Comments for Lone Gunman

Comment on The CCTV Trade-Off by Ian

Ian — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 02:36:49 +0000

The problem is that what one man finds suspicious is another man’s pleasure. Just imagine thousands of blockwarts everywhere.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockwart.

Ian

Comment on The CCTV Trade-Off by Lloyd Morgan

Lloyd Morgan — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 08:11:48 +0000

This sounds almost exactly like Internet Eyes: a UK company that signs up viewers "to watch live streams of CCTV cameras from shops and businesses and report anything they believe to be suspicious". The incentive? "A monthly reward of £1,000 […] paid out to the person who reports the most crimes".

Comment on The CCTV Trade-Off by Paul

Paul — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 20:18:49 +0000

The missing component is that CCTV feeds should be accessible by the monitored public, not just be special request under the Data Protection Act but to everyone – anyone – all the time.

This would close the loop that the suspicion for many would-be criminals currently is that there’s no-one actually monitoring the screens apart from when BBC documentary crews come to visit their control centres.

Comment on Things Every Programmer Should Know (Languages) by Lloyd Morgan

Lloyd Morgan — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 12:49:53 +0000

Paul, you’re right (of course).

Programming languages and foreign spoken languages are fairly analogous, and as anyone who has mastered either can attest; it takes a hell of a lot longer than a year to do so.

Yes, you can ‘learn’ a (programming) language in a year, but as the quote above suggests: there’s a big difference between knowing the syntax/grammar and vocabulary of a language and actually being able to ’speak’ it–to master it.

I guess I should have edited the quote to this:

My most important lesson from my polyglot adventures is that it takes more than just learning the syntax to learn a language: You need to understand its culture.  […]

Once you’ve learned the ropes of a new language, you’ll be surprised how you’ll start using languages you already know in new ways. […]

If you instead explore new languages to expand your mind and get fresh ideas on how you can solve things in different ways, you will find that the code you write in your trusty old language gets more beautiful for every new language you’ve learned.

So… master one language (at a time), but explore others casually to find new ways to express yourself.

How does that sound?

Comment on Things Every Programmer Should Know (Languages) by Paul

Paul — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 20:14:39 +0000

Learning to use a programming language well takes time. Years of full time work in fact. In principle, its no different to learning foregin spoken languages – and you wouldn’t try a new one of those every year would you?

Seriously?

Comment on Political Rhetoric and Speechwriter ‘Tricks’ by Oration : clusterflock

Oration : clusterflock — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 16:45:16 +0000

[...] are almost too many ideas floating around this article to summarize it adequately (Lloyd takes a pretty good stab at it). One of my favorites is the suggestion that great political orators are incapable of existing now [...]

Comment on The Benefits of Touching by david

david — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 22:14:52 +0000

Based on the examples you cite in the first paragraph, I was totally calling bullshit on this. This paragraph makes me a little less dubious, but still gives me pause:

To correct for the possibility that the better teams touch more often simply because they are winning, the researchers rated performance based not on points or victories but on a sophisticated measure of how efficiently players and teams managed the ball — their ratio of assists to giveaways, for example. And even after the high expectations surrounding the more talented teams were taken into account, the correlation persisted. Players who made contact with teammates most consistently and longest tended to rate highest on measures of performance, and the teams with those players seemed to get the most out of their talent.

Comment on Our Fascination with Cookbooks by Bill

Bill — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 17:49:35 +0000

The other book to check out is Harold McGee’s On Food and Cooking:

http://www.amazon.com/Food-Cooking-Science-Lore-Kitchen/dp/0684800012/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1267033664&sr=8-1

Granted it’s probably close to 1500 pages but it’s the final word (so far at least) on the whys of cooking.

Comment on Our Fascination with Cookbooks by Lloyd Morgan

Lloyd Morgan — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 08:29:46 +0000

Taylor, thanks! I had heard of Ruhlman's Ratio but had also completely forgotten the author and title of the book. Now that I know both, a quick search in my Google Reader shows the following:

Cooking with Ratios from Jason Kottke, and
A short interview with Ruhlman on Lifehacker.

Thanks again!

Comment on Menu Consultants (or: Tips to Hack Restaurants) by Good Wine – A Matter of Taste or Perception? | The Januarist

Good Wine – A Matter of Taste or Perception? | The Januarist — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 20:48:42 +0000

[...] “Restaurant owners will often price the wine they buy cheapest at wholesale as the second-cheapest wine on the menu. Why? Because people generally don’t order the cheapest wine and thus often turn to the second cheapest.” Presto – either because consumers don’t want to appear cheap or because we imagine the cheapest option will have the worst taste, we predictably buy the second-cheapest. (via Lone Gunman) [...]