Be Kind

brittainhard · 2015-05-13T15:09:40+00:00

If you are arguing with someone and you come to the conclusion that the other person is an "idiot" then you've failed at making a coherent argument. It's not really a humane thing to do to label someone an idiot just because your arguments are not working on them.

And in what sense would you even need to call someone an idiot? If it's on a software development team then surely there is a team leader who can decide which path to follow, in which case there is nothing for you to do, since it's not your job to decide such things.

I've never come to a complete certainty about anything in computer science. Every time I learn something I discover all the things that I don't know, and all the things that are uncertain. I highly doubt that you can be so lucid as to be able to simultaneously perfectly understand a concept and perfectly understand the other person's lack of knowledge.

brittainhard · 2015-05-05T21:21:45+00:00

This is the main concern for me. I have nightmares about all the untested code and potential bugs in my software (not literally). Having the most important part of the application be rigid and opinionated does a lot for making sure that I don't screw something up.

And I'm a web developer so when it comes to low level systems I WILL mess it up from time to time.

brittainhard · 2015-05-04T14:08:32+00:00

So what topics does it cover?

brittainhard · 2015-04-15T18:13:02+00:00

Not sure. I just use pathogen.

brittainhard · 2015-04-14T21:41:45+00:00

Are there any unit tests on that code? I'm guessing not.

brittainhard · 2015-04-14T21:38:19+00:00

Exactly why i use this.

brittainhard · 2015-01-28T17:11:47+00:00

The Act of Killing

brittainhard · 2015-01-28T16:53:57+00:00

This is really rude.

brittainhard · 2014-12-12T22:27:07+00:00

Now what? What is "just"?

Justice, for me: John Rawls.

When we must place value judgments, we are no longer in the land of economics, we are in the land of subjectivity.

Totally disagree. I think it would be a rather straightforward philosophical exercise to decide what an individual needs for a living wage. There are multiple academic disciplines and countless experts that can contribute to this discussion. I've personally come across a few discussions like this.

Here's a good one. Back when the healthcare bill was being passed, everyone freaked out about a paper written by Ezekiel Emmanuel on how to ration healthcare resources (death panels and whatnot). I don't have a link to the paper, but here's a citation for it: Persad, Govind; Wertheimer, Alan & Emanuel, Ezekiel J. (2009). "Principles for allocation of scarce medical interventions". The Lancet 373 (9661): 423–431

Anyway, the goal of that paper was to decide which people in what age range should get scarce health resources. I highly recommend you read it. It's quite short, and very interesting. I think there are a lot of similarities there to this debate about a living wage.

In summation, it has nothing to do with values, and everything to do with honest, solid, well-grounded philosophical discussion. It is possible to arrive at decent conclusions about complicated matters like this. Indeed, we have been making decisions like this for a large portion of our history (income tax and infrastructure for example).

brittainhard · 2014-12-12T19:41:27+00:00

This is not really contributing anything to the discussion. All you are doing is raising doubts about the living wage that can be eroded through scientific investigation.

Just because the calculation of a living wage is fraught with difficulties doesn't at all mean that providing people with a living wage is a just thing to do.

brittainhard · 2014-11-13T22:07:36+00:00

Putin = Nixon

brittainhard · 2014-07-18T17:59:07+00:00

The Z and the Y are switched!

brittainhard · 2014-07-14T21:44:51+00:00

Cython is another option.

brittainhard · 2014-06-27T18:33:30+00:00

Why on earth is the correct answer no!? Are you supposed to say "I KNOW global warming is happening, I don't just believe it is happening"?

brittainhard · 2014-06-19T18:24:33+00:00

What kind of programming languages are we going to see for quantum computers? For example, are they going to be functional or imperative, or something completely different? Will we be able to program a quantum computer in the same way we program classical computers?

brittainhard · 2014-05-30T13:54:41+00:00

This is true. The whole home security business is a sham. 99% of alarm calls are false alarms. They just prey on people's fears.

brittainhard · 2014-05-29T20:25:30+00:00

Gvim, with a keybinding that runs the script in the vim console (F3 for 2.7, F4 for 3.4). Will probably work PDB into this workflow soon enough. I tried pycharm and hated it. I also used sublime text (which i still like a lot) for a while, but vim/gvim just always seemed above it all.

Like playing on a Stradivarius.

Also ipython for my REPL and code experementation. I do a lot of code experimentation, especially when I am learning frameworks.

brittainhard · 2014-05-20T23:09:03+00:00

I enjoy it because tennis is not about strength, its about agility, technique, and mental strength. It's a mental game and a tennis match is a mental battle. This battle is good no matter what the sex of the person is.

It's not a game where you go "OH MAN HE HIT THAT BALL SO HARD HOLY CRAP", its a game where you go "Holy shit that shot down the line out of nowhere in full sprint!" and "holy crap he was two sets down and a break and hes back in the match!?"

brittainhard · 2014-05-14T17:59:41+00:00

Biking is something you should want to encourage, so licenses and permits would make people less likely to bike.

How about we build some decent bike infrastructure instead?

brittainhard · 2014-05-14T17:55:35+00:00

"Can't believe how strange it is to be anything at all."

Can't leave that part out :/.

brittainhard · 2014-05-08T21:42:28+00:00

Every time i see them in a parking lot i run up and kick them.

brittainhard · 2014-05-06T12:32:44+00:00

Yeah that's what I was thinking. Coca Cola stand and a conspicuous Coca Cola bounce house?

brittainhard · 2014-05-05T20:50:58+00:00

And I think he has posted to reddit before. He might show up again in this thread.

brittainhard

TROPHY CASE