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The passage that comes to mind for me whenever this idea comes up, from the Brett version of the Holmes story "The Dancing Men":

  H: So, Watson.
  W: Hmm.
  H: You do not propose to invest in South African securities?
  W: How on earth do you know that?
  H: Now, confess, you are utterly taken aback.
  W: I am!
  H: I should make you sign a paper to that effect.
  W: Why?
  H: Because in a few minutes you will say it is all so absurdly simple.
  W: I should say nothing of the kind!
  H: You see, my dear Watson, it is not really difficult to construct a series of inferences, each dependent upon its predecessor and each simple in itself. If, after doing so, one simply knocks out the central inferences and presents one's audience with the starting point and the conclusion, one may produce a startling, though possibly a meretricious, effect.
  H: I can tell by an inspection of the groove between your left forefinger and thumb, that you have decided not to invest your small capital in the gold fields.
  W: I can see no connection.
  H: Very likely not; but I can quickly give you a close connection.
  H: Here are the missing links in the very simple chain: You had chalk between your forefinger and thumb when you returned from the club last night. You put chalk there when you play billiards, to ease the cue. You never play billiards except with Thurston. Now, Thurston, you told me, four weeks ago, had an option on some South African security which expired in a month, and which he desired you to share with him. Your checkbook is locked in my drawer, and you have not asked for the key. So, you do not propose to invest your money in that manner.
  W: How absurdly simple!
  H: Quite so. Every problem is absurdly simple when it is explained to you.


Meta: I found this video essay (?) "Jeremy Brett vs Basil Rathbone — Who Was the Real Sherlock Holmes?" interesting:

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaQFJcI_yfI


Real Sherlock was Vasily Livanov of course.

Liking it, but I think it's even better captured by the more lauded quote -

H: "How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?"


Why on earth would you quote a TV version of a book, when the book is readily available to be cited?

“So, Watson,” said he, suddenly, “you do not propose to invest in South African securities?”

I gave a start of astonishment. Accustomed as I was to Holmes's curious faculties, this sudden intrusion into my most intimate thoughts was utterly inexplicable.

“How on earth do you know that?” I asked.

He wheeled round upon his stool, with a steaming test-tube in his hand and a gleam of amusement in his deep-set eyes.

“Now, Watson, confess yourself utterly taken aback,” said he.

“I am.”

“I ought to make you sign a paper to that effect.”

“Why?”

“Because in five minutes you will say that it is all so absurdly simple.”

“I am sure that I shall say nothing of the kind.”

“You see, my dear Watson”—he propped his test-tube in the rack and began to lecture with the air of a professor addressing his class—“it is not really difficult to construct a series of inferences, each dependent upon its predecessor and each simple in itself. If, after doing so, one simply knocks out all the central inferences and presents one's audience with the starting-point and the conclusion, one may produce a startling, though possibly a meretricious, effect. Now, it was not really difficult, by an inspection of the groove between your left forefinger and thumb, to feel sure that you did NOT propose to invest your small capital in the goldfields.”

“I see no connection.”

“Very likely not; but I can quickly show you a close connection. Here are the missing links of the very simple chain: 1. You had chalk between your left finger and thumb when you returned from the club last night. 2. You put chalk there when you play billiards to steady the cue. 3. You never play billiards except with Thurston. 4. You told me four weeks ago that Thurston had an option on some South African property which would expire in a month, and which he desired you to share with him. 5. Your cheque-book is locked in my drawer, and you have not asked for the key. 6. You do not propose to invest your money in this manner.”

“How absurdly simple!” I cried.

“Quite so!” said he, a little nettled. “Every problem becomes very childish when once it is explained to you. […]”

The Adventure of the Dancing Men, The Strand Magazine, Vol. 27, January 1904, The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Arthur Conan Doyle <https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/108/pg108-images.html#c...>


Why on earth? Because I love that TV series, and the passage from that TV series is what comes to mind for me.

s/perpetual/permanent

perpetual has pejorative connotations and only started appearing in marketing speak when software rental became the new business model.


Not to be that guy, but 38-53um is 1 order of magnitude smaller than 200um


Not to be that guy ;-) , but the diameter of the golf ball dimples is ~4 mm or about 4,000 μm, whilst the diameter of the spheres is 38-53 μm, or about 0.04 mm.

Diameter-to-diameter seems like about 100x or two orders of magnitude?

Similarly, 200 μm is the golf ball dimple depth (oops, just noticed I dropped that key word), and they didn't give us a measurement of the depth of the dents caused by the spheres or sandblasting, but it would likely be significantly less than half the radius of the spheres?

Sorry about misleading with dropping the "depth" word.


What types of problems are better solved in F# than C#?

Is having a combination of F# and C# in a single codebase possible? Is it recommended?


Easy code is much easier in f#, a lot of the time. Hard code is usually easier in f# due to the type system helping a lot. F# is also a lot more concise.

And yes, you can combine them, but afair, only in terms project boundaries. (You can include a c# project in an f# one and vice versa). There are a few cases where it's quite useful. For example, rewriting a part of a big project in f# to leverage the imperative shell - functional core architecture. Like rewriting some part that does data processing in f#, so that you can test it easier/be more confident in correctness, while not doing a complete rewrite at once.

Sort of like rust parts in the linux kernel.


I don't think it's a matter of the type of problem and I always found it weird how F# is being framed as being only useful for "math-heavy" problems.

What matters is what libraries you are gonna use for your solution. If most of them are C#-only and don't have an F# equivalent then you'll lose the ergonomics and conveniences that make F# so easy to work with.


All types of problems. F# can do almost anything C# can do and with less ceremony. The quote I like is that once you get comfortable with F#, switching back to C# is like "having to fill out government forms in triplicate".


It's very possible, even encouraged when you have workloads that call for it. F# is a great functional language, so it's good for parsers, compilers, etc. The support for units of measure is also really cool, making it great for scientific computing.


He's redirecting requests coming from hn to a photo of a hairy ball in an egg holder with some mildly insulting text, and setting a cookie so the redirect happens outside of hn links as well. The text even comes with a tone of the moral high ground, so you know he's not being an asshole, just "being honest".

It's fair to say he's not interested in having his views known to readers here.

https://cdn.jwz.org/images/2024/hn.png

https://web.archive.org/web/20260512201857/https://cdn.jwz.o...


> large portion of the time, the maintainer notices what happened a few hours later.

So add it at the package manager level instead of the user level then?


There's also clearly a voiceover, they must lose points for that too. /s


No. They don't lose points for using a film production technique that was in popular use at the time (and is still in use.) The reason people say this is a well timed shot has nothing to do with the voice-over at the end of the shot.

They say it's a great shot because Burke hits his mark at the beginning of the shot, then he progresses through the shot, hits his final mark and points within half a second of ignition. All while delivering dialog. (Props to the camera operator who tracked Burke and pulled focus at the appropriate time.)

And then I think there's the thematic element of the subject matter. What you don't get by watching the final shot in that episode was the emotional impact of the Voyager launches. The space program was, at the time, continuing on from the high of the moon landings. The Pioneer probes had returned black and white images from Jupiter and Saturn but the Voyagers were going to return more colour images. They were a RETURN to space, demonstrating that the pioneer mission wasn't a fluke and that, as a people, we were capable of doing great things.

And now, as a people, we bitch in online forums about voice-overs.

One does not, as you suggest, need to deduct any points for editing the sound of an impressive bit of writing, timing, presenting and camera work.


> When the applause fades, my employees, or reports, or "my team" when I'm feeling jolly

was good too


Well at least the spelled 'appendix' correctly


> You decide when updates happen, not the other way around.

What's the other way around? "Updates decide when you happen"?

Sounds like part of a Yakov Smirnoff joke.


Updates decide when your work happens.


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