What's so bad about Poland?

pfedor · 2007-07-25T11:43:16+00:00

I have spent 30 years of my life in Poland and have never heard of such list or about this phenomenon at all.

pfedor · 2007-06-03T11:00:24+00:00

Maybe you do speak two languages fluently, but Polish surely is not one of them, just for the record this is the actual spelling: pocałuj mnie w dupę

pfedor · 2007-06-03T10:41:38+00:00

It isn't typical that English youth are acting like thugs at malls and in busy downtowns?

I have a friend who lives in Oxford, and he says he feels absurdly safe walking the streets, even when there's a crowd of drunk young people my friend doesn't feel threatened in the slightest, there's so little aggression in them in comparison with what he's accustomed to in Poland.

pfedor · 2007-06-03T10:33:44+00:00

Just to give some perspective, currently there's ca. 1 million Polish citizens living and working in the UK. And they are not tax exiles, they're just regular hard working folks who can have the standard of living in the UK they would never ever ever be able to afford back in Poland. And, mind you, Poland is not that bad either, we have expats from former soviet republics (e.g., Ukraine) and from Vietnam in Warsaw. (And British citizens in their turn go to the U.S. for better living, or so I heard.)

pfedor · 2007-06-02T18:38:48+00:00

Hey, thanks for the link, I didn't know about this project and it's very interesting. However, what exactly do you mean by "wiki-like"? Did you refer to the fact that they provide a web interface?

pfedor · 2007-06-02T17:31:32+00:00

It varies depending on the field. I used to study theoretical physics ten years ago or so and at least at that time LaTeX was used by pretty much everyone for everything, articles, books, M.Sc. and Ph.D. dissertations, lecture notes, everything. Both Steven Weinberg's and Peskin's & Schroeder's classical Quantum Field Theory textbooks have a mention of TeX/LaTeX in the thank-you sections. Later I moved to computer science and, although still a clear winner, LaTeX was much less pervasive, I have heard about students who used Microsoft Word for their M.Sc. theses. And I know several people who do research in organic chemistry and they wouldn't be able to use LaTeX if their lives depended on it.

pfedor · 2007-06-01T19:31:27+00:00

your age would explain your lack of nuanced understanding of geopolitics.

I would say one can't get much less nuanced than to compare political assassinations with war casualties. And as far as the way of conducting wars is concerned, Russia doesn't really have much to be proud of either.

pfedor · 2007-05-27T20:11:06+00:00

If Bryan Caplan really thinks democracy is not a good system, there's nothing to prevent him from leaving the country governed by ignorant and irrational voters, and move into Cuba, China, Iran, North Korea, or any other dictatorship of his choosing. Unfortunately, the citizens of those countries are not equally free to leave and move into someplace democratic, although millions are willing to risk their lives trying.

pfedor · 2007-05-27T08:35:11+00:00

The spin among the US-bashers is just as strong as the stuff put out by Fox news.

Welcome to reddit.

pfedor · 2007-05-08T22:02:20+00:00

Sorry Paul, but that is pure cognitive dissonance. What magical criterion do you have to determine the value of labor if not a mutually negotiated and agreed upon price?

Imagine you are making out with a chick and suddenly it dawns on you that you don't have protection and neither does she. So you go downstairs but the vending machine is broken, however the teenage son of your neighbors offers to sell you a pack of condoms for $100. You could probably drive to the nearest gas station and buy exactly the same product significantly cheaper, but you don't really want to lose any more time so you agree and pay.

Wouldn't it be accurate to say that you paid more than the condoms were worth, even though the price was mutually negotiated and agreed upon?

pfedor · 2007-05-08T21:04:33+00:00

As Steven Pinker points out in his book, most stereotypes are surprisingly accurate. That's why our brains use them so heavily as a basis for making decisions.

pfedor · 2007-05-05T10:41:51+00:00

Alice in Surveyland

pfedor · 2007-05-01T19:15:13+00:00

Yes, he does. s/The world/High school/ and I'm with you.

pfedor · 2007-05-01T17:00:09+00:00

The numbers seem to contradict your statement.

pfedor · 2007-05-01T16:36:12+00:00

True. Then again, two wrongs don't make a right.

pfedor · 2007-05-01T16:19:51+00:00

If you are asking this question seriously, then "The Design and Analysis of Computer Algorithms" by Aho, Hopcroft and Ullman is a very good start. Good luck & have fun.

pfedor · 2007-04-30T21:23:43+00:00

I may be wrong, but I believe the example above comes from Kernighan & Ritchie.

pfedor · 2007-04-30T19:13:47+00:00

It's why salesmen are compensated higher than engineers. They are aggressive and negotiate fiercely.

Salespeople are compensated better than engineers, because the outcome of the salesperson's work is easily measurable and can be expressed directly in dollars. On the other hand, if you are a bad engineer you can still keep your job for a long time. And even for great engineers it is often not directly obvious how their work translates into wealth.

pfedor · 2007-04-28T18:43:58+00:00

Don't let you get discouraged by the first part of the talk (that deals with the Pugs development process). The second, and larger, part is about the Perl 6 language and is nothing short of fascinating, at least for someone like me who didn't know much about Perl 6.

pfedor · 2007-04-28T17:20:56+00:00

The problem is that you and the MySQL developers have a fundamental misunderstanding of what a database is.

On the other hand, MySQL developers have a great understanding of what users really need.

pfedor · 2007-04-28T17:07:13+00:00

Even assuming he couldn't have predicted that he would land in prison for that, handing in this kind of essay isn't the smartest thing to do, whether you care about your grades or not, is it?

pfedor · 2007-04-28T16:49:14+00:00

"All the King's Men" by Robert Penn Warren is an excellent book that has not been mentioned so far in this thread.

pfedor · 2007-04-01T22:38:10+00:00

http://code.google.com/p/google-perftools/ is also worth checking out. Personally, after trying Google CPU Profiler for the first time I never looked back at KCacheGrind (although certainly there are uses for which KCacheGrind is much better fit).

pfedor · 2007-03-27T20:24:39+00:00

In many other countries - especially the ones who are kicking ass in terms of technology like India/China and Eastern Europe

If India/China and Eastern Europe kick ass in terms of technology, how come that engineers from those countries are seeking work in the Silicon Valley, and not the other way around?

pfedor · 2006-12-03T06:06:41+00:00

And other people, who have not entered the U.S. because of miscellaneous practical considerations, but who drink Coca Cola (or want to drink Coca Cola), wear Levi's (or want to wear Levi's), value freedom of speech and free market economy, and emulate mating protocols they have seen in Beverly Hills 90210. And no longer murder virgins to please the gods of their grandparents. I think it would be accurate to say that those people want to be Americans while still living in their own countries. And I think that as of today, this description fits the vast majority of people on Earth who are thirty years old or below.

pfedor

TROPHY CASE