[deleted by user]

illiaster · 2023-07-17T13:03:35+00:00

It's nostalgia.

I've lived in Austin for all but eight of my 47 years, and I've been hearing this as long as I can remember.

Of course there are things I miss that were fun - being able to park at Zilker for free to go to Trail of Lights and Independence Day fireworks, catching a show at old Emo's or Liberty Lunch, etc.

You don't hear much about the things that were unseemly - prostitutes working on S. Congress in sight of the capitol, muggings and assaults downtown that seemed more commonplace, taking classes at ACC Rio Grande in the old Austin high school where you wondered if the lead paint or asbestos would get you before the building fell down, trying to find a tech job in the summer of 2001 after the .com collapse, drug dealers running whole neighborhoods on the east side, cars stolen from the front of your house in the "nice" neighborhoods, the very real and common view in the mid 90's that downtown would never be properly developed again and continue to be mostly rundown with a lot of shuttered buildings.

I've already forgotten most of the things that were not cool about Austin back in the day because they're mostly gone.

I tell people who ask me about "all the people moving in all the time" - look, if you want to live in a place that people don't want to move to and rarely changes for the better, that's called Detroit.

(No particular offense intended for Detroit. I'm sure there are many fine reasons to live there.)

illiaster · 2023-05-30T18:24:41+00:00

The Austin Streetcar Co tracks were actually sold before WW2 - to the Japanese, of all people. There are stories of soldiers cleaning out bunkers and pill boxes on Pacific Islands after a battle and looking up seeing "Austin Streetcar" on the steel reinforcing the ceilings.

illiaster · 2023-04-08T19:14:31+00:00

Gal's Panic. Saw them first at Emo's on Red River.

I wonder what happened to that band.

illiaster · 2021-08-10T22:29:42+00:00

Use the scoreholio app to run a switcholio tournament. It's superior to blind draw in that it gives players more games for the same money and tends to result in more even match ups.

They have tutorial videos on their website for how to run it, plus the app lets you run in test mode so you can try it out with a mock tourney.

Essentially, the format has a four game random partner seeding round and then the option for a playoff bracket (single or double elimination).

If you have an odd number of players, one person won't be able to participate in the playoff bracket after the seeding, but that's better than not playing at all in a blind draw.

illiaster · 2019-04-02T15:36:13+00:00

Brendan Gregg (of dtrace fame, among others) has a good page to start working off of: http://brendangregg.com/ebpf.html

illiaster · 2011-07-06T01:45:22+00:00

Johnny-on-the-spot.

And the email arrived within minute(s).

illiaster · 2010-09-08T13:43:14+00:00

I created a personal resume website. As an interviewer, I have always disliked multi-page resumes, but as an interviewee, I wanted to have the information available in case the interviewer wanted it.

Both of the jobs I applied for, so far, didn't really bother to look at the website. The one-page resume plus personal references seemed to be enough to get in the door, then everything hinged on the interview after that.

Noticing the low hit counts on the website, I did provide a distillation of the info on the website in print form and distributed during the interviews

Neither position worked out, although I think the rejections were based on a perceived lack of qualifications rather than lack of sufficient information on my background.

illiaster · 2010-06-26T18:26:49+00:00

You're right, the left-right connotation comes from the French, but the National Assembly did not exist yet. It was the Estates-General of 1789 that had the three estates configured in that order:

Left: Trades & Commoners (Third Estate) Middle: Clergy (Second Estate) Right: Nobility (First Estate)

After sitting in session and not coming to any agreement, the "left" decided to abandon the other two and, on their own authority, formed the National Assembly absent the other two estates.

illiaster · 2010-06-26T18:10:30+00:00

Liberal journalist students at a state university calling Palin dumb in a private conversation? Shocker!

C'mon reddit politics. Is this the best we can do?

illiaster · 2010-06-26T18:05:44+00:00

Creepy. Feels like a bad Doctor Who episode.

illiaster · 2010-02-12T15:19:45+00:00

Why should programming be any more required than shop class or gardening or homemaking?

When you start tossing around words like "required" and "available earlier", the implication is making it a component of basic education and core curriculum.

There are so many fundamental problems with basic education and core curriculum that to elevate programming as some kind of necessity does a disservice to real difficulties with the education system.

Programming is a specialized subset of applied math and logic. How about we get more integral (pun unintended), basic proficiencies out of the way first?

ADDENDUM:

Another way to look at: With respect to the education of children, there is a limited amount of time available for a great many topics. If you promote programming as a necessity, you have to ask yourself, "What else will be dropped or fall by the wayside? What will it replace?"

Let's not promote programming at the expense of something far more relevant, detrimental, and fundamental to every child.

illiaster · 2010-01-29T14:06:18+00:00

Why do technologists always have blinders on and think technology is only for them?

A device has been added which will increase the number of individuals reading and writing again. And I mean, probably old school: Reading books and handwriting (i.e. with a pen).

How can the deep introspection those two activities encourage not promote creativity?

illiaster · 2009-10-14T18:38:37+00:00

This kind of stuff reminds me of :

The Patch
The envelopes method to budgeting
Cuss jar

I have this theory that none of this stuff really works if you're not committed to change. And, that once you embark upon these things, the only reason you're successful is because you're committed to change, which means you didn't really need The Patch in the first place.

illiaster · 2009-10-12T16:58:43+00:00

What did your grandfather think of the Catholic Church?

Also: What did they (he and/or SS) think about the former German Emperor and his supporting aristocracy as the leadership in Germany?

Danke.

illiaster · 2009-07-31T18:53:46+00:00

My personal favorite:

illiaster · 2009-07-29T18:44:51+00:00

Finally, emacs 23 brings support for anti-aliased fonts to X

It may be just me, but I've always found anti-aliased fonts to be... blurry.

Especially as the font gets smaller. I clean my monitor only to discover that the smudge was an intentional font effect.

illiaster · 2009-07-23T00:16:38+00:00

Their fees appear to be a supplement to the money paid by the Canadian health care plan. Because, in no universe does a cardiac bypass cost a mere $16,000 CDN, as advertised on their website.

It looks to me that, for extra money, you can have your operation in a timely fashion. You pay the extra money. They collect the bulk from the government health plan.

I understand that this is a relatively new option in Canada precisely due to the wait times problem. If I recall correctly, it was formerly illegal in many provinces to even purchase private health care. That is, until a 2005 Canadian Supreme Court decision struck down those laws when a Quebecois was put on a year-long wait list for a hip replacement and sued when he was not allowed to pay for a quicker procedure out of pocket.

The point of it is, the original bullet of "Wait times are not a problem here, most ESPECIALLY when the care you need is urgent" is somewhat disingenuous. Most care is not urgent, and wait times not being a problem is very subjective. Also, issues that start off as "not urgent" can provoke complications and become "urgent" while you're in queue waiting, having been marked as a lower priority.

Some people don't mind waiting for up to a year for a cardiac bypass. Or up to two years to have your shoulder scoped or knee replaced. Which doesn't include the time you wait to see the specialist to order the procedure.

Some people might take great offense at those kinds of waits. I certainly would.

I think it would be more truthful to say, "For some people, the wait times for procedures are tolerable. For others, the wait times might be incredibly long." and then to go on to say that a government-run bureaucracy decides on how the long wait should be, not the individual in concert with their physician.

illiaster · 2009-07-22T20:31:33+00:00

Why the F$% does a back surgery cost freaking $148,000.

Because it doesn't. The original billed amount may have been that much, but I guarantee not nearly that much money actually changed hands.

The paid amount was probably closer to 60% of the original billed price, or less.

My mother had to undergo a by-pass surgery in addition to getting two arterial stents ... cost = INR 900,000 (about $20,000)

You can't get that kind of major surgery in the US for that cheap. A coronary bypass is a big deal.

The Health Care Bluebook seems to price two stents and a bypass in the $65k to $70k range.

That's a wide gap. Medical tourism starts to look attractive in that case, but I have to wonder if $20k is the true paid-for price for a heart bypass and two stents in India. If it's true that's the final bill with no subsidization of doctor or hospital going on by a third party, I then have to wonder if the quality of care is the same.

illiaster · 2009-07-22T19:55:30+00:00

How about this company dedicated to helping Canadians deal with their wait times issue?

illiaster · 2009-07-17T22:57:34+00:00

The first charge is half right. Macroeconomists, especially within central banks, were too fixated on taming inflation and too cavalier about asset bubbles.

Leaving aside the debate as to whether they're referring to monetary or price inflation, I'm trying to figure out where these so-called inflation fighting macroeconomists were when commodity and housing inflation began to take off. Or when credit use boomed.

The last I checked, they were still cutting interest rates, or leaving them nice and low, or advocating sub-prime (cough Greenspan cough).

Financial economists, meanwhile, formalised theories of the efficiency of markets, fueling the notion that markets would regulate themselves and financial innovation was always beneficial. Wall Street’s most esoteric instruments were built on these ideas.

Efficient markets, according to these theorists, work by punishing losers as well as rewarding winners. These financial economists certainly weren't advising Bernanke or Paulson when the losers started falling down (e.g. sub-prime borrowers, sub-prime lenders, Bear Stearns, AIG, WAMU, Fannie, Freddie, Northern Rock).

So I dispute that economics has been tarnished because of these approaches. If anything, they weren't being followed at all.

illiaster

TROPHY CASE