phicou

We (developers and sysadmins) use it at the big corporation where I work. Keeping irssi open in screen (GNU screen) means I can connect remotely from anywhere with a single session, and it doesn't appear when I'm focused on something else in a different screen session. Each project gets its own channel. It's way better for collaboration than having to match schedules for each little question.

It's also very helpful for asking specific questions about OSS projects, as mentioned. The people actually developing projects hang out in IRC, not at StackOverflow.

phicou

16 anni fadiscuss

Ignore the name - this is a clearly-written introduction to stream processing algorithms.

phicou

17 anni fadiscuss

The most important question you should ask yourself at the end of each interview is "Do I want this person on my team?" If you're not sure, the answer is no.

Aside from that, be wary of anyone who spends too much time talking up their accomplishments - I've often found that candidates who talk a lot falter when asked practical questions.

Also, make sure you leave time for the candidate to ask you questions. That portion of the interview can really reveal to both parties whether they would be a good fit.

phicou

17 anni fadiscuss

FYI for those interested in working with this data in a Geo-enabled RDBMS: It's pretty easy to get most of this data into a database on your own using GeoDjango. A simple non-TIGER tutorial is here: http://geodjango.org/docs/tutorial.html

Even if you're not interested in using Django in the long run, it's a quick way to get the data into a familiar system and poke around with it a bit.

phicou

17 anni fadiscuss

A friend of mine just mentioned this to me tonight. The costs can be really insidious in unexpected ways.

My state is now offering insurance benefits to domestic partners, but the amount that the state covers for insurance (for example) is now taxable income. That means paying taxes on several thousand dollars that they never actually see.

However you feel about religious issues, or how "marriage" should be defined, It's kind of absurd that a certain segment of state employees doing equal work get shorted on benefits for their household.

phicou

17 anni fadiscuss

I've used log files extensively for security.

Aside from the obvious post-incident investigation, I've set up (nearly-) real-time scanning of logs feeding into programs that scan for abuse-like activity, and feed the output of those into alerting mechanisms and blacklists.

Those tools have proven time and again to be extremely valuable from a security perspective (we still log blacklisted attempts and can see what's trying and failing).

phicou

17 anni fadiscuss

For US citizens, Peace Corps is one way to meet both of those goals. For people from other countries, there are similar organizations in many countries, and some that accept volunteers from almost anywhere (such as VSO and UN Volunteers).

Volunteers spend a long time in their host country, and really get to see things in depth (not just the tourist view).

Volunteers also get a chance to "change the world". Usually not in a particularly grand way, but a little education and inspiration can have a lot of ripple effects.

Of course, being based overseas, and having a fair amount of vacation time, volunteers also have opportunities to visit other interesting places and countries near their host sites.

Getting a reasonable living allowance and government-sponsored benefits sweetens the deal, but of course it doesn't offer nearly as much freedom as simply quitting your job and hopping on a plane.

phicou

17 anni fadiscuss

Your "better" example is almost exactly true of my car.

According to the dealer, the "Miles before service needed" that shows up when I start it is based on the number of cold starts, not just the number of miles actually driven.

phicou

17 anni fadiscuss

There's also a large body of PHP coders who are smart and continue learning new things, but you don't hear as much about them because they don't publicly humiliate themselves on the internet, and aren't such easy targets for disrespect.

phicou

17 anni fadiscuss

This should be a big help in writing clean server-side sorts by an arbitrary column in tabular data.

Previously we've had to do some rather ugly things with "create_function" and lots of escaping in order to make arbitrary sort comparator functions.

An example of the old style:

    private function makeCompare($field, $desc) {
        return create_function('$a,$b', "
            \$r = strcasecmp(\$a['$field'], \$b['$field']);
            return " . ($desc ? '-1' : '1') . " * \$r;");
    }

Not my proudest moment, to be sure.

phicou

17 anni fadiscuss

College is a great opportunity to try a lot of different things. There's a lot of good advice here, but I'd like to suggest that you find some time to do some kind of volunteer work.

Most colleges have many different groups and causes you can volunteer with. You'll learn a lot of important skills that you won't practice during your normal coursework. The things you learn while canvassing, petitioning, and organizing will help you in many aspects of your post-college life.

You'll also meet people that aren't in your major. Fun people. People who throw great parties. People who will expand your "network" immensely. Don't let this pass you by.

Volunteering also looks good on applications for jobs and grad schools. It opened the door for my first post-college job.

phicou

17 anni fadiscuss

I learned an unfamiliar language while spending two years in the Peace Corps. They have had many years to refine their language teaching materials. Still, I only learned the basics after 2 months of very intensive training.

Once I knew the basics, I was able to learn a bit more from friends and neighbors, especially children. Eventually I ended up dating and marrying a local. Even though she spoke fluent English, we would try to use the local language for anything not too detailed. This increased my vocabulary and comprehension.

Once I was able to use and understand words, a book that described some of the theory and formalities of the grammar really helped improve my ability to express myself. I went from "cargo cult speaking" to actually knowing why I was using the structures I used.

I still don't know as much as I'd like, and for more complicated statements, I have to use English.

For your situation, I wouldn't expect to get too much out of a "101" course, but if you really want to learn, you'll have many opportunities, especially with Spanish. Try to talk to the staff at Mexican restaurants, and write down any words or phrases you don't know, to look up later.

There is no substitute for hours speaking (and listening). That will give you plenty of opportunities to learn new words, new idioms used by different people, provide plenty of opportunities for people to politely correct you, and most importantly, improve your confidence in your abilities.

phicou

17 anni fadiscuss

My coworker and I were just (10 minutes ago) talking about the need for a site like this, so I'm giving the idea a big thumbs-up! We might try it out and offer additional suggestions as we use it.

As others have said, it could use a different design. Specifically, the fonts look kind of strange (letters don't have a consistent height) in my browser (Firefox 3.0 on Linux). Also you might want to streamline the javascript, as it looks like it caused firefox to use a lot more CPU.

phicou

17 anni fadiscuss

And math, real math, is not about the mindless execution of predefined algorithms such as linear algebra. It is about understanding those algorithms, using higher-order logic to understand what is universally true, conditionally true, and so forth.

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