Recent submissions

Comment · 7 years ago
I doesn't physically cost any practical amount of money to read an article, a tiny amount of processing power and data transfer. A physical meal costs orders of magnitude more.

I understand why we should pay for articles but if you enforce payment then you'll see a flood of poorly written click bait and a race to the bottom.

Comment · 7 years ago
When I was young I remember pay TV being marketed in Australia as "TV with no ads". It's slowly shifted to a premium content with ads model that I find hard to justify when I have access to ad free online services.

As a parent this is doubly so. I know everything my children watch and I don't want them exposed to excessive advertising. I also don't let them watch content on YouTube that has excessive advertising in the show itself. I'll gladly pay money for ad free content that is designed to both entertain and educate.

Comment · 7 years ago
Normal could be defined as a range if you use the English usage of normal.
Comment · 7 years ago
The way I'm reading this code is that the cases aren't that distinct. Look at lines 4367 to 4390 and you see 23 distinct cases that could be handled by a range and Mod 3.
Comment · 7 years ago
I'm a second-year CS student that is still learning in this realm. Is there a general way that most developers would rewrite lines 5261-5284? My assumption is I would look to find some rules I can apply to simplify the code but I'm also aware a CS course is a bit of a bubble and what I've learnt so far might not be the way things are handled in industry.

For example, line 5284 has a 8 inequality operators checking every 4th element (140. 144, 148,...). A single "blocks[1][y][x] % 4 != 0" would remove them all. There also appears to be 3 main segments in that huge block of code (111-118, 119-126, 137-168) which would allow it to be simplified.

A second question: Why is there no comments? Is this common?

Comment · 7 years ago
Name, date of birth and contact details (phone and address) are often enough data for a fraudster to commit some serious damage. If I call up my phone company or bank that's probably going to cover the questions they ask me to prove identity. Someone transferring my phone can then get past any 2FA I hold.

At what point do we hold NAB liable for the potential damage they have caused?

Comment · 7 years ago
Neither of my parents finished high school and didn't value education but they did value hard work and they encouraged me to get a trade. I joined the military, got a trade there, and now in my early/mid 30's I'm completing a CS degree.

Working for others isn't such a bad life if you have the drive to establish a life that you want for yourself.

Comment · 7 years ago
Depending on the size of the effect, 11 participants can be very valid in an experiment. For example, assume you have 11 participants having a hormone measured after an experiment. If normal readings are 300 with a SD of 30, and at the end of the experiment their mean is 520 with a SD of 40, then you've just shown a strong, significant effect.
Comment · 7 years ago
A decent amount of your electricity bill is related to supply. Modern countries have a lot of rules around the reliability of their energy supply so companies spend a lot of money to guarantee that infrastructure is up to scratch. You're not paying for just the energy but for the transport of that energy.

A home system that uses its own electricity has the advantage of reducing the demand on the grid. A commercial system doesn't.

Comment · 7 years ago
I'm sitting here considering the possibility of making my own bot to play low stakes online poker ($1.50 sit n go). Run it on 6 tables at once and I imagine it would be facing really poor opponents and would have a steady flow of cash.
Comment · 7 years ago
Success isn't the best possible outcome vs worst possible outcome scenario you're describing. I made a decision at 30 to improve my life and three years later I'm reaping benefits.

Consider an obese man looking at a fitness model and saying "I want to look like that". He might never reach it but if he loses weight and becomes fitter and healthier then his effort paid off. He might think he failed but he's landed in a better position. I often remind myself that when I'm doing something I don't want to that I'm paying it forward to a future version of me.

Comment · 7 years ago
How could someone sell shares in an asteroid? Wouldn't it be shares in a mining operation? If another country or business finds a way to mine that asteroid then they won't care about your paper claiming ownership.
Comment · 7 years ago
How does it feel to use? It's unfortunate but tin + lead solder is just better than the other options on the market.
Comment · 7 years ago
Aren't planes horrible for climate when compared to other systems?
Comment · 7 years ago
In terms of long distance travel can bullet trains compare with flights, especially if they shave time off with an easier check in system?

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