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andymorris

77 karma · joined July 22, 2010

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andymorris··on Most profitable movie ever was also most pirated of 2010
I am exactly the type of person Kick-Ass is targeted towards. If it was not available to me via torrent, I would not watch it at all. As it is, I have it downloaded, but not watched yet.

There is no possible universe where Kick-Ass has made money from me.

andymorris··on Follow people on Hacker News
I just added an RSS feed to the site that contains all the posts from people you follow: beta.fedang.com/rss/<username>

This is a public feed, so anyone can see who you're following - I plan on making this an optional setting if there's too much of uproar about that.

andymorris··on What Does Haskell Have to Do with C++?
When you get templates working, it does feel pretty good - you can get an approximation of the power of functional languages, all the while knowing that your code has been directly mapped to assembly.

I don't know if it's as good as writing some neat functional code, but for me it's still fun!

andymorris··on [dead]
Have we seriously learned nothing from Iraq? Take out the leadership, and you are left with a failed country and a population that is likely to be hostile.

Next you'll tell me that we'll walk into NK as liberators...

andymorris··on Ron Paul: Airport Scanners: Enough is Enough
You can hardly point to the lack of the incident that the security measure was designed to prevent as evidence to the pointlessness of said security measure.

If no-one's ever climbed over the walls at a prison, does that mean that the walls are "doing nothing"?

andymorris··on Using genetic algorithms to train a Mario AI
I would have really liked to have seen a video sample at various stages of the evolution :-(
andymorris··on Why did California vote down legal pot?
Without unleashing the market upon pot, criminals could still make large amounts of money on the black market.

More to the point though - as the article says, the burden of proof is on the side advocating restriction! We don't require governments to allow us to do every little thing - the basic assumption is we can do anything we like, except for a few restrictions needed to prevent reducing others' freedoms.

andymorris··on Marijuana Legalization Fails in California
Worse - it's 20 million people preventing 17 million people from enjoying a leisure activity through force.

Democracy sucks.

andymorris··on Marijuana Legalization Fails in California
That's a horrible reason.

No law will ever be perfect - it's all about steps in the right direction. If we wait for things to be perfect, nothing will ever change.

I find it very disheartening that some of the very people who want this change the most refused to vote for a 90% solution in the hopes that someone will come along with a 100% solution tomorrow. With this setback, the issue won't come up again for many years, and even when it does it STILL won't be perfect.

I just hope that in 10 years when it comes up again, people won't be going "I voted no because it's not perfect" and setting the process back ANOTHER 10 years.

andymorris··on Remind HN: Vote
As is believing that politicians would interpret a low voter turnout as anything but a net gain - it just means they can expend less effort required to shift the balance in their favour.
andymorris··on Remind HN: Vote
According to wikipedia, nearly of americans didn't vote.

It doesn't seem to make sense to say that voting for a 3rd party is a waste of time if half of the population who agree with you...

andymorris··on Remind HN: Vote
I'm Australian, and we have compulsory voting. We also have compulsory education, as one of the basic requirements for democracy is a body informed voters.

I think one of the positive effects of it is that it forces everyone to think about it. I know people who I can guarantee would not vote were it not compulsory, but since it is they have looked into both parties and have formed some opinions which they then use to guide their votes. I think that anything that increases the overall political knowledge of the population is a good thing.

Another positive effect is that politicians don't need to spend any time getting people to the polls - this is something I see American politicians and citizens waste an absurd amount of time on.

Anyway, the fines in Australia are pretty small - I missed a state election once (moved and forgot to update the electoral roll) and it was around $20.

andymorris··on Remind HN: Vote
The only message that not voting for anyone sends is that you're happy with anyone.

If everyone informed chooses not to vote for anyone, all that does is give more power to the uninformed.

andymorris··on Remind HN: Vote
The subset of us aussies who actually know about censorship largely have.

The trouble is, there isn't enough of us who care.

andymorris··on John Carmack on government
If the need to enforce trademarks was actually great enough, then a private company or a standards body would obviously arise to fill the need.
andymorris··on Offer HN: I'll help you learn Python
You should definitely learn Python 2. Almost all libraries still are on 2, so if you tried to go straight to 3, you'd have to struggle your way around most newbie documentation on the internet - Especially if you're planning on doing Django work.

Anyway, there isn't a whole lot of difference between python 2 and 3, really. The "proper" way of coding in python2 is very similar to python3.

andymorris··on Constructive
The guy who writes xkcd
andymorris··on So Steve Jobs walked into a Mac team meeting with an iPad
I open up my Macbook and it's instantly on. You don't need to turn it off when you're finished using it - it really doesn't take that much power in standby.

-- Ayjay on Fedang

andymorris··on W3C Says HTML5 Isn’t Ready for the Web
I wonder how much place there is for such a slow-moving organisation in the incredibly fast-paced internet ...
andymorris··on Minecraft creator banks $350k a day, turns down job offers from Valve and Bungie
See - Portal
andymorris··on Self-inlining anonymous closures in C++
C++ is the highest-level language that I can accurately guess the assembly that will be actually run by the processor.

YMMV whether that's a blessing or a curse, though!

andymorris··on How Loneliness is Contagious
thankyou

that was inspirational.

andymorris··on Coming Home to Vim
I'm not a vim guru by any stretch of the imagination, but I still don't take what he says at face value. I don't trust ANYTHING I see on the internet just because it's there!

Your criticism seems to be due to the belief that, in a world where the only information on the internet could be treated as gospel, that would allow the experts opinion to come through easily. Unfortunately, that sets up the circumstance where the experts get granted much more exposure and trust than they necessarily deserve, and it inevitably gets subverted and abused.

I personally prefer the current system - treat all information as suspect until you can verify it. It leaves MUCH less room for exploitation than all of our other "trust by default" mediums.

-- Ayjay on Fedang

andymorris··on Robust Programming
At my last company, I had to code in this style, and it sucks. You get into ridiculous situations where you have to somehow fail gracefully with absolutely no context or information about how to do so.

Exceptions are a much better solution - I pity anyone who isn't able to use them.

-- Ayjay on Fedang #coding

andymorris··on If a file exists, there is torrent of it. If not, it will be burned
I'd guess we solve the normal way - googling the filename with '+filetype:torrent'?
andymorris··on If a file exists, there is torrent of it. If not, it will be burned
Or, you could think of the legitimate uses ... someone who just wants to offer something for download, and then has to pay a fortune in bandwidth. Instead, someon uses this service, and we all benefit! -- Ayjay on Fedang
andymorris··on Why C Is Not Assembly
I have to argue against most of the comments here though: I think, after a very short time with C, you get a clear sense of what will happen in the assembly. It's also pretty trivial to reach that stage with C++ - really, all the basic control structures are implemented in a pretty standard way. Sure, sometimes it throws a curveball, but you know what? It was the exception rather than the rule.

I'm fully convinced that I could sit down with the average C++ program and accurately predict the majority of the generated assembly. It's really not that hard - the compiler doesn't have THAT many instructions, and it only uses them in a limited set of occasions!

-- Ayjay on Fedang #coding

andymorris··on An introduction to computational linguistics
Annnnddd the obligatory xkcd!

http://xkcd.com/114/

-- Ayjay on Fedang

andymorris··on Are your beliefs consistent? Take the test...
There's plenty of stuff in the Bible about God allowing/condoning/performing murder and rape as well though ....

http://www.evilbible.com/Murder.htm http://www.evilbible.com/Rape.htm

-- Ayjay on Fedang

andymorris··on Are your beliefs consistent? Take the test...
I think it's getting at: say you had more actual evidence for the God theory than you did for evolution. Your response seems to indicate that you would STILL prefer evolution, as you would require certain, irrevocable proof for God. Your previous response said that you didn't need that level of proof for evolution, hence it states your views are logically inconsistent.

I made the same "mistake", as I intended to imply that I would need "very strong" (but not "certain" proof) for the God theory.

Basically, the question's are a bit ambiguous (especially with only True/False responses), but logically I think the site is correct.

-- Ayjay on Fedang

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