DVK

6,855 reputation

1555

bio	website	stackoverflow.com
	location	New York, NY
	age	42
visits	member for	1 year, 6 months
	seen	May 16 at 9:27
stats	profile views	70

Areas of strength:

Perl expert (specifically enterprise software development)
Sybase (including design and optimization)
GUI design

Areas of familiarity:

Web programming (EmbPerl, JSP, CSS, HTML, JavaScript)
C++

...P.S. I'm not really 42. But 42 is way cooler than a real answer :)

...P.P.S. Don't read too much into the icon. Just a minor nod to Cryptonomicon.

	6,855 reputation	bio	website	stackoverflow.com	visits	member for	1 year, 6 months
1555 badges		location	New York, NY		seen	May 16 at 9:27

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653 Comments

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Apr 9	comment	Has scholarship shown that persecuted religious minorities have tended to be financially successful? @SamuelRussell - ah. I didn't realize that the title omitted the word "religious" - I was just reading the body.
Apr 8	comment	Has scholarship shown that persecuted religious minorities have tended to be financially successful? @SamuelRussell - no. The question reads precisely: "What are other historical examples of persecuted religious minorities...". I don't know what Stephenson's examples were, I just know what the question asks. And it doesn't include aborigines being oppressed for... well being aborigines (even if they convert to Christianity as was the case with many native americans)
Apr 8	comment	Has scholarship shown that persecuted religious minorities have tended to be financially successful? I agree with @mart. You need to be able to clearly show a difference between "most successful members of a minority community are financially successful" as opposed to "entire community is financially successful" (e.g look at a mode; or a mean+standard deviation; as opposed to just mean), for any of those examples to be true.
Apr 8	comment	Has scholarship shown that persecuted religious minorities have tended to be financially successful? Most ethnic minorities are NOT oppressed over religion.
Apr 8	comment	Has scholarship shown that persecuted religious minorities have tended to be financially successful? -1 - none of those are persecuted religious minorities which is what Stephenson was talking about. Neither are Gypsies.
Apr 8	comment	Has scholarship shown that persecuted religious minorities have tended to be financially successful? Christian Church (took them a couple of centuries though).
Apr 8	comment	Did the USSR push Syria into war with Israel in 1982? @jwenting - that describes most of Middle Eastern politics :)
Apr 4	comment	Are there any good sources on the history of the name for Kazakhstan? @T.E.D. - Tell that to Godzilla. Errr... Gojira.
Apr 4	comment	Are there any good sources on the history of the name for Kazakhstan? @David - because English spelling frequently bears little to no relationship to original language :) Do you call Russias capital Moskva or Moscow? You need to decide what you care about. If it's English spelling, the answer truly doesn't matter but you can take what en.government.kz uses as "official" guideline, or what AP style guide says. If it's Khazakhs' own spelling, it is and always was with a "k" in their language. If in russian, it is "h" for historical/political reasons.
Apr 3	comment	Are there any good sources on the history of the name for Kazakhstan? As far as English spelling - there's really no right or wrong ones :) Just pick whichever one Google Maps shows if you care about practicality; or whichever one Khazakhstan's government English language sites use if you wish to respect their wishes. I just switch between them randomly, for lack of caring.
Apr 3	comment	Are there any good sources on the history of the name for Kazakhstan? @David - as you can see from my last line, that's simply a confusion between Russian name (that ALWAYS had "h" since 1936, and continues today), and Khazakh language name (which has a "k" and never changed that). What changed was that the state language changed from Russian to Khazakh in 1990s, when the country gained independence.
Apr 3	comment	How did shells, bones, and other trinkets work as currency? @SamuelRussell - no. There's always someone who will need grain and thus buy it. Grain has bartering value in itself. Nobody "needs" shells or bones (or paper money).
Apr 3	comment	Are there any good sources on the history of the name for Kazakhstan? @NewAlexandria - this isn't really related to Russian language at all. it has deep and complicated historical origins
Apr 2	comment	Who was the last US president who did not start a war? @RISwampYankee - that doesn't sound like "starting a war" - it was a conclusion of Vietnam War
Apr 2	comment	Has any US President served in a government position with a foreign nation before or after their presidency? Benjamin Franklin?
Apr 2	comment	Ethnic Germans in Russian service in Poland Fixed your (Google's) translation
Apr 2	comment	Were there biological weapons used in WW1? @jwenting - I fail to see how that doesn't fit into Wiki definition.
Apr 1	comment	How “religious” was the average person in the Middle Ages? Given that average Joe was all to happy to kill off witches for "consorting with the devil" and/or kill the Jews for "killing our Christ", I'd say pretty religious.
Apr 1	comment	Was Ley ever married to Rudolf Hess's sister? @FelixGoldberg - "Wer Jude ist, bestimme ich" ("I decide who is a Jew"). - Hermann Göring
Apr 1	comment	Who was the oldest recorded participant in a battle whom we know of? @Anixx - with all due respect, I have more confidence in someone like Bonner's info than someone willing to take Stalin at his word.