Fluency with box and pointer diagrams and the environment model of computation (from chapters 2 & 3 of SICP) will allow you to understand the workings of any applicative order programming language.
I took some philosophy classes in college, where I learned about the concept. If you want to read more, the best place to start would be the references and external links provided in the Wikipedia articles. Also try googling for papers by Grice.
This makes me feel old -- when I was learning programming/CS, memory management and storage classes were part of basic training. Now we've got a generation of programmers who've never had to worry about these things.
I got one and use it a lot for web surfing, reading ebooks and papers, and referencing things alongside my desktop computer and/or gaming console. I was skeptical at launch time, but I have to say that the iPad is really very nice. I also plan to develop for it, which was initially why I got it.
I agree wiht a lot of his points. I think people do tend to be more superficial or picky when evaluating profiles, because the photos are really the only thing to go on -- you can't get a sense of a person's body language or speaking style online, and textual data only goes so far. And I found the actual "first dates" to be stressful because they're more like interviews for dates rather than real dates -- much of the spontaneity and chemistry of meeting a person for the first time is gone. Finally, as a non-white male, the odds online are somewhat stacked against me, which is discouraging.
I'm intrigued by the guy's idea about creating interactive virtual spaces for dating, rather than searching through textual profiles. I.e., put people together in a rich, dynamic environment, let them observe the complexity of each other's interactions, and they can gravitate toward one another on that basis. Heck, it doesn't even have to be virtual -- you could launch something like a matchmaking amusement park.
I've got a couple of non-techie friends who have pretty much stopped using their computers in favor of their iPhones. They'd cut the computer out entirely if they could.
As someone who grew up in a Chinese-speaking household, I've noticed the same thing. E.g., lobster is "dragon shrimp," computer is "electric brain," etc. I wonder if the reason European languages have so many apparently 'unique' words is their inclusion of other older European languages such as Greek and Latin. Chinese, by comparison, seems to have borrowed mainly from itself.
Sounds like something Paul Graham once wrote about using separate computers for work and leisure. You end up feeling uneasy spending too much time at the wrong machine because you're more aware of the difference in physical context.
If the methods by which they measure attractiveness overlap with the methods by which they measure racial bias (covered in one of their blog posts), then they could very well be implying (whether they mean to or not) that attractiveness is correlated with race.
I know very little about the topic, but I believe that various transformations and simplifications in lambda calculus are relevant when it comes to compiling functional programs.