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Comment: Re:Time is just an illusion (Score 1) 530

by dokebi (#45212357) Attached to: First Experimental Evidence That Time Is an Emergent Quantum Phenomenon

Actually, memory and the perception of direction of time are fixed.

So you know that entropy in the universe is always increasing.

You also know that in order to create memory, one must use energy to record that memory. This can be rearranging magnetic tape from random state to an ordered state, or rearranging your neurons to for memory. Any action that creates memory (or reduce local entropy) uses energy and thus increase global entropy.

Ok, so, in order to remember the past, your perception of time must be moving in the direction of increasing entropy.

Now imagine the direction of time is reversed, and think about what you'd remember going backwards in time.

Comment: Re:Why are we so obsessed with fighting? (Score 1) 182

by dokebi (#45114535) Attached to: Weaponized Robots Could Take Point In Future Military Ops

Why are we so obsessed with fighting?

1. Because we (the US) did not become the dominant country in the world by technology and innovation alone.

2. Also because we (the human species) did not become the dominant species on the planet by technology and innovation alone.

Comment: Programming is its own language (Score 1) 330

by dokebi (#42836553) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Do Most Programmers Understand the English Language?

All common programming languages are based on English, but are really their own languages.

For example, here is a programming blog post in Russian with some Java code mixed in. You don't have to understand Russian to "get" the joke, but you do have to speak Java.

Comment: Re:Militia? (Score 1) 1591

by dokebi (#42610339) Attached to: New York Passes Landmark Gun Law

The "confusing" wording of the 2nd Amendment is due to the our modern understanding of the terms "militia", and "bear arms".

When the US Constitution was drafted, the founders wanted to not have a standing army. Read that again. No standing army.

They thought that with a standing army, the president will engage in unnecessary foreign wars (how prophetic they were).

But they did realize that country will need an army every now and then, like they did with the Revolution. So how to do this without having a standing army? Local and national militias. They expected that when an army was needed, they would raise it. Citizens will bring their own guns and form a fighting force. Further more, disarming of the colonialists by the British was their attempt to prevent this, and was a sensitive topic to the new US. To the founders, citizens keeping arms so that they could fight wars in time of need, and not having a standing army was a win-win. For a while it worked fine, until the War of 1812 when it was clear that a professional standing army is needed to fight other standing armies.

So, with this understanding of the founders' desire to not have a standing army, but rather a citizen-soldier that can be called upon in times of need, the wording of the 2nd Amendment should make more sense.

But good luck repealing it.

Comment: Re:Apple Shareholders (Score 1) 336

by dokebi (#42438703) Attached to: Does 2012 Mark the End of the Netbook?

Pay attention, because this is important.

Ever since Steve Jobs returned to Apple had not been a "computer" company. It never competed directly with Dell or HP or IBM, unlike decades past. The "genius" of Steve Jobs was recognizing that in order for Apple to stay relevant, they have to become a "luxury computer" company. Making computing devices of status and beauty, and maintaining high margins on smaller volumes.

Now, if you keep this in mind, the whole notion of "drop in market share" changes. Apple doesn't care about gaining market share. Toyota cares about becoming the number 1 car maker, Lexus doesn't. Lexus only cares about market share *in their segment*, among other luxury car makers. And guess what, there are no other "luxury computer" companies. Apple in essence is their own market share.

Another way to put it is, even if Apple captures only 10% of the mobile market, they'll have the "luxury" 10%, which is the most profitable. And there are (and will be) a lot more people who can afford "luxury computing" in the next 10 years.

Comment: Programming in the Large/Small (Score 1) 586

by dokebi (#41821767) Attached to: The IDE As a Bad Programming Language Enabler

Most of programming debate that circle around IDE/Static Types seems to have one common cause: The scale of the programming in question.

Projects that needs in order of 10K lines of code really benefit from simple tools. The code size is small enough that you can manage it without using any tools at all. No type checking, no IDE, little documentation.

Projects that need in order of 100K lines of code or more really benefit from complex tools--better refactoring (not just variable renaming, but things like deriving interfaces and abstract classes), instant type checking, discipline in consistency, etc.

It's the difference between building a house vs building a 10 story building. This article is like someone who's only built houses wonders why a 20 story buildng need a team of inspection engineers with CAD printouts.
