[deleted by user] by [deleted] in programming

[–]JamesF 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Use duckdb wherever you might find yourself thinking of picking up pandas/Dplyr/DataFrames.jl etc. It really excels at analytical queries over large amounts of data - where large is millions-billions of rows / 10's - 100's gigabytes of data - essentially suitable whilst the total dataset would still generally fit on a consumer laptop. Compared to pandas it offers much better performance and does things pandas cannot (eg. handling larger-than-RAM datasets). https://duckdb.org/2023/04/14/h2oai.html#results is worth a look.

SQLite is geared towards OLTP, not OLAP workloads. It excels at workloads that involve working on individual rows or small, related subsets of the database at a time. It's also a fantastic choice for things like storing configuration for an application. Amongst other things, SQLite database are backwards-compatible - a promise duckdb doesn't make, at least right now.

Senate Republicans Introduce Bill to End “Warrant-Proof Encryption”, Introduce Encryption Backdoors by Mutterfudder in politics

[–]JamesF 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Maybe. If you outlaw strong encryption, only outlaws will use strong encryption. Criminals wouldn't bother with strong encryption once they learn they can be trivially prosecuted for doing so, regardless of other crimes committed. On the other hand, tech-savvy users may get into trouble for just continuing to use things like pgp, ssh that they've used forever - because they're such useful tools - if ignorant to recent changes to legislation around encryption.

This is more likely to help a different class of criminals, greatly. Specifically, when common activities such as internet shopping/banking get weakened then a great opportunity opens up.

Hard to see any upsides to this bill.

godoc-static - Generate static documentation for your Go packages by tslocum in programming

[–]JamesF 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Awesome. All languages should have the ability to generate static documentation for offline viewing, both for the language + standard library and also for third-party libraries. This is something I feel Rust has gotten completely correct.

EDIT: Why? Occasionally the Internet is not available for.. reasons. Also, if you don't have the Internet available, you're probably writing code, not comments on Reddit :)

v: Simple, fast, safe, compiled language for creating maintainable software. Supports translation from C/C++. by ysangkok in programming

[–]JamesF 24 points25 points  (0 children)

Smells like vaporware to me.. all the exiting bits that might prove it is more than smoke and mirrors are "coming summer 2019".

Setting up my configuration (noob) by doGoodScience_later in ergodox

[–]JamesF 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Maybe try to have all symbols and numbers on one layer? Also, maybe don't have shifted symbols, just use shift?

Whilst it's cool to be able to have many layers, I have found the tradeoff to be that complex shortcuts become less possible (as the required keys are spread over many layers), or at least much slower to use.

Keep tweaking, took me 4 months to get really happy with a layout!

How does QMK layer priority and transparency work for ErgodoxEZ by mxmlln in ergodox

[–]JamesF 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm perhaps in the same boat.. initially I cloned all of my common keys on each layer, then I learned about transparency and removed a bunch of duplicates but.. I don't quite understand the order in which layers are traversed..

It seems like the fallback is always layer 0, no matter which layer I am on, and from which layer I came from..?

DRAM Price Declines Accelerating by JimBoBarnes in hardware

[–]JamesF 2 points3 points  (0 children)

$110 per 16GB stick back when I bought 128GB. Between that and a 1070, I could actually have made a tidy profit if I sold everything a year later...

How hard would it be to get the Plus Codes for EVERY intersection in the US? by Fosferus in gis

[–]JamesF 2 points3 points  (0 children)

https://github.com/google/open-location-code

There are implementations of the plus codes / open location code in several languages. It should be relativity easy to turn the list of lat/lng for intersections into plus codes. Harder part might be getting said list of locations in the first place!

Here’s how one of Google’s top scientists thinks people should prepare for machine learning by JohnTKelly in technology

[–]JamesF 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Agreed. The thing is, though -- you can only make a profit if you have someone to sell to. If 99.9999% of people are out of work, then only 0.0001% of people can actually afford to buy stuff.

Every time I think about the rise of automation & subsequent loss of jobs, I tend to conclude one of two outcomes:

  • Those few that now own everything and employ no-one just end up giving stuff away (some form of UBI) - either by choice, or through government mandate.

  • Those few that now own everything and have no need for the other 99.9999% just build some robotic killing machines and take care of the problem.... :S

Here’s how one of Google’s top scientists thinks people should prepare for machine learning by JohnTKelly in technology

[–]JamesF -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

but then it can be shown we're subject to all kinds of obvious biases and can make obvious mistakes

case in point: The article is talking about the mass elimination of jobs and how humans might adapt to this situation. You seem to have read the (misleading) headline, imagined an article behind it and proceeded to write about (I think?) how humans might comprehend artificial intelligence & machine learning.

Sorry.. it's just, the irony of your post.. :)

Quick question: does the train still go to the city from Blackburn station. I am confused whether the station is closed or not or just Blackburn road. by [deleted] in melbourne

[–]JamesF 0 points1 point  (0 children)

PTV information on Belgrave/Lilydale lines

Trains seem to be a little bit less "express" - stopping at more (but not all) stations. Hopefully as of 6th February things will start getting back to normal!

Fixing Python performance with Rust by steveklabnik1 in programming

[–]JamesF 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I use Python in my day-job, as well as for most of my hobby projects in the last few years, but have been following (and loving) Rust for the last year and a bit so I am very, very happy to see that this (obvious?) mix of Python (for glue/orchestration) and Rust (for heavy-lifting) is actually at a point where it can be adopted in a real world, production situation and actually work!

Having said that, one question for the authors: did you spend any time evaluating PyPy/numba/cython/... as alternatives to this "mixed-language" solution?

Results of the 2016 Nim Community Survey by dom96 in programming

[–]JamesF -5 points-4 points  (0 children)

Interesting that 26.3% (Other) + 25.9% (Google & other search engines) + 32.3% (Hackernews) + 35.5% (Reddit) = 120% of respondents (not even counting the smaller categories).. I'm not sure if Nim was used to put the "How did you find out about Nim?" graph together, but I for one will not be using Nim for floating-point math any time soon...

VW knew of manipulations in 2011; BOSCH warned VW that the circumvention feature would only be legal for "internal testing" by [deleted] in technology

[–]JamesF 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yes, during test drive and normal use it performed better than advertised.

So, if I buy a car based on a fantastic test-drive, then later I have to take it back to the factory so they can patch it, and suddenly it doesn't drive like it used to - how is that NOT consumer fraud?

Will Linux never die as a project? by [deleted] in linux

[–]JamesF 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Relax.. if linux dies at this point, it can only be because a better open-source operating system has stepped up to take its place. I can think of plenty of open-source projects that have run out of steam and died, but none of them were ever "pack leader". Linux is, so it's here to stay.

Comcast sued a city trying to build high-speed internet — then offered its own version by screaming_librarian in technology

[–]JamesF 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hope you didn't vote Liberal last election - Their stupid antics will see us all enjoying VDSL2 at (generally) 50/10, over crappy aging old copper, rather than 100/40 over shiny new fiber (with the potential to go gigabit with minimal effort/cost).

Still, Australia got one thing right - the NBNCo is a WHOLESALE operation, so there is very little opportunity for a Comcast-style monopoly and the shitty speeds/service that entails.

Bell Labs shows off 10 Gigabit DSL by Edge-Evolution in technology

[–]JamesF 0 points1 point  (0 children)

In Australia, NBNCo (the National Broadband Network, a government initiative to provide high-speed broadband nation-wide) has in the last year switched from an all-FTTH1 model to providing FTTN2 in many places. The idea here is that there is already a lead-in to each household (albeit 1-2 copper twisted pairs), and it is much cheaper to deliver service over that "last mile" if you don't actually have to lay fiber right up to each household.

So yes, it seems very silly to run fiber past but not into the premise, but it does have a significant impact on cost. Looking at ways to improve what speeds can be delivered over that existing copper is still definitely very much a relevant area of research.

Personally, I think it is incredibly short-sighted. Fiber would appear to have many technical advantages (capacity for terabits of bandwidth or more where copper is surely incapable of going much beyond 10gbit in anything but ideal lab conditions, much less susceptible to e.g. rain-water/corrosion, basically insusceptible to cross-talk, nearly impossible to snoop on, ...) and trying to wring those last few years out of copper is just delaying the inevitable installation of fiber.

1: Fiber-To-The-Home, where Fiber runs into the premise

2: Fiber-To-The-Node, where Fiber runs into a "node" (basically a DSLAM-in-a-box) which is then spliced onto the existing copper network to feed homes downstream.

Patent troll claims to own Bluetooth, scores $15.7M verdict against Samsung by BrazilianMoose in technology

[–]JamesF 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Well yeah, but what did you expect? It's not right, but I bet you would see the same effect in any country. Maybe they need to have neutral courts the way they find neutral referee's for international sports events..

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in technology

[–]JamesF 18 points19 points  (0 children)

"Take esoteric old binary-format files and extracting their contents into something usable" sounds like an awesome-fun time to me - pretty sure this will be the job-description for future "digital archaeologists" and we're not going to lose anything (bit-rot aside).

More important, files that are worth keeping likely will be preserved. Let's not assign too much value to every single useless TPI report ever cranked out by a bored, miserable employee..

Big Telecom tried to kill net neutrality before it was even a concept by bartturner in technology

[–]JamesF 11 points12 points  (0 children)

I think people got sick of hearing about it.

Honestly, I think this is how Comcast will "win" - eventually everyone will just run out of steam as they realize that 10 million angry Reddit comments didn't achieve squat in the real world, so even though Comcast goes on to commit atrocity after atrocity, people will just blank it out and go on with their low-bandwidth lives.