singular's comments

singular | 12 years ago | on: Ask HN: How long before you leave?

I'd give it at least 3 months and really try to assess whether the discomfort was due to the job being a sucky situation or me being challenging/experiencing natural discomfort after a big change, i.e. getting the job, or even potentially due to some outside factor. I'd also definitely talk things over with friends to get some outside perspective.

After that, if I felt the same way, if I had enough money to survive a year without working I'd leave immediately, take time off, then prep for interviews and go for a better job. However this is very situation dependent, I am a single man with no (serious) responsibilities, ymmv.

singular | 12 years ago | on: How To Generate Procedural Racetracks Without Noise

I think this is a great example of how well-studied algorithms crop up in (potentially) unexpected places, i.e. convex hull.

Often in day-to-day work algorithms aren't immediately useful. But when they are, they really make a difference.

singular | 12 years ago | on: 8BitBoy – A Flash-based Amiga Modplayer

There was a definite style to a lot of e.g. game music on the amiga that made it feel quite unique both at the time and since, and listening to this reminds me of that style.

'the number of voices is limited to four. To have something similarly to chords, the three notes of it are repeated very fast. This makes MODs sound so freaky.'

This is possibly why this stuff sounds so unique. Interesting how a technical limitation can result in unintended stylistic consequences.

singular | 12 years ago | on: Scientists Send Text Message Using Vodka

I think it's worth exploring non-standard means of establishing networks no matter how ostensibly silly as they can come in extremely useful when e.g. governments try to restrict internet access in oppressive countries or natural disasters occur, etc.

Though I'm not sure if this particular example is of much use ;-)

singular | 12 years ago | on: Why I'm turning JavaScript off by default

Actually - "This smells a bit like linkbait to me"

I don't think that quite qualifies as personally accusing you of intentionally posting linkbait to HN.

There are plenty of articles submitted here by people who aren't the author that are in fact intentionally linkbait. I don't know where else you advertised this post, etc. so you not having posted it doesn't mean it wasn't linkbait (I believe you that it wasn't, fine.)

So even though it was you venting after a[n inferred] tough week, then the submitter might have intended it as clickbait for karma purposes. So I didn't actually necessarily direct that comment at you.

Also keep in mind if you write on a public blog, there's always the possibility that people will express an opinion you find disagreeable somewhere about it, probably less politely elsewhere (especially in the flamebait-attracting area of programming languages.)

If I wrote a blog post, entirely for myself entitled 'why I despise Windows 7 and wish we could go back to the wonder days of ME', I wouldn't be surprised if it resulted in people suggesting it was linkbait if it was later posted to a news site (other than it was getting attention, of course :)

Having said all that I should apologise, I didn't mean it as a personal attack (though I do, respectfully, disagree with your article), as usual text is a dreadful medium for expressing these things.

singular | 12 years ago | on: Why I'm turning JavaScript off by default

This smells a bit like linkbait to me (and amusingly similar to some of the items in the 4chan parody not so long ago.)

I think this would be better as a blacklist. I definitely don't find as much abuse as is claimed, but it does happen occasionally.

I don't want to return to a world where I have to refresh my email window to receive new email, or a world where collaborative google docs aren't possible or the whole plethora of awesome stuff javascript has enabled - you can't get that useful stuff without it being abusable, that power can be used for good or bad.

I think the delays in loading sites is also overstated, yes on poorly designed sites, but e.g. my home page which is angular-based loads very quickly, and one of the benefit of doing things on the client-side is that you can cache more and only transmit the data the client-side app needs to use, dynamically.

Blacklisting, not whitelist solves this problem, my friend.

singular | 12 years ago | on: Go 1.3 Linker Overhaul

> But that is mostly a problem because incremental compiling in C++ is difficult for well-known reasons. Incremental compiling is well-supported in many other languages (e.g. Java) and is usually very fast. So, the issue of compilation time is IMO overstated by Go proponents.

Actually, chromium's ninja [0] build setup [1] is really awesome, and does what it can with incremental building, but it's obviously limited in what it can do, it doesn't seem to take very much to trigger a very big rebuild. It's a definite help though.

[0]:http://martine.github.io/ninja/ [1]:https://code.google.com/p/chromium/wiki/NinjaBuild

singular | 12 years ago | on: Go 1.3 Linker Overhaul

Absolutely, I should have said 'build' rather than 'compile'. It's both compilation and linking.

singular | 12 years ago | on: Go 1.3 Linker Overhaul

Wow. I'm really impressed with that. I'm looking at >1hr on a mid-2012 Macbook Pro Retina for Chromium.

singular | 12 years ago | on: Progress toward 3D printing lithium-ion batteries

Wow, that's quite something.

I really feel the tech around batteries needs particular focus, as the one thing computing technology seems to lag on is battery life - I dream of a time where I can charge my laptop once a year and not have to worry about it otherwise.

Perhaps 3D printing of batteries will offer easier iteration on new ideas?

singular | 12 years ago | on: Go 1.3 Linker Overhaul

I'm trying to contribute to the Chromium project and believe me, when you're waiting over an hour to compile 1 day's worth of patches, you begin to dream of faster compile speeds :-)

I think having some sort of optional 'really fast compile' vs. 'optimal performance' build is the ideal - fast cycle development, then on deploy build something fast. I think gc go vs. gccgo is potentially a model for this :-)

singular | 12 years ago | on: Started a stupid company. Failed.

I don't think it's rewriting history to say you were aggressive and attacking, I do absolutely accept that you might have been 100% in the right and justified in that.

I got the impression you were being bullying - my whole point here is that I felt I was wrong, and your kindness made me reconsider.

My little comments (indeed they are little, I make no claims otherwise) were actually genuinely and seriously meant to be complimentary while being open and direct about the impression I had.

Actually, please do ignore me and carry on helping people. These kind of arguments are a waste of time, what you're doing to help these people isn't. I admire it.

singular | 12 years ago | on: Started a stupid company. Failed.

Understandable that it came off that way, genuinely not intended as that.

It's bloody hard to express something sincerely on the internet without sounding like you're just being sarcastic.

singular | 12 years ago | on: Started a stupid company. Failed.

...but this comment which is sincere, genuine and offered to someone for whom this could be greatly helpful has made me seriously reconsider. Kudos.

I felt you'd appreciate an unhedged opinion rather than me adding a bunch of weasel words like "I had the impression, right or wrong, that you were a bullying cock..."

I meant to say, very sincerely, that I was moved by your offer of help and it very much made me reconsider my opinion, as that gesture of kindness is really at odds with that impression of you.

So - sorry for calling you a cock. I thought what you did here was very noble and I admire it. I just felt there was no other way of expressing what I felt without being cowardly and weasel-worded about it.

singular | 12 years ago | on: Started a stupid company. Failed.

"I have for a while thought of you as (total honesty here) a bullying cock"

Notice the past tense. I based that opinion on the many aggressive attacking posts by Zed (for which he is well-known), particularly the attack of Mark Pilgrim (now deleted.)

That impression may be right or it may be wrong, but for good or for bad it's one that I got, and I felt my not mentioning that or hedging it here would be intellectually dishonest.

Note what I said next:-

"but this comment which is sincere, genuine and offered to someone for whom this could be greatly helpful has made me seriously reconsider. Kudos."

Which I really meant sincerely. It was actually meant to be a genuine compliment, but it is really hard to put that across without sounding sarcastic. Ah well.

singular | 12 years ago | on: Started a stupid company. Failed.

I have for a while thought of you as (total honesty here) a bullying cock (though talented at what you do), but this comment which is sincere, genuine and offered to someone for whom this could be greatly helpful has made me seriously reconsider. Kudos.

singular | 12 years ago | on: Penny Arcade’s Insultingly Horrible Job

Yes, you're right, other than the idea that the job posting isn't entering into an argument - I'd say that it is, the person is taking a position that they feel this is a reasonable and justifiable job to advertise.

We can reasonably consider this implicit position and draw conclusions, and yes absolutely, because something happens to be a personal attack, it isn't necessarily ad hominem. Saying 'ignore what this person has done and listen to me telling you he's a great guy' very much is.

singular | 12 years ago | on: Penny Arcade’s Insultingly Horrible Job

Discussing an accusation of ad hominem inevitably involves you discussing that person's ad hominem-ism, which is ironically meta-ad hominem. Unavoidable I think... though strangely comical I must say!

singular | 12 years ago | on: Penny Arcade’s Insultingly Horrible Job

So it's ok to be an abusive arsehole as long as you're honest about it? The only crime is to be a dishonest arsehole?

How about being a decent reasonable human being/employer? Or is that just off the table altogether in this discussion?

With limbo-like justifications like this I'm not surprised these kind of diseased company cultures exist.

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