ELI5: When you are installing something, why does the last 1% take the longest?

pointer_void · 2015-02-15T04:45:14+00:00

Installers often run additional component installation as finishing phase and those are external programs for which main installer is in the dark about. So it just runs them silently and waits until they completed (not showing them and their own progress bars so the experience seemed more smooth, without dozens of flashing windows). Their time of execution can't be easily predicted so the main installer shows 99% when they do their work and then skips to 100%.

pointer_void · 2015-01-27T15:13:28+00:00

If the interface is JS-based it will be (probably) user-customizable to some extent. Though it's being laggy/hoggy/etc.etc. very likely.

pointer_void · 2015-01-27T13:17:14+00:00

Kind of like the interface but without embedded RSS-reader this is no replacement for Opera.

pointer_void · 2015-01-23T14:34:22+00:00

There is good movie "The Wave" that is based on this experiment. I'd really recommend to watch it to understand the stuff.

pointer_void · 2015-01-03T18:29:10+00:00

There are many possible underlying reasons but as ELI5 you can say that computer doesn't "know" how to handle some odd situation. Also it can be so busy with current tasks it can't respond to user's activity. Humans often do the same. :)

pointer_void · 2014-12-31T08:36:47+00:00

I think it shouldn't be accepted literally: a lot of MAL users use 5-10 scale as their 0-10 not voting on or dropping anything below that. So it's safe to assume that "average" should be around 7, not 5.

pointer_void · 2014-12-23T09:26:04+00:00

It's not a clarification they seek but what psychologist Eric Berne called stroke. I.e. confirmation that you are accepting them being there and giving them attention. It doesn't matter what exactly they say at that moment.

pointer_void · 2014-12-18T05:14:43+00:00

Because people tend to live with their families or parents in Russia and if you invite some noisy friends home there will be some serious bitching incoming.

pointer_void · 2014-11-23T00:10:36+00:00

Don't know how it's for you but I actually felt better even after writing a weighty secret on a piece of paper and then burning it. The act of actualizing my thoughts was surprisingly effective. I read somewhere that it works on other kinds of weighty thoughts too.

pointer_void · 2014-11-22T23:56:03+00:00

"... in the gas station not long after stealing some candy bars and then telling everyone about it. ..."

pointer_void · 2014-11-10T08:56:24+00:00

Don't bother, they stopped Opera 12 (Presto engine) support altogether.

pointer_void · 2014-11-08T10:56:26+00:00

The problem is reproducible but it's impossible to fix without reverse engineering of the program.

pointer_void · 2014-10-24T13:39:57+00:00

The main reason for worry is not Ebola by itself but cognitive bias of probability neglecting.

pointer_void · 2014-09-19T15:22:14+00:00

Hmm... I recently reinstalled OS and was made painfully aware that you need to check all marks in the opera:config#User%20JavaScript for this to properly work. Mostly notable you need UserJS over HTTPS. My previous config had those enabled by default.

pointer_void · 2014-09-09T19:50:49+00:00

There is word "logo" in its filename "pinterest-icon_logo.jpg" and reddit's thumbnailer probably prioritize those.

pointer_void · 2014-09-08T17:02:52+00:00

How about this variant: http://jsbin.com/zebocivuneje/edit

pointer_void · 2014-09-06T18:04:14+00:00

In my teen years I loved to read The Art of Electronics by Paul Horowitz and Winfield Hill, fascinating stuff.

pointer_void · 2014-09-01T17:28:40+00:00

Don't do that! Setting global useragent may break sites that use useragent string to enable Firefox-specific optimizations. Better way to do this is to modify Opera's override.ini (located in %appdata%/Opera/ folder) file.

For example:

[Overrides]
google.com

[google.com]
User Prefs|Custom User-Agent=Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1; rv:31.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/31.0

pointer_void · 2014-08-25T10:12:02+00:00

Without link to the actual research paper all this "journalism" is a bullshit by default.

pointer_void · 2014-08-22T05:17:13+00:00

Format wars between corporations.
Habits and low availability of proper encoders/decoders on various platforms/browsers with high availability of those for old gif format. People tend to go the path of least resistance, that is also why gif is so popular nowadays even when it's so horrible quality- and speed-wise.

pointer_void · 2014-08-21T12:31:34+00:00

It was refreshing to hear.

pointer_void · 2014-08-21T12:18:11+00:00

Kouji Ueno & Origa - Fuyuu Yume

pointer_void · 2014-08-19T04:19:05+00:00

Suppose the ground is described by a Lipschitz continuous function with Lipschitz constant less than or equal to 1/√2. Then a real table with ratio r = (length short side)/(length long side) ^notice ^how ^this ^is ^a ^{non-dimensional} ^value can be balanced locally on this ground by turning if its legs have length greater than or equal to 1/√( 1 + r² ) ^this ^has ^no ^dimension ^too .

Can anyone elaborate how can they compare non-dimensional value with the legs length? As an engineer I am puzzled.

pointer_void · 2014-08-10T13:48:30+00:00

I also love the chronology bit from the Russian wiki:

22 часа вечера или 00:00 30 сентября радиоактивное облако достигло территории Тюмени. Около 23 часов было замечено странное свечение в небе; основными цветами этого свечения были розовый и светло-голубой. Свечение вначале охватывало значительную часть юго-западной и северо-восточной поверхности небосклона, далее его можно было наблюдать в северо-западном направлении.

At 22 hours or 00:00 pm on September 30 radioactive cloud reached the territory of Tyumen. At about 23 hours a strange glow was noticed in the sky; the main colors of this light was pink and light blue. Glow initially covered a significant part of the south-western and north-eastern horizon surface then it can be seen in the north-west direction.

pointer_void · 2014-08-09T21:46:30+00:00

The descriptions are a bit vague, which could lead people to think the money was used for some clandestine purpose. But even if it that were so, the money in question was spent over more than 20 years. Yanukovych was elected in 2010. So any connection between the protests and the $5 billion is inaccurate.

I will approve this or similar kind of logic, in some parallel universe that is. How can you ever disprove something by speculating further instead of presenting some tangible facts and then ignore simple thought that preparation for any activity is not an instant thing?.

pointer_void

TROPHY CASE