Reminds me of a real-life version of something from Pynchon's Bleeding Edge -- inching toward parody, but still believable. (In this case, unlike in the novel, because it's actually true...)
What kind of "technical minutiae" do you put in your Anki deck? I use Anki for Japanese study, but I've been thinking about doing more with it. Wasn't quite sure how to make useful tech flashcards... outside of memorizing as many powers of 2 as I could :)
Alternative method: click the big on/off switch for online search results.
Don't get me wrong -- I'm not defending Ubuntu. I think it's gross that they include this at all, and extra-gross that it's on by default. But let's not get too carried away with the hyperbole and conspiracy theories.
Just read the source! Or if you don't trust the source, just examine your network traffic. Pretty easy to verify whether the button does what it claims...
Did you read the linked article? It doesn't matter what it looks like you're copying/pasting, or how it's explained in the site you're copying/pasting it from.
Didn't even have to think about this one: Eloquent Javascript, by Marijn Haverbeke. He's an amazing writer and a brilliant all-around guy. Technically it's geared toward new programmers, but it's worth a read at pretty much any level.
(Full disclosure: I'm listed as the editor on the print version, though in this case my job basically consisted of nodding as chapters came in and saying, "Yup, that's a damn good book.")
I highly recommend vdebug (https://github.com/joonty/vdebug) if you're looking for a great Vim interface to DBGP debuggers (for PHP, Python, Ruby, Perl, Node, etc.). Really nice, especially compared to the countless half-broken and out-of-date Vim/DBGP plugins that are scattered around vim.org and github.
There's a really fun exhibit at the Exploratorium in SF that demonstrates this. Not quite so fancy, but if you can shove some kids out of the way it's still pretty cool to play with!
So I have to manually fix gmail's incorrect assumptions about how I want my mail to be filtered rather than manually put my own correct filters in place?
Doesn't seem right for me, but I guess I can see the draw for folks who don't want to deal with setting this stuff up themselves. (Which is probably most folks.)
This has been true since the beginning of film's history, with rare exceptions. Spectacle sells, even going back to the point when the technology of film itself was the spectacle. (See for example the always-thrilling L'Arrivée d'un Train à la Ciotat: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dgLEDdFddk)
If you want "film as art," it's generally best to avoid studio mega-corps designed to make cash.
I've had great luck with this, actually. At the very least there's a chance you'll find some dummy address that forwards to a real address, and get a response that way.
Just don't give up if you don't hit your date! I edited technical books for four years and never once had an author actually hit their target date.
But do set a new target date if you miss your original one. Having a big red circle on the calendar can be an amazing motivator, even if there's no consequences for missing it.
It's interesting to me that the Hacker School "rules" post, that essentially boiled down to the same thing (Don't Be a Jerk), is filled with positive comments:
I can't believe I never thought to do this. Great idea, thanks!