believe there are GPS/gyro or GPS/accelerometer combos that are even cheaper.

I think it is really all about the batter life.


> what would you do with the GPS info?

Using any offline navigator.


I read that as a short story in the Nebula anthology, and then again when "Story of your life and others" came out.

That was more than a decade ago, and I still think about it more often than most sci-fi stories I've read.


Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: