News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

digitalmerc

Re:Chesscademy, a free chess learning site on Monday August 19, 2013 @12:55AM (#6235686)
Videos not working for anyone else?
Re:Automatic: Your Smart Driving Assistant on Tuesday March 12, 2013 @05:31PM (#5365040)
Out of interest, how much did the domain cost?
Re:Automatic: Your Smart Driving Assistant on Tuesday March 12, 2013 @05:20PM (#5364961)
Exactly. I wouldn't either, but they said "when they ship". Pre-ordered one for my lady friend as well.

Doesn't say on the site, but is there an expected ship date?

Ah says in the email:

> You’ll only be charged once your Automatic Link ships in May (for iPhone) and Fall (for Android).

Re:Google: Self-driving cars in 3-5 years. Feds: Not so fast on Friday February 08, 2013 @10:45AM (#5188368)
> ...basically your argument is actually an argument FOR self driving cars.

Hah, yeah it kind of ended up being that way didn't it? :) Even though I don't feel I was arguing against them in the first place.

Re:Google: Self-driving cars in 3-5 years. Feds: Not so fast on Friday February 08, 2013 @10:23AM (#5188245)
Well I think I have it right, while the trading algorithms are networked, they essentially operate independently of one another. So just how a trading algorithm reacts to market movements, the radar on top of the car would react to road conditions and other drivers.

I couldn't even imagine them all networked, although it may actually be better, it seems like even more danger.

Re:Google: Self-driving cars in 3-5 years. Feds: Not so fast on Friday February 08, 2013 @10:18AM (#5188219)
One thing that always comes to mind, and this may just be the pessimist in me, but remember the "flash crash"? Where a bunch of trading algorithms triggered short sells as a reaction to other trading algorithms triggering short sells?

Well think of that, but with cars, with people in them...

Edit: I think it's being misconstrued that I am somehow against Google Cars, when in fact I'm very much for them. Regardless of the likelihood of the aforementioned scenario, I agree that it's still far better than the wildly unpredictable human factor. And ultimately I think that self-driven cars will be a boon both for road safety as well as fuel economy and overall emissions. (Not to mention traffic, I can't wait for a world when traffic is basically non-existent)

One thing I realized after making this comment too, is that road situations are far easier to predict than the randomness of the market, and the consequences are much higher than 0's in a bank account, so I'm sure there will be fail-safes.

Re:What If Cars Were Rented Like We Hire Programmers? on Wednesday January 16, 2013 @02:39PM (#5068590)
Actually it does, and spot on to boot.

He's not saying "don't find a good programmer." He's saying that the questions they ask get them no closer to finding out whether he is a good programmer.

Re:I'm trying to be less hyperbolic on Sunday December 09, 2012 @03:34PM (#4896014)
"I'm trying to be less hyperbolic"...

"I'd be honored if you followed me on Twitter."

While I agree with the thesis, and I'd like to start doing so as well, that was kind of funny.

Re:Cosmo: A free Metro-inspired theme for Bootstrap on Monday November 26, 2012 @01:22PM (#4833138)
You know when we built [PDFzen](https://pdfzen.com), we used Bootstrap and made it Metro-esque. I wish we'd have had something like this for the homepage. It certainly would've sped things up.