Why is this seemingly not true in other western countries where they have cheaper, better-functioning public institutions? I think there's truth in what you're saying, but the idea that government itself is the sole problem is far too simple an answer
This is really a straw man argument. If you go read Drexler's blog(e.g. this series: http://metamodern.com/2009/12/19/molecular-manufacturing-whe...), he is very explicit that the path forward is studying natural self-assembly from DNA and then tearing that apart, finding how it works, and modularizing/modifying it for our own purposes. None of this appears to be a "crazy idea" or something out of humanity's reach til long after we're all dead, as this author claims
Drexler's egotistical to be sure. It doesn't make him wrong
Exactly. Reading a comment right next to yours, "Are lower expectations supposed to be a good thing?". It's become ingrained in Western and especially American culture that money is one of if not the most important measure for judging success. We don't all see each others paychecks and bank account balances, so this manifests in various ways from wanting prestige jobs to conspicuous consumption
People need to ask themselves - what do I want out of life? What are my personal measures for success, that I can explain and justify to myself based on my beliefs. Instead almost everyone simply avoids thinking on that level and instead absorbs and adopts the measurements promoted by society
It's not that making money is bad. It's that far too many people blindly focus on making and spending money without considering the amount of time and sanity and other opportunities for living that's being consumed by their consumerism
Actually the ruby would just be "if myvariable" - I think it's more readable simply because it expresses the minimalist core of what that line of code is doing. I could also use Blub and say "IfConditionIsTrue(myVariable.booleanValueOfNullStatus())"
Yes, you're right that my mental model of the 'if' construct will be basically the same in any language, but it's fundamentally less work and less error prone for me to translate ruby than some other language into that model, and the same is true going the other direction
If a person doesn't understand the value of intellesense, they're not doing it right
I think the argument against a full-blown IDE which optimizes code-writing is, if it's possible for an IDE to make your code easier to read or write, why isn't it possible to simply improve the programming language itself to make the code easier to read or write? Some sort of automated code translation/compression/generation is improving the coding experience for you, the developer. So why can't that improvement be baked into your compiler/parser/libraries, so the program's code reflects that improvement regardless of the tool you use to view it?
I think the larger misconception he has is that Ruby developers solve the same kinds of problems as .Net developers. They don’t. Not even kinda.... In general, Ruby developers create small to medium size websites ... On the other hand, .Net developers create a lot of large scale enterprise applications.
OK, so what are some of the .NET enterprise applications that are too complex to be built in Ruby - or at least are better built in .NET?
When he says they're 'faking' it, it's the wrong word. I would say more that in a meditative mindset, the cognitive dissonance and sheer mental noise most people are dealing with on a minute-by-minute basis becomes very apparent
Until you've been able to get your own mind to quiet down, to get rid of the nagging voices and tugging emotions and distorting filters in your head, it's very very difficult to notice this
If you've never experienced this sort of total perspective shift, I recommend that you read a bit more and reconsider your objections. Meditation is not about freezing to death in a cave
Yeah, I'm aware this is a bit of a problem, but it seems an inescapable aspect of the format (maybe I'm just not thinking creatively enough about UI, though)
Anyhow, thanks for the feedback. This was sort of a trial run for shaking off my coding rust :)
I whipped up a site to collect all the best funny/parody Amazon reviews. There seems to be something of an ad hoc community who've been posting parody, facetious or just plain caustic reviews on Amazon for years, and it seemed worth gathering them up in one place (with some basic voting/commenting/etc). And of course, hopefully make a few bucks off referral links
I'd be happy to hear some feedback, positive and negative, from HN people. Thanks
http://blockexplorer.com/q/totalbc