Jim Norris › Comments

"Just Missing******* is not right or wrong in any moral sense but it is impossibly awkward. The paradigmatic example is the guy who is handsome, clever, and well-built but, at the same time, 5 foot 7. Every grad school class or large corporate office has one of these dudes. He is secretly obsessed with his looks and all the cute girls platonically flirt with (but never date) him and even though he is vaguely cool and caddish he somehow doesn't seem to have any close friends and deep down you suspect he is miserable." - Jim Norris from Bookmarklet

I was just in SF in Sept., and it was still 10 dudes to one female. Put it this way: if you are female in an establishment with alcohol and males, you will be hit on at least once. At least. - Mona Nomura

Hope you're enjoying London! - Jim Norris

:p my winter coat is from tibet, so i guess i do like the tibet ppl, :p - chaz2b

whoops change that to mongolia, sorry, :( http://friendfeed.com/chaz2b... - chaz2b

"For an economist, the irony is rich. The editorial board that did more to bring supply-side economics – or in George H.W. Bush’s immortal words, "voodoo economics" – to Washington is raising the specter of a fiscally irresponsible health reform bill in which efforts to rein in health care cost growth are an "illusion." But the ironies run richer, since an editorial that hurls accusations of overselling cost containment itself displays more impressive rhetoric than substantive content." - Jim Norris from Bookmarklet

What do you know? Valleywag got everything wrong. Google is hiring, not laying off. Also, our interview scores actually correlate very well with on-the-job performance. Peter Seibel asked me if there was anything counterintuitive about the process and I said that people who got one low score but were hired anyway did well on-the-job. To me, that means the interview process is doing very well, not that it is broken. It means that we don't let one bad interview blackball a candidate. We'll keep interviewing, keep hiring, and keep analyzing the results to improve the process. And I guess Valleywag will keep doing what they do... - Peter Norvig from Bookmarklet

Yeah! Always go with the _second_ hunch. - Andrew C

It's a bit silly that every language has to rewrite the names for other countries' places. Why can't we all call places by what the locals call them? But in the absence of that, yeah, might as well not be a poseur. - LogEx

Copen- hay-gen is the correct way. I twitch every time I hear the other one. As for Häagen-Dazs, it doesn't really sound Scandinavian, more like southern German/Austrian or something like that.. - Rasmus Lauridsen

http://lifehacker.com/5416007... but better (fixed) - Jim Norris

Reminds me of when I used to dial into to the internet. I wrote scripts to download p0rn in this way so that I could view it offline without having to wait for each jpg to load. Speed matters, even with the naughty stuff. Especially with the naughty stuff? - Bill Strathearn

You can control your PS3 with your universal remote via one of these: http://www.schmartstuff.com/ps3ir50... (Logitech/Harmony makes a similar device, with I think is pretty much identical except it's prettier, but costs $10 more) - Laurence Gonsalves

We don't watch much TV around here either, but the entertainment system is also the radio, the music system, the movie system, and of course, the game station. - Piaw Na

"I find it interesting if you go to Wikipedia, you can actually see news breaking on there instead of on online newspaper websites at times" - j1m from Bookmarklet

@e3r: there is http://wikirank.com, but not responding right now. - sizofroid

""Of all the things he is cancelling, I think the worst is cancelling the lunch with the king," said Siv Jensen, the leader of the largest party in opposition, the populist Progress party. "This is a central part of our government system. He should respect the monarchy," she told VG." The leader of the populist Progress party is pro-monarchy? I don't think I understand Norwegian politics very well. - Jim Norris

The Norwegians should accept this with grace, lest the Nobel Prize be seen as a way for the King to get an audience with whomever he pleases. - Kevin Fox

"OTR assumes a network model which provides in-order delivery of messages, but that some messages may not get delivered at all (for example, if the user disconnects). There may be an active attacker, who is allowed to perform a Denial of Service attack, but not to learn the contents of messages." - Jim Norris from Bookmarklet

I love massaging protocols - j1m

Like http://www.youtube.com/watch...? - DeWitt Clinton

For a moment there, I thought Al Gore had decided to go into radiology. - Victor Ganata

The ideal number is as many monitors as he needs to lecture us about saving the environment. - Morton Fox

He hopes that in two years he can convince her to not divorce him, which would cost $300M. Or two years would be long enough for him to divest his assets in such a way that divorce costs him less :) - Tudor Bosman

He is buying time for whatever reason.): http://www.american-schools.net - snowy lee

You might try this: http://www.amazon.com/gp... Ambient music, nature sounds, and binaural beats. - Ruchira S. Datta

Depends. If I already know the code I need to write, slowly evolving psytrance sets a fast cadence. No lyrics though since I can't be having the music triggering my language processing. For something more contemplative (like a code review) I listen to something more downtempo and relaxing. Very nice headphones are a must have. - Tracy

"Pig is a platform for analyzing large data sets that consists of a high-level language for expressing data analysis programs, coupled with infrastructure for evaluating these programs. The salient property of Pig programs is that their structure is amenable to substantial parallelization, which in turns enables them to handle very large data sets. At the present time, Pig's infrastructure layer consists of a compiler that produces sequences of Map-Reduce programs, for which large-scale parallel implementations already exist (e.g., the Hadoop subproject)." - Jim Norris from Bookmarklet

Better than hive? - Private Sanjeev

Sounds familiar (http://labs.google.com/papers...). Though I love the name "Pig Latin" for the analysis scripts :) - Joel Webber

Well, isn't that so accommodating of them? - Jandy, ConcertMaven of FF

where do they sell new music startups for 212.08? may I have five, please? - earlyadopter

"Even with an extensive review/PEP process, even with some of the smartest people I have ever had the pleasure of talking to, mistakes happen. The only thing which allows us to see if a mistake has been made is time." - Jim Norris

Here's a counterproposal though: how about writing the Python syntax parser and bytecode compiler itself in Python? (Or, if other implementations don't use bytecodes, one could parse Python source into a simplified AST.) A lot of the syntax changes (decorators, context managers, absolute imports, print function, class decorators, conditional expressions, try/except/finally, generator expressions) are just syntactic sugar for more verbose code. - Jim Norris

I wonder how many students find out about their homework assignments via Twitter. - Jim Norris

"How does normative sexuality manifest itself in librarianship? How can library collections, policies, and programming teach students to deconstruct heterosexuality–to view it as a specific identity, social class, and distinct sexual orientation instead of the default or “natural” class?  For example, how might a librarian begin to shape scholarly inquiries by constructing subject guides that separate heterosexuality from Women’s, Gender, and Queer Studies? In other words, I tend to find many helpful guides that organize sexuality studies under a larger umbrella of Sexuality, Gender, Feminist, or Women’s studies; but I’m starting to wonder if those classifications are specific enough–if they isolate heterosexuality enough to be “interrogated” or questioned." - cecily from Bookmarklet

I like Hope Olson, have heard her speak several times, and look forward to seeing/hearing her again. I will not discuss her research methods in polite conversation though. - Mar₭ Liŋdŋer

"Another year, another calendar to choose for your wall. Would you like some puppies in a basket? Perhaps a gallery of assorted fruits with faces drawn on them? Well, forget about them! The mildly attractive gentlemen attending (the University of South Carolina) have assembled for your viewing pleasure throughout 2010, arranging themselves in iconic poses from the history of film." - cecily from Bookmarklet

We're doing an LSW one for 2011, right? - Jàson Puçkett

:( - holly

sorry...i hope it isn't as bad as you think..sometimes it's worse in your head and you end up doing great. - Anna Lynn M.

"Liberals are a useless lot. They talk about peace and do nothing to challenge our permanent war economy. They claim to support the working class, and vote for candidates that glibly defend the North American Free Trade Agreement. They insist they believe in welfare, the right to organize, universal health care and a host of other socially progressive causes, and will not risk stepping out of the mainstream to fight for them. The only talent they seem to possess is the ability to write abject, cloying letters to Barack Obama—as if he reads them—asking the president to come back to his “true” self. This sterile moral posturing, which is not only useless but humiliating, has made America’s liberal class an object of public derision." - Steven Perez from Bookmarklet

Pahlin and her wacky tea bagging conspiracy theorists will be the only thing that saves the Democratic Majority. Unemployment is structural and long lasting. And with the Dems too busy playing deficit hawk to notice by rights they should be punished but the two party system is rapidly devolving into Democrats Vs Blue Dogs... - WarLord

"Oh, and the argument that if you create a market, you're opening the door for Wall Street evildoers, is bizarre. Emissions permits aren't subprime mortgages, let alone complex derivatives based on subprime; they're straightforward rights to do a specific thing. It will truly be a tragedy if people generalize from the financial crisis to block crucially needed environmental policy." - Andrew C

I've come to terms with the idea of cap-and-trade, especially since it is, as Krugman points out, "the only form of action against greenhouse gas emissions we have any chance of taking". But I still have a nagging fear that it will be gutted as it was in Europe. If you keep the cap too high it will have no effect whatsoever. At least a tax places no floor (other than cost/benefit) on the incentive to reduce emissions, and provides fewer opportunities for political gaming. - Joel Webber

"Pity the poor single people who pass their 40th birthday without ever tying the knot, since research has shown that never-married adults have more health woes than married folks. And, um, isn't there something wrong with those who go it alone anyway? Not so fast. A new study looking at psychological measures shows that never-married people aged 40 and up can be just as resourceful, psychologically speaking, as their married counterparts. Wait, there's more. "If you look at never marrieds who are high on mastery -- they feel like they are in the driver's seat and in control of their lives -- and high on self-sufficiency -- they know how to take care of themselves -- they actually have better emotional well-being than married people," said study author Jamila Bookwala, an associate professor of psychology at Lafayette College in Easton, Pa. Her report is published in the Nov. 30 issue of the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships." - Katy S from Bookmarklet

I am single ,heterosexual , 45 and happy as I am, yes I am in that subset "ultra-independent individual" in the herd ! As for "unmarrieds wanted to be married or not" question.. I speak for myself and say nope.. I like myself as I am - happily single ! - Peter Dawson

"For at least a couple of years now, my wife and I have been rehearsing a break-up conversation with the Bay Area. As much as we love it here, we're just not sure if it will ever work out. IMAGES View Larger Images MONEY TALES Take me out, coach 11.09.09 Angling for business A Santa Cruz salmon fisherman follows the money -- ashore 09.29.09 Making hay, but barely making it Hard times for grass farmers and sellers... 09.10.09 More Money Tales » A lot of our uncertainty revolves around money, and our realization that we can't afford to buy a home here. That fact, rightly or wrongly, has become a touchstone for other uncertainties -- about finding a neighborhood we can stay in for the long term; about having good school options for our two-year-old daughter; about making enough money to afford the high cost of living without giving all of our waking hours over to work. As in many distressed relationships, there's a third-party involved. In this case it's the seductive call of some... more... - Spidra Webster from Bookmarklet

Thanks, Spidra. I live on the Peninsula but I'm only somewhat familiar with East Bay politics. - Jim Norris

"The House voted to permanently extend the estate tax on Thursday, approving a measure that would lock in a top rate of 45 percent on some multimillion dollar estates. The vote was 225 to 200, with only Democrats voting for the extension. A group of 26 Democrats joined Republicans in voting against the plan. Here’s the vote breakdown. The House plan would extend the rate on estates worth more than $3.5 million. (Married couples can usually exempt estates worth up to $7 million.)" - Jim Norris from Bookmarklet

And of course the Republicans who failed to vote for this were instead arguing that it should drop back to a $1M threshold, right? - Joel Webber

It's because they're deficit hawks, Joel. - Jim Norris

A friendly FYI to radio commentators, particular those on NPR for some reason. Not sure why people make that mistake -- it's not like saying backslash is any more intuitive. But this problem has been around forever. Strange... - DeWitt Clinton

Thank you MS-DOS\Windows. - Jim Norris

That mistake just screams N00b. - Louis Gray

Alan Turing? - Cristo

Though Turing had the more direct contributions to the field, I think maybe George Boole is more important. - Rob Haas

"I think Farmville is more addictive than it is fun." - Amit Patel from Bookmarklet

@James: there's this group: http://www.facebook.com/group... but I don't know of anyone working on a BRE for Facebook. - Amit Patel

"I am not an expert on the Shroud of Turin. But then what would it mean to be an expert on the Shroud? Spending months firing gamma rays at linen? Attempting the discoloration of linen through a controlled release of gases? I have not done these things, nor have I paid too much mind to those who have. I am not a scientist at all. I am not even an expert in hagiography and relics. I have not received a single grant or spent a dime on Shroud research that wasn't taken directly out of my wife's shopping budget. What I am, is an outlier. And, as luck would have it, I was reading the right collection of short stories at the right time. I am as unqualified to work on such a mysterious cloth as any medieval forger. And yet, like that unknown, unwashed villain of the past, I can place an image on linen using such sophisticated tools as glass and sunlight." - Jim Norris from Bookmarklet

Some bizarre quotes from this article: "Not because its authenticity would overthrow my entire worldview, as it would for a secularist, but because it smelled false." and "For the secularist, it is foundational to all that he holds to be true that the Shroud be false." The lack of a real, dead Jesus is somehow fundamentally necessary to secularism? That's just nonsensical. - Joel Webber

Yeah, the article had way too much fluff. Here's the short version: "Theory: the shroud was produced by placing a dark piece of linen behind a glass painting; the sun's rays were blocked by the paint in painted areas, and kept the linen dark; the sun lightened the linen in unpainted areas. This explains the fact that wrinkles are darker than the rest of the image in the shroud, instead... more... - Tudor Bosman

"The crisis facing the middle class started more than a generation ago. Even as productivity rose, the wages of the average fully-employed male have been flat since the 1970s. But core expenses kept going up. By the early 2000s, families were spending twice as much (adjusted for inflation) on mortgages than they did a generation ago -- for a house that was, on average, only ten percent bigger and 25 years older. They also had to pay twice as much to hang on to their health insurance." - Jim Norris from Bookmarklet