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georgemcfly's comments

georgemcfly | 12 years ago | on: I am sick of the media saying "Hacker" when they mean "Black Hat"

The modern, non "black hat" use of the word originates with the MIT Tech Model Railroad Club (http://www.gricer.com/tmrc/dictionary1959.html) who define "hack" as '1) an article or project without constructive end; 2) work undertaken on bad self-advice; 3) an entropy booster; 4) to produce, or attempt to produce, a hack (3)."

Quite a few words in the "computer geek" lexicon were borrowed from the TMRC.

georgemcfly | 12 years ago | on: Apple’s iOS7 Native JavaScript Bridge

Objective-C isn't a proprietary language, as this author annoyingly suggests several times. Regardless, the new JavaScriptCore framework is pretty impressive. It would be nice if there were some official Apple docs beyond the one WWDC video, though.

georgemcfly | 12 years ago | on: MIT Wristband Could Make Air Conditioning Obsolete

No it couldnt. Air Conditioning is not just about temperature but also humidity, which this doesn't address. I think room fans would still be necessary to keep the air moving as well. Plus, could tricking your body into thinking its cooler than it actually is be dangerous? Make sure people don't wear it while doing vigorous physical activity in the summer heat.

georgemcfly | 14 years ago | on: In the Future Everything Will Be A Coffee Shop

Universities will shrink to coffeshops? That's a very CS/math-centric viewpoint. How are you going to do MITx with with Chemsitry? Physics? Biology? Med School? Anything that requires specialized equipment? How will you do team projects that require people to be in physical proximity to one another (building complicated things, for instance).

Universities aren't going away. At most, some programs may become "virtualized" but even then there's a lot of value add with college. They have specialized libraries and librarians to help you find information that may not be on the internet. They can afford expensive equipment and the people to take care of them. It's often useful just to be around people in your same program to talk about projects and learn from each other. It may not be $100k value add, but that just means college will get less expensive and possibly shrink, not that it will go away all together.

georgemcfly | 14 years ago | on: What Colors Mean in Different Cultures [Infographic]

That visualization is not very readable. It's neat looking, but kind of horrible. A regular2d grid with countries across the top and meanings down the side would be wat easier to read, especially you wouldn't have to look up what the letters/number mean.

georgemcfly | 14 years ago | on: Electronic Arts to Acquire PopCap Games for $750 Million

How is Zynga supposedly worth over 20 times what PopCap is being bought for? I must be massively underestimating how much people spend on in-game items in * Ville\* Wars. Or really overestimating how many copies of PvZ have been sold (I've bought it twice). And PopCap's revenue model isn't even almost wholly dependent on another companies success.
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