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The Last Question 13 years ago

The mention of that particular metaphor "Let there be light" is quite significant and is the thing that repulses me. I felt me that even the subtle negation of God by introducing a Deus Ex Machina (literally) is rooted in the notion of his particular Christian God that he is negating. It only gives strength to the other fiction by trying to negate it.

The wow-isnt-the-ending-"clever" negation of an ending actually fell flat for me. It really is a trite device if you think about it.

I feel sorry for you and all others who think they feel sorry for me because I have a differing opinion which you presume is inferior. In reality, I believe your opinion is probably just conforming rather than well thought-out : you you you think it's awesome, but I question whether you are even thinking and just think it's awesome because it's Asimov. That's no different from the premium a shopper pays for Prada because, duh, it's Prada.

The Last Question 13 years ago

> Personally I thought the progression of man through the ages was the most interesting part of the story.

That was true for me, too.

The Last Question 13 years ago

> Truly classic internet delusions of grandeur.

The delusion is yours : you don't know who you are talking to on the Internet, and you have assumed that the other anonymous writer is as mundane as you are. Says something about you, not me.

The irony of thinking, "Since I think Asimov / Steve Jobs / Linus / whoever is awesome, and so many other people agree, it MUST mean that the dissenting commentor is a troll or having 'delusions of grandeur'" is that when these people started out, I'm pretty sure self-appointed X Factor judges of the world future such as yourself told them exactly the same thing. "How deluded to think you can write an Operating System, you puny mortal, you Linus?!"

You are a follower, not a leader.

Edit : the person who wrote, "Asimov was an atheist. You misunderstood the story" is the one you have to learn from.

The Last Question 13 years ago

What a waste of time that was! I felt greatly cheated by the ending. It was exactly as if I had met a friendly, neatly dressed, smiling person on the street who, after 5 minutes, turned out to be peddling his religion after all.

Honestly, I have thought of much better stories myself. I remember GREATLY enjoying Asimov as a teenager, and I am pretty sure this is not his best story.

> Whatever she says on her own personal twitter feed is wholly unrelated to what happens at a professional event.

And why doesn't that logic hold for the two people who were joking amongst themselves? The parallel is : just as her twitter feed is public, and other people can "hear" her speak, these guys were making private jokes at a public event, and that is none of her business.

Again, the top comment on an HN thread involving Apple is one that supports Apple by digging up some "fact" or the other that makes Apple look OK. This has always been this ridiculous.

At least AAPL investors are pricing in a future loss of earnings as everyone except the hardcore fanboys move to more open platforms that are priced at 75% to 50% of Apple products and allow you to plug in USB and play along well with other manufacturer's hardware by implementing open protocols like DLNA.

Anecdote : I bought an LG TV and discovered without doing any additional setup, my Samsung phone now shows a TV icon on the photos, and when I clicked it, I was surprised to find the photo pop up on the TV. As I swipe my finger on the phone, the photos scroll on the TV. Voila! I honestly don't know whether this is some kind of PnP broadcast, DLNA, WiDi, or what!

Next : my HP laptop has an Intel WiDi app on it and the TV has a "Wifi Screen Share". Hmm, let's see...bang! Laptop screen now wirelessly mirrored on the TV. LG TV, Samsung phone, HP laptop. I bet Apple products would not work with anything other than Apple this way.

TSLA Puts seem to be priced with higher IV than Calls at the same distance for both near and far expiries (Calls at 120% vs. Puts at 80% of spot). I see Puts at strike $27 priced at 200% to 166% of the Calls at strike $41.

Options chains from Google Finance : http://www.google.com/finance/option_chain?q=NASDAQ:TSLA&...

So I'm assuming that the TSLA collar (unlike your other equity collars) is not costless. Or is it? Am I missing something?

Thanks for sharing your thoughts, BTW. I'm just loving going through your comments on other HN articles!

Rule of Zero (C++) 14 years ago

> often that's the least important resource that your program is managing

I think you're right but wrong here : it may be the least important in a technical sense, but the sheer amount of developer productivity lost in manual memory management is very expensive (for both the mental resources of the programmer and the firm), and this makes automated memory management a key positive.

Honestly, my eyes glazed over to avoid traumatic memories of C++ and Windows DOM internals as I read the article. I have a LIFE since I moved to Java.

> I packed up what was left, put all but necessities into storage. Sold my car.

(Not directly related to the article, but) : In the West, is it always the husband that has to leave the house? I once saw a movie in which the husband comes home and discovers that he being offered a divorce, and the wife says, "Leave my home". She was a stay-at-home wife, and he was working. I found it odd that she refers to it "my home" rather than "our home" or "the home" or "I think it is better if we both live apart", which is more civil.

If so, it's a cultural dictum, rather than a legal one, right?

(I am from India and I don't know many divorced people).

Firstly, it's not that "Reddit is a bastion of some fairly horrible groups", but that humanity happens to contain some fairly horrible groups. Reddit is just software. The same groups would otherwise use vBulletin, Usenet, or whatever other forum software to band together. You're conveniently forgetting that the same software + website are host to /r/fitness, /r/mensrights, /r/GetMotivated, and other very positive groups.

Basically, reddit is the early-21st century's Usenet. That's all there is to it.

Why not generalize a bit further and say, "The Internet is a bastion of some fairly horrible groups"?

Neither. Path or something similar on the mobile will quietly take over because the distance between the camera and the upload button will be smaller, and tablets, and more importantly, 5" to 7" phablets, will become the ubiquitous perfect middle ground between telephony and browser and video game console.

FB will be forced to provide a comprehensive export feature by law, which will make the jump easier.

FB knows this.

This is, of course, a personal, subjective viewpoint / projection of the path of least resistance ahead.

I wonder how the recently-acquired Samsung mindshare will affect this particular iPhone's sales. I imagine the die hard fans will purchase the latest version with an increased sense that Apple is the righteous"original" and the best way to spend money on a phone, like always, while there will be a minority who have taken a look at the Samsung Galaxy S2 or even the S3 and would actually pause to do a side-by-side comparison. I hope that the latter category of consumer increases and dents iPhone sales.

In addition, to deal with the issue that programs others than vi may require the use of arrow keys, I use Autohotkey on Windows to map Caps Lock + hjkl to the arrow keys! Thus, both in vi and outside(, in Word, say), I just use Caps Lock + hjkl to navigate. Thus, I never have to move my hand away from the "home" position to use the arrow keys.

BTW, outsourcing isn't just about call centres. Hinglish may not be a hindrance. For example, the IT arm of the NYC-based hedge fund I used to work for now pays $40k USD per Indian employee (in Indian Rupees, of course, I just converted the number back to USD) or more, and gets top-notch developers to work for them. The same skills would cost $80k in the US, and probably > $100k in NYC (very conservative estimates).

Hinglish may not be English, but C++ is C++, algorithms are algorithms, intelligence is intelligence, but INR is not USD. Outsourcing is (quasi-)arbitrage!

The accent is only an issue if the job involves trying to please the http://www.peopleofwalmart.com/photos/top-rated/.

IMHO, with a billion people, I believe that BOTH a) your generalization is true, i.e., the majority is disinterested AND b) not relevant w.r.t. Olympic medal-winning potential : it is enough for a small minority to be interested in sport / fitness & glory to make the cut for the olympics. I believe that the 80/20 rule applies, and is actually more of a 95/5 rule in most societies and most achievements : 5% of the population account for the glory (, the rest just wake the flag and feel proud, conveniently forgetting that one cannot be proud of what one did not achieve personally).

I suspect you might find a similar proportion of everday Chinese equally disinterested in "poses" (not sure, just speculation).

I believe that the core reason is our usual friend, corruption and red tape. It's not just sports; in general, the meritocratic lose out because wherever there is an opportunity in India, whatever be the form of opportunity. That includes what is rightfully yours, such as welfare handouts, your passport, etc; An Indian's everyday life consists of jumping through hoops to get basic things done.

Disclaimer : am Indian.

A Dust Over India 14 years ago

As an Indian, I'd like to put in a word about spirituality and "seeking" : getting trapped by the spiritual tourism hawkers is the worst way to go about it. Please do not just land up and ask, "So where is the latest and greatest ashram?". You'll probably get scammed, or worse, physically or mentally abused. Do not underestimate the charisma and level of brainwashing techniques that fake gurus are capable of. Even level-headed people can be made to "give up this wretched materiality" (i.e., write away their property to the ashram) after a few sessions of strange chemicals in your food, and some effective brainwashing / hypnotic sessions.

Before coming to India, please have an exact idea of the particular person / people (guru, gurus, enlightened people, etc;) you are going to meet, what you seek from them, etc; Please spend time researching the person you want to meet on the Internet, YouTube, etc; Please try to have Indian friends, or just register with someone who will check up on you regularly (ideally a local, or at least by phone) who can help as an emergency contact in case of any disaster (malaria, hypnotised by the scammer-guru, etc;).

It is a sad fact that this country has some gems of philosophers, but is equally filled with scammers and worse.

Lastly, a personal opinion : just read Jiddu Krishnamurthi and think for yourself, you don't need a harrowing India trip! :-)

They have may be a very correct prediction that we are a parasite-like race in terms of spiritual advancement and do not live in harmony with our provided environment, and thus, it is best to not touch us till we learn to not kill everything we touch for our own pleasure.

There may be many reasons why an alien race does not automatically make contact, some of which are actually unknown to us. If you have difficulty swallowing the "some things can be unknown to us" thought, believe it or not, you have an ego problem.

All your points are based on limitations particular to human understanding of physics and technology.

Just as a microwave oven is practically magic to a caveman, it is reasonable to assume that our tech is caveman-tech to an advanced alien race.

Why travel at the speed of light, for example? Maybe wormholes or teleportation is possible?

I suppose you use only "the good parts" of Scala, but if one considers the entirety of it, it feels like a kitchen sink, "Perl for the JVM : can you read it one week later?", to put it in one way. For example, can you comprehend a program written using Scalaz. (I remain aware that this could be MY issue, i.e., I may be too dumb to grok advanced stuff. I deeply regret that I do not understand Scalaz Promises enough to use it, for example, because it solves a very real problem that has bugged the design of my systems from many years (non-composability of asynchronously executing tasks)).

I've heard a lot about IntelliJ, but I suppose I'm too used to Eclipse at this point. Eclipse's market (http://marketplace.eclipse.org/) is another big draw : so many nice toys in there! It elevates Eclipse to Emacs terrority : "It's not just an editor, it's more like an operating system!" :-)

Am I the only one who is as excited about new releases of Eclipse as Apple fans are about new Apple products?

I just love the combination of the static typing and huge class library of Java and the amazing tooling that Eclipse delivers. I know, I know, oh, the verbosity. JDK8's lambdas look quite sweet, and should help a lot with that. http://openjdk.java.net/projects/lambda/

Except it meant yes, for a while.

When she first said no, and he persisted, and then she acceded, she trained him into believing that persistence pays off. So when she says no again, it seems to me that it is almost mathematically predictable that he will re-double his persistent efforts to win her back.

'no means no' does not apply when it sometimes means yes. With added flakiness, 'no means no' means : 'no means yes once in a while, and no means no when I feel like it, and you're a rapist and I'm still an angel if you cannot figure it out'.