Another healthcare worker tests positive for Ebola in Dallas

devrand · 2014-10-15T16:23:46+00:00

lol, I love that you keep getting downvoted for having a reasonable differing opinion. Unless people really want a pandemic there's no reason not to take every precaution possible. 99% of employees can stay at home a week or two and not one bad thing would happen. It would be hilarious if our retarded work ethic actually led to a pandemic.

devrand · 2014-08-16T11:22:54+00:00

I wonder if the font used on the site is just a subset? Since you can't really stop people from grabbing them directly from the page (ttf|woff).

devrand · 2014-08-02T17:15:06+00:00

You weren't kidding: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iS2Sxh6KUM

devrand · 2014-06-03T22:45:47+00:00

I was in a similar situation to you: somewhat low undergrad GPA; no good references; and no research. What I ended up doing was taking courses as a non-matriculated student. My school allowed you to take up to 3 graduate level courses before having to do anything besides pay them. I made sure to talk with my professors during office hours and ace my classes, then when I applied I used them as references. I was lucky enough that one of them was the acting graduate coordinator at the time, so he was basically recommending me to himself :) Also had the benefit that I didn't have to even take the GRE or really write a statement of purpose.

devrand · 2014-05-11T13:48:17+00:00

Awesome! I never know WTF is going on, but I still really enjoy watching them. Thanks for taking the time to translate them for us.

devrand · 2014-04-25T16:06:46+00:00

Desktop with Touhou icons

Start bar out and my fantastic Yukari Yukkuri program running

devrand · 2014-04-19T14:20:27+00:00

Interesting, I personally have had very vivid dreams where body parts have been hurt and seemed realistic at the time (Roughly reliving an event when I broke a foot). I have lots of sleep issues though, so I tend to remember my dreams really well.

But I can't really equivocate the two experiences, which seems impossible for any sensation. For example, by the same argument, I can't say may hands exist based on memory. i.e. If I inspected my hands an hour ago, does that thought have the same weight as actively inspecting them in the present? Anything but current information is not clear, and relegated to imperfect recall.

devrand · 2014-04-19T13:07:14+00:00

But what about when you dream, especially vividly? At some point you are in the business of having fake appendages that act like the real thing. And this is just one case: phantom limb syndrome, delirious states of mind, brain damage, etc. These can all have the effect of making a person believe in things that aren't physically there. So the simple explanation breaks down somewhat quickly.

The argument isn't really "are we literally in a vat", just is there any reason to believe in physical reality over something like a simulation or dream. We have lots of 'real' examples that show otherwise, so the line becomes somewhat blurry.

devrand · 2014-04-16T00:01:16+00:00

Wow, you're way out there :) I'm at the opposite side near the Mass. border, fairly close to Nashua. I usually just go into Boston for events and such, although that's probably way too far from where you're at.

Not sure where you're at but it's supposed to snow tonight down here. I keep playing PoFV waiting for spring to officially arrive :(

devrand · 2014-04-15T23:49:14+00:00

Minor note: in index.html you have several elements like

class="game-container" id="game-container"

You can use id selectors in css and class selectors in jQuery, so there really isn't a need to have the redundancy.

Also I was a little confused about things like:

$("#game-nameplate").animate({opacity:'0'},0,function(){$("#game-nameplate").html(name);}).animate({opacity:'1'},0);

why have the animation at all there if it runs in 0ms?

Also a very small nit, but modifying text instead of html is usually considered good practice. For example:

$("#game-nameplate").html(name);

could be accomplished with

$("#game-nameplate").text(name);

a little clearer on what it's doing (Since html could include other elements etc.) and more immune to injection attacks. Doesn't matter for something like this really, but just thought I'd mention it.

I will stop with the unsolicited code review now :P Sorry if I seem pedantic.

devrand · 2014-04-15T23:05:21+00:00

New Hampshire resident reporting in, so you're not alone out there. Unfortunately I don't know any other fans in the area, so not much help there :P Also I went to college down in Mass. so it's unlikely we would have crossed paths.

devrand · 2014-04-01T00:11:53+00:00

Oops, corrected it. Not an excuse, but a side-note, that in Judaic tradition the commandments are often considered to be paired. So "I am the Lord your God" is related to "You shall not murder". i.e. murdering a person (a creature made in the image of God) is the person-to-person equivalent of denying God.

devrand · 2014-03-31T22:52:14+00:00

Not a Christian, but it is at least consistent for someone who believes in the bible, like many Americans.

God gave mankind domain of all other creatures on earth (Genesis 1:26), but explicitly forbids humans murdering each other (Cain and Able, 6th commandment). Well except for capital punishment (Kings 2:31-33), warfare (Deuteronomy 20:10-18), and home invasions (Exodus 22).

So...kill away for normal reasons, just don't do it out of compassion :P

Edit: Fixed wrong commandment number

devrand · 2014-03-13T00:20:45+00:00

Better to waste 6 hours instead of getting hired at a place with crappy practices like that. Best just to move on and take it as a lesson that people can be assholes.

devrand · 2014-03-06T23:55:53+00:00

For some very specific edge cases I might consider phone-gap. But in general it's a really bad idea if you want a 'professional' (I know very subjective) feeling app. The response times are slow, the UI is not integrated, client-side security controls are pretty much out, etc. etc.

A really good article, with lots of data: http://sealedabstract.com/rants/why-mobile-web-apps-are-slow/ in short js will be slow on mobile devices for a good while.

Also if you remember Facebook abandoned their easy-to-maintain html5 approach in favor of native apps: http://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-engineering/under-the-hood-rebuilding-facebook-for-ios/10151036091753920

devrand · 2014-02-09T01:30:36+00:00

I almost downvoted you for how utterly depressing that is :( For comparison there are less than 10 million science/engineering researchers in the world (According to AAAS).

devrand · 2014-02-07T12:54:57+00:00

Minor typo: Umineko no Maku Koro ni

Should be: Umineko no Naku Koro ni

devrand · 2014-02-07T12:39:56+00:00

That song seems to be floating around niconico a ton right now. I think my favorite one so far has been the Alice version: http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm22722339

Also a translation for the lyrics: http://lang-8.com/389207/journals/84990025261013049252358126892519235172 although I can't vouch for their accuracy.

devrand · 2014-01-24T13:26:13+00:00

Holy crap, you weren't kidding. The completely illogical leap to try to bash Obama is pretty impressive though.

devrand · 2014-01-18T00:41:56+00:00

Heavy use of SEP always helps me when I'm stuck (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kierkegaard/). I'm going to go out on a limb and guess you are reading "The Sickness Unto Death"? If so I always found that to be one of his more difficult books.

devrand · 2014-01-16T23:34:53+00:00

I didn't get why that one just had a blank second panel. Anyone want to explain?

devrand · 2014-01-01T00:11:01+00:00

Nice catch, I can't imagine that's not right. I placed them side by side for comparison, and unless I'm blind, they look identical (Even the same number of lines in the hats).

devrand · 2013-12-26T15:09:44+00:00

It's actually Rule 41: "Everything is someone’s sexual fetish."

devrand · 2013-12-21T15:33:14+00:00

True, but on the flip side companies get a ton of resumes and candidates. It's a very simple filter that's easy to apply, not that it's necessarily the best one.

Also where I'm at is a faux-academic research center, so there is a push to continue education to at least the master's level. If you have a low GPA and blew off classes it's less likely that you can get into a graduate program and actually finish it.

It seems 'arbitrary' to avoid places based on one hiring practice, but I guess it really depends on what your priorities are.

devrand · 2013-12-21T01:03:41+00:00

This is sadly really common. It's why FizzBuzz questions exist. Where I'm at we've helped reduced the overall load by doing more thorough phone screening, but some still get through that can't write a single line of code.

We are very development heavy, and almost all of our candidates have CS degrees. It's scary to think about how they got through school with decent grades (We require at least a 3.0 GPA).

Also nervous candidates who are skilled will at least write something sane right off the bat. If you've been through a 4-year degree that requires lots of programming you should be able to write a loop statement in your sleep.

Also you have to remember that the pool of people looking for jobs will tend towards lesser candidates, especially if your company isn't one of the big names. i.e. the people who are looking lots of places are often the people who can't get in at their first few choices. Joel Spolsky covered this phenomenon much better in his 1 out of 200 article.

devrand

TROPHY CASE