Readit Newskellegous commented on How to Make Almost Anything fab.cba.mit.edu/classes/M... · Posted by u/skbohra123
Neil Gershenfeld is responsible for two of the best courses at MIT: "How to Make (almost) Anything" and "The Nature of Mathematical Modeling". Neither are compatible with healthy sleep habits, but both are transformative. I took NMM and, to this day, one my biggest regrets is never taking "How to Make (almost) Anything."
kellegous commented on Applebot, the web crawler for Apple support.apple.com/en-us/H... · Posted by u/killwhitey
It's not clear-cut, that's for sure. I just wanted to post a different perspective.
Thing is, if you asked the sender for permission to post pieces of their email, they'd probably say no. It seems a bit gauche to say posting is okay because "nobody told me not to."
It's a good point and since journalists are already asking about it, I now wish I hadn't even posted it. I think Apple is not trying to hide the fact that they are looking for search and machine learning people, but the press will surely get it wrong trying to triangulate a vague one-liner from a recruiting email.
kellegous commented on Applebot, the web crawler for Apple support.apple.com/en-us/H... · Posted by u/killwhitey
Hey, I don't think it's appropriate to post publicly information that somebody divulged to you in confidence.
I don't think email is considered confidential by default. Had this recruiter made any confidentiality request, I would have tried my best to honor it. Instead, he seemed more interested in spreading the word that they were entering the search game. Also, Apple has not been exactly hiding their growing interest in search. They rarely let their engineers speak in public, but they were on stage this year at Lucene Revolution giving a number of details about how they are using Solr.
kellegous commented on Applebot, the web crawler for Apple support.apple.com/en-us/H... · Posted by u/killwhitey
This is interesting.
A while back, I think either Cook or Jobs mentioned that Apples makes PRODUCTS and doesn't sell ADS.
If that's true (and stays true) AND this is the beginning of a search engine for them, it's going to be VERY interesting to see what it looks like.
FWIW, an Apple recruiter approached me about working on a new Search-related thing. He used the following enticement in the initial email: "We are building the future of search for the best user experience (unadulterated by advertising for the first time in history)." So as best I can tell, a search experience without advertising is very much on their mind.
kellegous commented on Hound: A Fast Code Search Tool codeascraft.com/2015/01/2... · Posted by u/caiobegotti
How is hound better than ag [1]?
The biggest difference is that Hound uses an inverted index to support regular expression searches. This is a technique borrowed from the original Google Code Search. The details are discussed on Russ Cox's site (http://swtch.com/~rsc/regexp/regexp4.html). With this technique, you can generally avoid even opening the vast majority of the files you are "grepping" (the number obviously depends on the pattern). To give you a sense, I just searched for a particular method name in several repositories totally several 100k of files and the search only had to open and search 9 files.
kellegous commented on Don't Lose $2,000 to Comcast Business kellegous.com/j/2015/01/0... · Posted by u/kellegous
> I wrote the article to warn people that Comcast believes this is covered in the contract and will enforce it
But they aren't enforcing the service location, they're enforcing your minimum term, which is covered in the contract. You can continue to receive service at the current service location if you wish. Instead you're trying to terminate the contract early.
> Maybe my expectations are misguided, but I would expect that conditions where they do not give me service and I continue to pay (especially a common one like moving an office to a non-servicable area) it would be explicitly included in the ToS.
Then what happens if someone starts a new service, Comcast pays the installation costs, and then that individual moves a month later. Comcast would be out the full cost of the installation.
Now, 36 months is absolute greed on Comcasts part, I'm sure they recoup the cost of installation after less than a year. However in principle Comcast deserve to get reimbursed for the full cost of the installation regardless of if someone moves or not.
I understand your perspective, but I still think this is a reasonable thing to warn people about.
kellegous commented on Don't Lose $2,000 to Comcast Business kellegous.com/j/2015/01/0... · Posted by u/kellegous
I hate Comcast, but what an absolute load of nonsense:
> I asked her what I needed to do and her response left me stunned. She explained that even though they were no longer able to uphold their part of the contract, I would still needed to pay them.
YOU are moving. YOU are trying to change the terms of the agreement, not them. If you stay in your current home I'm sure they would happily continue to provide you service, so clearly you're the one altering the arrangement not Comcast.
Minimum terms are required since installation is typically free. However I will fully agree that 36 months is too long, and I'd never have agreed to it. I also think Comcast could have reduced the ETF, and it is bad customer service that they didn't at least give you a small break (given how excessively high the ETF was).
But 85% of the issues on that page are self inflicted. You agreed to the 36 months, you agreed to the wrong package, you moved to a non-serviceable area within the 36 months you agreed to, and now you are whining about it like it is someone else's fault.
Maybe it is about time you started taking some personal responsibility and actually reading what you sign before you sign it?
The point is that changing the service location is not covered in the contract. I wrote the article to warn people that Comcast believes this is covered in the contract and will enforce it. So we fundamentally disagree here on whether I'm changing the terms of the agreement. Maybe my expectations are misguided, but I would expect that conditions where they do not give me service and I continue to pay (especially a common one like moving an office to a non-servicable area) it would be explicitly included in the ToS. This is the reason that I think warning people is a legitimate thing to do.
kellegous commented on Don't Lose $2,000 to Comcast Business kellegous.com/j/2015/01/0... · Posted by u/kellegous
So you moved out of the service area and complained that they could not continue to provide you service? And that you had signed a contract stating you would be provided service for 36 months?
Not sure if I'm answering the right question. I moved out of the service area (not realizing I was out of the area until I called). I tried to have my service moved and was told they could not give me service (because of the area). To be clear, I wanted to continue my service. What surprised me is they claim that their terms of service says that if I relocate to a non-service area, I still have to continue to pay. I've read the terms of service and cannot find this clause. I assume they are referring to one of the more general clauses in the ToS.