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alexk7

249 karma · joined April 24, 2009

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alexk7··on No Hello (2013)
This is ignoring the fact that there are people who actually enjoy exchanging pleasantries. Make a list with 2 columns: 1) people that enjoy small talk 2) people that dislike small talk. Act accordingly.
alexk7··on (Red Hat's) 5 useless Linux commands
Reading this felt like that Apple keynote in 2016 when they said no one uses the function keys. Hmm, me? all the time?
alexk7··on JetBrains Mono: A free and open-source typeface for developers
I prefer to use size 10 on my coding font. Just tried it in Visual Studio and it looks really bad with uneven lines, mostly on upper case letters.
alexk7··on Microsoft introduces Windows 10 X for dual-screen devices
The whole concept of OS integration across devices is a complete failure for Microsoft. Calling this new thing a "new OS" sounds like a failure to fulfill what the Windows brand used to mean: support across a large range of devices. Isn't Windows already supporting multiple display? Maybe not in the "tablet" sub-OS... which is clearly not up to the standard set by the "desktop" sub-OS.

Anyway, the only thing that keeps Windows relevant even today is its classic Win32 API applications. Everything else they tried to do has always been half-baked. I'm not optimist for the future of the platform.

alexk7··on Why I’m turning my son into a cyborg
Thank you for that comment. Don't get me started on "compliance". Even if you are following 100% the diet and rules (which is impossible, we are humans), type 1 diabetes is HARD. We need all the help we can get! A closed-loop system improved my quality of life a lot. I would be healthier now if this stuff was available when I was a kid.
alexk7··on Why I’m turning my son into a cyborg
I'm running an open source closed-loop system on my iPhone. It controls my insulin pump based on data from a continuous glucose monitor. Those of us that do this don't do it blindly. We see the blood sugar fluctuate and can react if something goes wrong.

Many parents use tools to do this monitoring remotely for their child's system. I believe that if you have access to the source code and possess the knowledge to understand it and debug it, the improvements to the child's life are greater than the risks you take.

The sentence about "emotions and activities" is a little misleading. It reacts to the data from the CGM. But yes, blood sugar changes with emotions and activities. That's the life of a type 1 diabetic, no matter if you use a closed-loop system or not!

I'd hate for the kid to be weeping over Titanic and get od'd with SUGAR.

alexk7··on Why ['1', '7', '11'].map(parseInt) returns [1, NaN, 3] in JavaScript
This is not one of the weird things about Javascript. When you use a function (like map), always check the documentation to know its behaviour and don't assume it's similar to some similarly named function from another language. End of story.
alexk7··on The “432 Hz vs. 440 Hz” conspiracy theory
Another source of information about this subject (PDF): http://www.wam.hr/sadrzaj/us/Cavanagh_440Hz.pdf
alexk7··on Americans Work 25% More Than Europeans, Study Finds
The article makes it seem like the US is where people work the most. It is not. The selection of countries make their graph misleading. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_time
alexk7··on LL and LR in Context: Why Parsing Tools Are Hard (2013)
I am working on a compiler for my new language. I went from learning about Yacc at the university (reaction: disgust) to discovering PEG (reaction: I should build my own parser generator!) to wisdom (reaction: just write the damn thing by hand and be done with it!)

I have a few basic reasons why I now think parser generators are a mistake for my purpose: 1) It is hard to learn all the details of a particular parser generator that you need for a complex parsing project. 2) The mix of grammar and semantic actions one has to come up with is ugly and complex. 3) The output is both ugly and hard to debug.

The most complicated part of a compiler is not recognizing good input, put doing something with it. A hand-written recursive descent parser can be a thing of beauty and simplicity that increases the joy of working on the meat of the compiler, that is semantics!

alexk7··on G.M. Invests $500M in Lyft
The last time GM invested in companies that competed with private ownership of cars, it didn't go too well... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_consp...
alexk7··on Why Video Games Have Launch Problems
In the current game dev industry, there is no longer anything "in-between". The days of the medium sized games are long gone. It is either big winner takes all or very small indie under the radar.
alexk7··on Apple iPad Gets Split-Screen Multitasking in iOS 9
For the same price as an iMac, without a computer.
alexk7··on Apple iPad Gets Split-Screen Multitasking in iOS 9
And that's why they added fullscreen mode to OS X. Both ways of working excel for different situations. It's great that they are now making the enhancements in sync on OS X and iOS.
alexk7··on Kijiji, a Flop in the U.S., Rules Online Classifieds in Canada
In live in Quebec City. I used Kijiji to sell my car a few years ago and it still is the site I use to sell stuff. Reading this article made me go to Craigslist to see if it was any better now. Nope. I needed to click a dozen times to get to the french version for Quebec City. Nobody there. No photos in the lists? Move on.

Before that, I was literally thinking "CraigsList still exists?". I guess so, my Mac autocorrects CraigsList but does not have Kijiji in its dictionary... :)

alexk7··on C++11/14/17 Features in VS 2015 RC
Regarding C++11 vs C++14 constexpr: "We need to finish heavier-than-air flight before starting interstellar colonization." Nice analogy.
alexk7··on Contranoid – The Chaotic Two-Player Telephone Game from 1897 [video]
Yup. Breakout 1976. Arkanoid 1986.
alexk7··on How to abuse a C++ compiler?
I'm pretty sure XSLT functional paradigm was intentional.
alexk7··on Chrome Is The New C Runtime
Exceptions are cute for small amounts of code. But as soon as you get a sizeable codebase, you start to understand the huge advantage they give: your code shrinks by an order of magnitude vs the same code with manual error propagation.
alexk7··on A 30 minute introduction to Rust
What's wrong with this use-case? The object will be destroyed and no pointer to it will exist after the clear.
alexk7··on Quick tip for developers who use OS X
Did you try Powershell?
alexk7··on Deep C and C++ (2011)
Standard mathematical notation is not inevitable and is not unique. It is on par with most programming languages for being quite random. Both programmers and mathematicians use an imperfect tool (programming language, mathematical notation) to achieve goals that may, or may not, be eternal.
alexk7··on Turn mailto links into clean contact forms
I think the last time I configured an email program was 10 years ago. Clicking a mailto link bring a window to configure an email program (that comes with the OS) that I never launched otherwise.
alexk7··on Codebreaker found in bag attended US security conference before death (2012)
The article is dated "04 MAY 12" and shows no mention that it has been updated.
alexk7··on 50% of South Korean biology teachers do not accept evolution
What you call "microevolution" is simply adaptation. It has nothing to do with evolution (that you call "macroevolution"). Evolution is the logical outcome of random mutations over a long period of time:

1) Random mutations

2) Survival rate increases for some

3) Evolution

This is so simple and so beautiful at the same time. The only thing you can contest is the existence of random mutations. I think the incredible diversity in our own species is enough proof.

alexk7··on 50% of South Korean biology teachers do not accept evolution
Natural selection does not occur in a series of instant events! Evolution happens over a long period as the result of a statistical advantage in survival rate. It does not work for rapid change in environment. I don't think anyone is claiming that.
alexk7··on 1987: Kid submits 7 Robotron bugfixes using only the machine code from the ROMs
The original joke is "The determined Real Programmer can write FORTRAN programs in any language." It's from an essay written by Ed Post titled "Real Programmers Don't Use Pascal". It's before BASIC :)
alexk7··on Google Maps: “Treasure Map” mode
It's a hack. The line and X are in screen space and change position when you zoom in and out.
alexk7··on GCC and C vs C++ Speed, Measured
The results are what I expected and not that interesting. Compiling C as C++ usually yields the exact same native code as compiling it as C, except for some very minor differences.

What would be interesting is how long it now takes to compile GCC itself. For code that does not use C++ features, I also expect a very minor difference.

alexk7··on Zed Shaw's Template for "Learn X The Hard Way" Books
I guess writing "Learn 'alexk7's favorite C++ subset' the hard way" would violate the "no indoctrination" rule... :)
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