Stack Exchange
log in

Sebastian Mach

 Discussion on question by Avenstoro: …

Imported from a comment discussion on workplace.stackexchange....
Sebastian Mach
Jun 14, 2023 06:09
@JoeStrazzere: I never asked if taking notes is okay, nor have I been asked. I don't see any problem with notes as long as it's not NDA-worthy-stuff. I am just bringing to paper what has passed through my brain already. Audio and video recording or photos is different from that - with that, you preemptively record things before it even entered your brain and you are saving things you could re-/misuse later (e.g. publishing a photograph on a dating website without consent). Related to that line of thought: In Germany, unconsented note taking about persons is not forbidden, but recording is.
 

 Discussion on answer by Nuclear Hoagi…

Imported from a comment discussion on travel.stackexchange.com...
Sebastian Mach
Nov 10, 2022 10:42
... of course depends on your definition of "few hours".
Sebastian Mach
Nov 10, 2022 10:42
"In Europe, driving a few hours could put you in half a dozen different countries" -> Uhm, no. When in central Germany, driving a few hours anywhere will put you in Germany. When in most-western Germany, driving a few hours west will put you in the Netherlands. Many european countries are bigger than you think.
 

 Discussion on answer by Schwern: When…

Imported from a comment discussion on history.stackexchange.co...
Sebastian Mach
Feb 11, 2022 16:12
Though I also perceived it as s h o u t i n g in SMS when I wasn't in the Internet, yet.
 

 Discussion on answer by Mozibur Ullah…

Imported from a comment discussion on politics.stackexchange.c...
Sebastian Mach
Feb 4, 2022 10:37
@davidsbro: "@Adamant you can't compare two completely different things"

Yes, you can. E.g., you can compare the speed of snails and airplanes. You can compare the color of planets and user interfaces. You can compare the deadliness and sideeffects of a vaccine and a virus infection.

What exactly would be your exact definition of "complete difference"? That's highly fuzzy as is.
 

 Discussion on question by Giovanni: W…

Imported from a comment discussion on space.stackexchange.com/...
Sebastian Mach
Jan 6, 2022 16:59
Maybe not in this question particularly, but in general, mixing up units has caused deadly accidents in the past and makes conversation harder, especially in international context.
 

 Discussion on question by Synthetix: …

Imported from a comment discussion on retrocomputing.stackexch...
Sebastian Mach
Oct 24, 2021 09:45
@fadden: The sheer usage of assembly alone does not make fast code. One has to use it right and proper - and that is a damn hard thing to do. And then you still have to beat the inhumanly huge list of optimizations a modern C compiler (gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Optimize-Options.html) has on board, including all the stuff most programmers have never heard of. Using assembly to beat a C compiler performance-wise in production software is not something I would ever advice. Use intrinsincs, use different binaries for different CPUs, use OpenMP - ASM introduces really bad cost-benefit.
Sebastian Mach
Oct 24, 2021 09:45
@fadden: Programmers who understand cache prefetching and the (possibly negative) effect of cache sizes on performance, who understand speculative execution, branch prediction, locality of data, locality of code, vectorized instructions (including masking or padding techniques), and so many things more without even getting CPU specific, are (in my experience) extremely rare. The sheer amount of instructions on x86 is huge (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X86_instruction_listings), and then every instruction has pros, cons, wrong/right ways to use, and that list does not even cover memory etc...
Sebastian Mach
Oct 24, 2021 09:45
@fadden: Nowadays, beating a C compiler with hand rolled assembly is a very, very tough thing to accomplish. Modern C compilers know more about optimization and target hardware than most developers. Did you mean "tended" instead of "tend"?
 

 Discussion on question by algiogia: M…

Imported from a comment discussion on law.stackexchange.com/qu...
Sebastian Mach
Mar 12, 2020 16:42
@Clonkex: Would be interesting to know what company you work for, such that I can avoid it. Asking for compensation on expensive products just 1 or 2 weeks after purchase is not something I expect any sane person to laugh about. And just as an aside: Where I live I can just return everything bought in the internet and get my money back for 14 days.
 

 Discussion on question by AndyF: Was …

Imported from a comment discussion on space.stackexchange.com/...
Sebastian Mach
Jan 10, 2020 14:57
@OrganicMarble: The absolute size of the hatch is not even interesting; it's more the size of it in relation to the volume it closes which is relevant. RL-Example: A small room's air is changed faster with a window of size than a big room's air with a window of the same size.
 

 Discussion on question by user2741831…

Imported from a comment discussion on worldbuilding.stackexcha...
Sebastian Mach
Oct 16, 2019 13:36
@user2741831: You write "I mean, they at least understand economics, so they are qualified as one of those ten", yet you miss that they understand today's economics. Moral, ethics, beliefs, social structures, infrastructure, priorities, almost everything that makes up economics under the hood, was different back then. It's like joining a Scratch and a C++ programmer, and then stating "the Scratch programmer grok's PCs". While maybe true, in daily live, it does not matter to the C++ crowd.
 

 Discussion on answer by gnasher729: C…

Imported from a comment discussion on workplace.stackexchange....
Sebastian Mach
Feb 15, 2019 13:49
"Code you wrote for work is property of your company.": No, not necessarily; that's too general. E.g., you could be writing a tool in your spare spare, to be used at work (satisfying the "for work" condition), without it being your employer's property (depending on the work contract). Likewise, "Publishing it, as open source or otherwise, is copyright infringement and will get you fired." is way, way too general, or formulated way too soppy. What if you're an Open Source developer at Red Hat? Then you publish as open source, but won't get fired, yet satisfying "it's company code".
 

 Discussion on answer by pushkin: Is i…

Imported from a comment discussion on workplace.stackexchange....
Sebastian Mach
Jan 15, 2019 06:49
@TheQuantumPhysicist: Thanks for trying anyway, but with git, you can change the author and the committer date without any hassle. And with just a little bit of hassle, you can change history altogether (or just completely erase it).
 

 Discussion on question by Posse: Sear…

Imported from a comment discussion on security.stackexchange.c...
Sebastian Mach
Dec 21, 2018 15:52
@Mazura: If they had the hardware, there is a possibility that they replaced or added hardware components that make a front door unnecessary.
 

 Discussion on question by Ahmad Raza:…

Imported from a comment discussion on workplace.stackexchange....
Sebastian Mach
Dec 4, 2018 21:46
@BЈовић: 6 years of being a Stack Exchange member, and you still don't read comments before writing one yourself? Especially before writing one of snotty ("oO") nature? [Hint: Ahmed Raza, 21 hours ago: "Because in our work centers all communication is done in our national language."]
 

 Discussion on answer by FooBar: Do de…

Imported from a comment discussion on workplace.stackexchange....
Sebastian Mach
Dec 4, 2018 13:00
P.S.: If you really think that _your_ flow is interrupted when a developer ignores your interruption, you have not been in true flow. Because then, you would have known that _your_ flow is over the moment you start your interruption.

Read more here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology)
3
Sebastian Mach
Dec 4, 2018 12:56
"So deal with it" does not fit - because I've dealt with it already. And I've experienced the opposite: Teams working on critical software, doing so effectively and efficiently, and with regulated interruptions (most of the time, there were no interruptions - despite having a big sales team).

Concluding this discussion with "deal with it" demonstrates a lack of imagination on your side, not mine. I've been in teams of both cultures already. And the non-interruption-teams were typically nicer and in better mood, quicker (especially when it comes to implementing complicated features) and in …
Sebastian Mach
Dec 4, 2018 10:01
@Peter M: Apart from life or _serious_ money threatening issues, problems typically don't need to be resolved _instantly_. An instant messenger is often a good compromise, but only if you respect that developers silence them regularly. The rule is: 30 seconds of interruption, 20 minutes of re-settling flow-state - for every worker who needs to juggle state over prolonged periods of time.

Before you interrupt someone, do you ask yourself "is my 30 seconds interruption really worth 30 minutes of developer salary?"
 

 Discussion on question by Poptart: A …

Imported from a comment discussion on money.stackexchange.com/...
Sebastian Mach
Oct 24, 2018 12:07
@Shuangistan: Either by authorizing the dealer for a debt order, or by online banking and actually knowing the TAN. That's the point of TANs, namely that only the account owner can order transactions. // edit: In case you questioned the daily limit: It's usually big enough for regular expenses. If not, you'd have to agree a higher daily/transaction limit.
Sebastian Mach
Oct 24, 2018 12:07
@Anoplexian: In Germany, you need a TAN (from a generator or a list) to make transaction orders. And even with a TAN, there are typically daily transaction limits, often just a few thousand bucks per day, making this a potentially month-long task. Dunno how it is in other countries.
 

 Discussion on question by Cyonis: Anx…

Imported from a comment discussion on workplace.stackexchange....
Sebastian Mach
Oct 18, 2018 16:01
Regarding your anxiety: I know from a number of people who thought that they are anxious (or who actually were anxious as a consequence), but in fact are/have one (or more) of {autistic (including Asperger's, who often go unrecognized), AD(H)D, introvert, child of narcissistic parent, ...}. It can also be a symptom of something else. I am not claiming this applies to you, but there are many free and quick screenings available online that should not be ignored because depending on were you live, physicians often build there conclusions too quickly ("In die Psycho-Ecke abschieben").
 

 Discussion on question by ZzZombo: Ho…

Imported from a comment discussion on workplace.stackexchange....
Sebastian Mach
Sep 20, 2018 07:32
This question does not demonstrate any effort to solve the problem on your own. Solving on my own is what I do when there's no help available. You should begin learning that skill immediately, especially as a paid worker/freelancer. @jpmc26: Does a divide-and-conquer approach not work in an Oracle system that shows no correct line numbers? When being in total darkness, I try to bisect the problem; kind of a binary search. Given a good cut point, this can lead to the solution within a handful of iterations/recursions.
 

 Discussion on question by preferred_a…

Imported from a comment discussion on workplace.stackexchange....
Sebastian Mach
Sep 12, 2018 15:48
Also make sure you're not part of the AD(H)D, Asperger's and Introvert families (there are many free online screens available, which do not make for a competent analysis, but could give you valuable hints). These conditions can make for quite severe stress having highly non-obvious reasons.
 

 Discussion on question by kyledrake17…

Imported from a comment discussion on money.stackexchange.com/...
Sebastian Mach
Aug 29, 2018 00:22
Hey Kyle, an important thing to know: It does not matter how much you wanted something and how much it did cost. The sensation you felt on purchase day will last a few days, in rare cases, a few weeks or months. But then, the thingy becomes normal to you. In a year from now, that jeep will not make you any happier than any other car of the same reliability. Uncomfortable truth this is. Personally, I'd die for a house on Mallorca. But then, I am realistic enough to know that this emotion will vanish, and then what remains visible are the problems, not the joys.
 

 Discussion on answer by Qvarg: Are cr…

Imported from a comment discussion on skeptics.stackexchange.c...
Sebastian Mach
Jun 29, 2018 13:10
@Dunk (apologies for the double posting)
Sebastian Mach
Jun 29, 2018 13:07
> You and your relatives must be the most uninformed people on the planet because it has been widely reported that Merkel is on the verge of potentially losing her job because of her immigration policies





Yes, probably. We'll see.


But seriously: It is funny how you present fragile and incomplete arguments and base on that that your view of Trump is true, but for those who believe that Trump is not true, you demand universal proof.

You don't realize that this is a typical troll line of argumentation, right? You critique Non-Trump's argumentations, even though your argumentation is eve…
Sebastian Mach
Jun 29, 2018 13:05
> You and your relatives must be the most uninformed people on the planet because it has been widely reported that Merkel is on the verge of potentially losing her job because of her immigration policies

Yes, probably. We'll see.


But seriously: It is funny how you present fragile and incomplete arguments and base on that that your view of Trump is true, but for those who believe that Trump is not true, you demand universal proof.

You don't realize that this is a typical troll line of argumentation, right?
Sebastian Mach
Jun 28, 2018 08:18
All the arguments you fire towards your opponents also hold true against YOU and TRUMP and EVOLUTION and CREATIONISM and POKÉMON GODZILLAs.

However, the probabilities are on my side. Apart from Trump and media close to Trump, noone is reporting uproars, not my relatives/friends in Wilhelmshaven, neither in Munich, neither in Berlin, nor the Ruhrpott ppl report uproars. There were local uproars in Duisburg by AfD and PEGIDA which I have seen personally and which still happen, but it's not a topic non AfD- and PEGIDA-people waste any breath on. And they do nothing except displaying anger, bu…
Sebastian Mach
Jun 22, 2018 13:14
@Dunk: If Trump claims that Germans are uproaring, and I see with my own eyes they are in fact not uproaring, then that qualifies as lying to me.
Sebastian Mach
Jun 21, 2018 21:04
@Qvarg: ... and from tweets, election campaigns, TV shows, radio, political decisions that significantly affect markets and me personally, and some more. And if his tweets claim funny, strange and sometimes borderline psychopath things about the very territory I live in personally, then for my part I know he doesn't do nuance. Nobody here is uproaring, and I haven't heard from PEGIDA, AfD sympathizers et al for a long time by now.
 

 Discussion on answer by James: What a…

Imported from a comment discussion on cseducators.stackexchang...
Sebastian Mach
Jun 20, 2018 13:11
Also, the analogy with the secretary is off. Do you really dictate your programmers what to write? Like "Now, iterate over the resultset, while doing so, print the first name of each. Format string: ....."
Sebastian Mach
Jun 20, 2018 13:04
It looks like I am not a good programmer, software engineer or software developer, becaues even though I have had many 10,000+ LOC days in the past (hobby + professional), I still do not touch type by the book - I basically have my own system optimized to myself (e.g., I have seen no textbook mentioning to pressing right shift and "End" to mark 'til the EOL.

If you do just 1000 LOC even with touch typing, you must be a very non-self-optimizing and slow programmer.

(sorry, just blind opinion, fitting the style of your answer)
 

 Discussion on answer by Philip Kendal…

Imported from a comment discussion on workplace.stackexchange....
Sebastian Mach
Jun 12, 2018 15:46
It's also "between the lines" (or how it's called). The tone and the text to me read like "free software != real world", "LaTeX != real world", plus the term "(Open Source | Free Software) Zealot" has a negative connotation in computer discussions. Actually, I've never seen that term outside IT.

However, I found "welcome to the real world" most offending here. It's downlooking to the OP and suggest the OP is unexperienced, a greenhorn who needs to learn his lessons still.

But that there may be different norms in the world, or that someone might never have been asked to provide an editable…
Sebastian Mach
Jun 8, 2018 14:45
"Free Software Zealot", whoa, this answer is really full of ignorance, arrogance and insult. What am I, then? I do my CV in LaTeX for 10+ years already and do well in my jobs. I have my own commercial, proprietary sidehustle which makes me some good money. How did I survive in that Unreal World, without being a Zealot? Holy cow.
3
Sebastian Mach
Jun 8, 2018 14:45
@Neo: In the Real World, there's a whole world outside the US. Maybe I am blind, but I don't see any location in the question, nor in this answer.
Sebastian Mach
Jun 8, 2018 14:45
And, I welcome you a second time to the real world: The "industries" I have worked in never asked for Word documents, either, spanning garbage collection, printing and pure online companies.
Sebastian Mach
Jun 8, 2018 14:45
I welcome You to the real world, because Welcome to the Real Rorld is BS. In 10 years of basing my CV on tex, noone ever asked for an editable (Word) edition; if someone would have done so, I'd question his desire for being able to edit the CV and then just move on. It's actually ridicuoulus that you assume that the OP has no real world experience; how do you know that? Or is everyone not realworld who does things different from you?
3
 

 Discussion on question by Lucas T: Co…

Imported from a comment discussion on softwareengineering.stac...
Sebastian Mach
May 30, 2018 15:41
@Flater: That phrase is not unambiguous; it could also mean "Eclemma has highlighted some methods. These methods are not called from anywhere". A less ambiguous version could have been "Eclemma has highlighted some methods which it says are not called anywhere".
Sebastian Mach
May 30, 2018 15:41
@Flater: I think JacquesB is not questioning this all at all. The OP stated "code is not called anywhere". And if it is not called, then it is not called. Assuming that code is called despite a claim that the code is not called is speculation. Then we need to drag this into a discussion about how much speculation is enough or too much, or we just assume the OP means what he writes. Answering the OPs concern with "Beware of reflection, your code might be called still" is a different discussion.
 

 Discussion on question by Cloud: Why …

Imported from a comment discussion on money.stackexchange.com/...
Sebastian Mach
Apr 25, 2018 07:46
@depperm: You miss that investing alone does not make rich. At least not early enough to not be too crippled to enjoy the money. If you're not a complete sadist who enjoys himself not being able to enjoy all the money until shortly before death, you're better of building your own business - because without business, there won't be any big money. That's not to say: Investments are a great tool to conserve money, but not to build it - at least on average. But hey: Believing this Get-Rich-With-Stocks-Hype makes for a good book market.
 

 Discussion on question by JFFIGK: Why…

Imported from a comment discussion on cs.stackexchange.com/que...
Sebastian Mach
Feb 22, 2018 09:04
@Discretelizard No offence taken, but then, what is "ask your elementary school teacher"? Sounds to me like when a Formula 3 driver asks the Racing Community something, and somebody of supposed authority replies "ask your Go Kart mentor". While I turned around that argument, saying "Yes, the Go Kart mentor may explain that to you well", it is a rather optimistic interpretation.
Sebastian Mach
Feb 19, 2018 09:03
@Raphael So just facts. "Your elementary school teacher can answer this" seems not enough a reason to me to declare this question unrelated to CS; if at all, it sounds like a immature line of non-argumentation and naive ignorance, that's it.
Sebastian Mach
Feb 15, 2018 13:12
I mean, you make a down-looking comment about elementary school teachers, yet have graduated not even ten years ago and on the job not even 2 yrs ago ... Sorry not credible. (3/3)
Sebastian Mach
Feb 15, 2018 13:10
@Raphael: So you never fell into any abstraction trap, fine. But you are just a single, non representative Brain On A Body out of billions, which from the tone of your language ("elemtary school teacher", "naivity") you yet have to learn. A little bit of humbleness does not harm, especially not someone who graduated just 5 years ago. (2/x)
Sebastian Mach
Feb 15, 2018 13:02
@Raphael Even if all of the world's naïveté would be concentrated in this question, I and provably many other find it interesting and related enough to not vote-close it. Maybe you should switch your perspective a bit from "I say what is" to "I say my opinion". I know that many fellows succumbed to this confusion when first thinking about dimensions, units, et cetera. (1/x)
Sebastian Mach
Feb 14, 2018 17:27
@KorayTugay: I think Raphael is not even incorrect regarding elementary school teachers, as they are often skilled well when it comes to explanations. Just like an elementary school teacher who is a C++ enthusiast in his free time is probably better at explaining my own work than myself; till date, I am not sure how to explain to my non-[meta-]programming fellows github.com/phresnel/metatrace (darn, I hoped to be able to avoid the term "meta" in favor of "abstraction" :D)
Sebastian Mach
Feb 14, 2018 17:27
@Raphael: The analogy lies in the level of abstraction of the discussion. You can discuss apples You can discuss number of apples. You can discuss the numbers in "number of apples", which is not too far away from discussing the discussion about number of apples. The topology of these discussions and abstraction levels is not completely unlike discussing integers in C, integer variables and integer variable-variables (i.e. pointers to integer in C). Generally, people do not have an easy time when exposed to abstractionⁿs first time, which makes sense given human history.
 

 Discussion on question by Stallmp: Wh…

Imported from a comment discussion on academia.stackexchange.c...
Sebastian Mach
Feb 20, 2018 15:21
Just knowing what you say as a teacher? I would have been your worst nightmare. Your. Worst. Nightmare.
 

 Discussion on question by Peater W: S…

Imported from a comment discussion on workplace.stackexchange....
Sebastian Mach
Feb 15, 2018 08:05
So according to McDonalds, Joe ate 13.6078 kilograms of patties; a total of 1.275 kg of fat. And 27750 kcal, which is roughly 3×-6× the energy a trained garbage collector burns when he incorporates many sprints into his working day. Unless Joe has a lightning fast, unnatural digestion and unless he visited the restrooms several times, this story is pretty hard to believe.