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masomenos

194 karma · joined October 10, 2008

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masomenos··on The myopia boom
you can get the same effect with whatever is a plus lens for you, though. So if your normal rx is -1.5, do close work without glasses.
masomenos··on The myopia boom
With plus lens therapy, you only wear the plus lens while doing close work. If you were wearing the plus lenses while looking more than a few feet away, you wouldn't be doing plus lens therapy.
masomenos··on Node.js, a popular tool for building modern internet services, has split in two
DHH said there are things about the "large tent" aspect of rails that are annoying. That's not the same thing as being unhappy with the overall direction of the project.
masomenos··on Troubled welds on the Bay Bridge
Are you implying that there wasn't controversy over the Big Dig? I remember plenty.
masomenos··on TorCoin
The second doesn't follow from the first. At most, you could say that people MAY calculate that running a tor relay is no longer worth it, but you could also say that without bringing up the (almost completely unrelated) daycare example.
masomenos··on Agile Is Dead (Long Live Agility)
If only that were true! My first employer was a large organization that explicitly embraced the waterfall methodology that we all rightfully deride.
masomenos··on Open plan offices attract highest levels of worker dissatisfaction
Tried Etymotic earbuds? They come with a bunch of adapters to fit different sized ears. My model is of course discontinued but the mc5 looks closest. http://www.etymotic.com/ephp/mc5.html

edit: unlike any other earbuds I have tried, they are engineered to survive the inevitable wax-plugging. Just replace the filter & you're back in business.

masomenos··on Founders' Accents
Took me a couple months to reliably understand my first landlord in Boston, a 3rd or 4th generation American of Italian ancestry.
masomenos··on The First Few Milliseconds of an HTTPS Connection (2009)
Unless there are multiple secured domains hosted on that IP address, in which case knowing the domain would be extra information.
masomenos··on Rails 4.0: Final version released
Even if your UI is all in JS, Rails still saves a ton of work as an API server compared to Sinatra.
masomenos··on The Scientific 7-Minute Workout
Training should only cause physical agony if:

1) you have a serious, unaddressed medical condition (please seek help!)

2) you're trying something far beyond your normal activity level. There's no rush, work up gradually and your body will adapt. If a walk around the block is a challenge, start there. Repeatable training sessions over time is what makes change, not beating yourself up in the name of 'health'.

masomenos··on The Scientific 7-Minute Workout
2-3 hours a day x 5 days a week -- 10-15 hrs -- is a huge amount of time to spend on weights.

A Starting Strength routine shouldn't take more than 3-4 hours a week, and you'd be moving way more than your bodyweight.

Or, if you can find room in your dwelling for a barbell and plates, Pavel's Power to the People program would take a total of 2-3 hours a week. Again, you'd be developing strength, rather than endurance.

Having said that, if you've found something you're happy with, cool. The routine you actually do beats a theoretically superior routine you don't get around to.

masomenos··on What Really Happened When Facebook Bought Instagram
This is the line of reasoning Taleb criticizes. I haven't digested his criticism fully enough to fairly summarize it, but I think it's worth a look.
masomenos··on What Really Happened When Facebook Bought Instagram
If you liked Millionaire next door, let me recommend Nassim Nicholas Taleb's "Fooled by Randomness" for counterpoint.
masomenos··on Association between muscular strength and mortality in men (2008) [pdf]
I've found, from painful experience, that most physical therapists aren't particularly oriented towards strength training.

If you can find an FMS certified strength trainer, there's a good chance they could help diagnose your situation. http://www.functionalmovement.com

masomenos··on Happy Birthday Vim, The Venerable Text Editor Turns 20
Thanks for the reminder! This is something I've had at the back of my mind for the 10+ years I've been using vim, so high time.
masomenos··on ~/.osx — a collection of sensible defaults for OS X Lion
thanks! I've been poking around for how to do that for a week, but hadn't stumbled on it.
masomenos··on MacBook Air is enough for a work machine
I'm at 3.5+ years on my current white macbook, and finally about ready to get a new one. Use it most of the day, most days for web and misc development.

Thinking a macbook pro with SSD & 8GB has a chance of lasting even longer.

masomenos··on What We Learned Upgrading To Rails 3 at Harvest
I did not know that git had a grep command -- super handy.
masomenos··on Calories, fat or carbohydrates? Why diets work (when they do)
Haven't read the new book, but Taubes' previous work 'Good Calories, Bad Calories' makes a strong case that there's shockingly little experimental evidence in favor of the conventional wisdom that "eating better" means a low fat, low calorie diet.
masomenos··on Is ‘moderate drinking’ really good for the heart?
Not necessarily. It can also indicate that we don't really understand a phenomenon, which can be a very valuable observation.

Certainly better than assuming we know something to be true that later turns out to be unsupported, eg. high fat diets causing to high fat humans.

masomenos··on Web Programming Is Hard
Every security professional I've heard speak emphasizes the importance of grasping what they tend to call "the security mindset". Which I understand to mean putting yourself in the place of an attacker and asking how your code could be taken advantage of.

Running an automated tool against your web app isn't a bad idea, but it's no replacement for thinking about what you're doing.

masomenos··on Be happier: Rent Everything
The visibility problem is one of the first things they mention in any safety training. You definitely don't belong on a motorcycle if you don't understand that & don't have the skills to deal -- it's not for everyone.
masomenos··on Be happier: Rent Everything
While motorcycles are clearly not quite as safe as cars, every study I've seen found that the vast, vast majority of motorcycle accidents involved at least one of the following:

- untrained rider - failure to use safety equipment - drunk

My conclusion is that a properly trained and equipped motorcyclist who stays 100% sober while riding is pretty safe. My 15 years of riding on the streets has borne that out -- I've had a few close calls due to insane drivers, but keeping up with safety training has given me the skills to deal. Without having taken the safety classes, no question I would have had multiple crashes.

masomenos··on Don't Be Ugly By Accident
Going by the analysis in the post, and in the parent comment, the 20mm would probably be positively correlated with attractiveness because it's easier to get a shallower depth of field with it.

However, you're certainly correct that conventional photographic wisdom is that people look better on longer lenses, for just the reason you cite -- wider angles can distort faces unpleasantly. It would have been interesting to see an analysis of lens length & perceived attractiveness from this dataset.

masomenos··on MongoDB 1.6 stable released
Interesting! Did not know that.

Any idea how replica sets / shards might fit into this picture?

masomenos··on MongoDB 1.6 stable released
http://www.mongodb.org/display/DOCS/Atomic+Operations says:

"MongoDB supports atomic operations on single documents. MongoDB does not support traditional locking and complex transactions for a number of reasons. . ."

What made you think that it was "locking all databases when a write is occurring"?

masomenos··on MongoDB 1.6 stable released
1.3.3 was a development version, as is every odd numbered: http://www.mongodb.org/display/DOCS/Version+Numbers
masomenos··on Choosing New York over San Francisco
I'm sorry if Chicago beat you up and took your lunch money.

I've never tried living there, but it's a great place to visit. Great food, great museums, great parks, Great Lake. Blues music. You can get there on a train from many places.

Also, 37 Signals seems to be doing OK there.

masomenos··on Valedictorian Speaks Out Against Schooling in Graduation Speech
The Sudbury Valley model is definitely an extreme as far as the freedom & responsibility it invests in its students -- the school decisions you mention include expelling students, whether to rehire each teacher every year, etc.
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