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Any Open Source Projects Looking for help from College Students? | brandnewlow: There's a whole host of under supported and underdeveloped Drupal projects that could certainly use some love. |
am I too old to learn the guitar/music? | route66: No limits. Before I switched to software development I paid my bills as a Jazz guitar -player and -teacher. Observation: the "too old" only applies indirectly when you're "grown up" schedule is already very full with everyday activities. Even then I watched people with no time to spare but with lots of enthusiasm and determination making progress. Some physical learning gets slower with age, but the speed of learning is not important at all IMO/E.I line up with others here in recommending private lessons, at least for the beginning. Getting quick feedback in what you are doing is essential, especially for the motoric part.I picked up viola da gamba with 39 and might have lacked some physical abilities to do the bowing well from the beginning but thanks to my teachers I got smoothly over these problems.Another thing: start playing with others early. It's like chatting away in a new language. You learn best/have the most fun when you have to make sentences and express yourself.Get yourself an axe and enjoy! |
am I too old to learn the guitar/music? | JCThoughtscream: There is no such thing as "too old for music." Rather, picking up something new helps keep your brain nimble. You have no reason at all NOT to do it - and, hey, you even have a free tutor! |
am I too old to learn the guitar/music? | alanthonyc: My grandfather started learning how to play the violin in his 70s.I don't think you have much of an excuse. |
When data is code, what is the meaning of a config script? | cchooper: Several Lisp applications have config files that are just Lisp files run at start-up. Emacs is an example. You can (and people do) put absolutely any code in there. There's no need to restrict it to just setting variables.So what's the difference between a config file and code? Config files aren't compiled (so no need to rebuild when you change them) and they are intended to be modified by the user, while other code isn't. |
What are the good alternatives to Google Groups? | vorador: I didn't try http://librelist.com/ but I've heard good from it. |
What are the good alternatives to Google Groups? | pieter: I've been looking for one too. The Google Groups interface is really bad, Google Groups is riddled with spam and Google seems to make no effort to do anything about it.I've looked at librelist.com, which seems OK, but they subscribe you as soon as you send an email to a list, which makes it useless, at least for me (I don't want people to get subscribed to all mail as soon as they send a single post; it also discourages cross-list postings).One of the best options might be to host your own mailing list using something like mailman and adding a frontend with something like Nabble. |
am I too old to learn the guitar/music? | CyberFonic: Never too old! If your wife is a decent muso, then why won't she give you shove in the right direction. I play many instruments, and with your background, I'd suggest learning to read music and playing a keyboard would be an easier start. Guitar is harder than it looks. Assuming that you type reasonably well, then you already have the finger dexterity to play a keyboard reasonably well.Once you can play some bass lines, the two of you should be able to jam. That in turn speeds up your learning and increases the motivation.Good Luck! |
What are the good alternatives to Google Groups? | oscardelben: I think Zed Shaw is working on an alternative but I don't remember the name |
What are the good alternatives to Google Groups? | jarsj: I wish google groups had an API and then I would love it. |
Why are there so many NoSQL databases? | jokull: Because if you look closely - they're all different. There's a great deal of feature overlap however. It's like the community collectively is throwing things at a wall and seeing what sticks. It's the healthiest way to eventually get the best. My bets are on redis and perhaps MongoDB. |
Why are there so many NoSQL databases? | jdp: NOSQL is definitely not a new idea, but the current favorite mode of access and interaction is (REST). I think the explosion in popularity for the creators is due to a lot of things, including: the ability to start an open source project in a new environment, giving it a real chance for wide adoption; the need to fill a niche, there are many different types of NOSQL stores; and to a lesser extent the perceived simplicity of such a project. For people using NOSQL stores in their projects, the attraction comes from the mix of shiny new technology and performance benefits, both real and perceived. It also helps that there are many different types each addressing a different requirement. |
Why are there so many NoSQL databases? | pierrefar: Because they're all different. We have key-value stores (Berkley and MemcacheDB), column stores (Cassandra), document stores (CouchDB, MongoDB), and even new data structures (Redis).They all solve different types of problems (e.g. document stores vs key-value stores). Even similar databases solve the same problems differently (e.g. sharding). They have different performance profiles and bottlenecks. They give you different ways to model your data and query it. Some are persistent, some are not, and some are lazy persistent.Big picture though: this is the first time your average startup/small team/individual hacker has needed a very scalable database solution because of websites. A website has the ability to get you a ton of users very quickly even if you are just one man hacking on a personal pet peeve (I went through this).This kind of experimentation is awesome and it allows us to figure out what really works in what situations and is a sign of a very healthy community. I love being part of it. |
Why are there so many NoSQL databases? | silentbicycle: The new non-relational databases have fairly different designs. For example, if your data set would fit entirely in memory (on one or a few servers), Redis would probably be a great choice. Their different strengths come out of the design choices that set them apart.A while ago, there were several different database query languages for relational databases, too. In interest of having a standard, they compromised on SQL. There are lots of version control systems, parsing frameworks, programming languages, etc., too. This isn't really unique to databases, they just get talked about more since there's so much buzz about hot new web development stuff. |
Why are there so many NoSQL databases? | simonw: It's a cambrian explosion. A lot of the concepts involved (eventual consistency, CAP theorem, map reduce) are relatively recent innovations, so there's plenty of scope for exploring them with software. I imagine things will settle down eventually. |
What are the good alternatives to Google Groups? | moe: Just want to second that google groups is a pain, and it's a shame that everyone seems to be using it nowadays (albeit for understandable reasons).My pet peeve is their ignorance of traditional mailing list behaviour in terms of echo'ing back your own posts to you.
Google Groups doesn't do it, every other mailing list software in existence does it. Which means users who happen to not use GMail as their client (yes, they do exist) have to deal with both variants - a small but constant nuisance. |
Why are there so many NoSQL databases? | keefe: I'm a big fan of document databases. It was one of those things where I was working on my app, thinking to myself... self, aha! I need documents or arbitrary kvp storage... then thinking, yeah somebody else must have done that already and there I am on couchdb or whatever. Having to have schemas is just an unnecessary pain in the ass imho (sometimes necessary blah) |
Why are there so many NoSQL databases? | koenbok: It's a hip thing to work on, an interesting problem to solve, has some nice ideas around it, has great potential to get lots of users and there are no widely accepted solutions yet. |
Why are there so many NoSQL databases? | nawroth: To answer your question I think things will settle down -- in the long run it's too hard for developers to deal with all the alternatives and their differences.
To get a high-level overview of the NOSQL space you could read this blog entry: http://blogs.neotechnology.com/emil/2009/11/nosql-scaling-to... As Ben Scofield puts it (cited in that post): "NoSQL DBs often provide better substrates for modeling business domains". I think this aspect is often forgotten in the debate. So I'd say: start from your business domain, what are the characteristics of it? Then look for a DBMS that is a good fit. And to get down to the details of some of the NOSQL systems, here's a walk through: http://www.vineetgupta.com/2010/01/nosql-databases-part-1-la... |
Why are there so many NoSQL databases? | bitdiddle: I think people have been doing these things for years, in the past they were just more apt to be embedded in desktop applications and so forth. Issues with scaling for the web have changed the dynamics, so the new non-relational approaches are quite distinct from the earlier ones such as Statice, ObjectStore, and Ontos.CouchDB is well worth a hard look mainly because it takes advantage of several new ideas all in a very simple stack.In a year or two I predict two or three will emerge as clear choices for a few distinct scenarios. |
Why are there so many NoSQL databases? | bradfordw: Because monoculture is bad and the more options we have, the more they all learn from one another (which drums up competition). In the end, like the other fellows on here have stated, you'll have a few emerge as the "standards" based on the type of problem you are trying to solve. |
Why are there so many NoSQL databases? | majke: > Do people genuinely believe that the world needs this many NoSQL systems, or are we just in the infancy/resurgence of schema-free, ...The non-SQL world is still pretty young. Well, the ideas themselves are old - but recent implementations try to solve unique problemsets.> ... and things are yet to settle down?Yes. IMO there would be 5-7 major projects supported by larger communities. Every of this projects will solve particular problem.So, instead of having 2-3 general SQL providers, we can expect many solutions for very specific problems. The issue right now is that we don't really know what these problems are. Current NoSQL implementations are probing the market - answering the question if this specific features are useful for broader audience.I think we can guess some of these 5-7 major specializations, for example:- Memcachedb: Distributed K-V optimized for speed - no replication- Distributed K-V optimized for reliability- Distributed K-V optimized for size - like Dynamo.- neo4j: Graph database- redis: K-V with reach features, but limited to data size that fits in memory- K-V framework created to allow Map-Reduce jobs - including scheduler, debugger and so on. |
What are the good alternatives to Google Groups? | aravindhanv: Hi,
This is not a new crib. Another recent complaint is here http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=905520, and I responded to that asking him to try Zoho Discussions (http://discussions.zoho.com). Though not a mail listing software, it is fairly advanced and is capable of handling posting through emails too.RegardsDhanPS: I work for Zoho and manage the Zoho Discussions product |
What is the role of an Engineering Manager? | clueless123: Look at Agile best practices. it is not a silver bullet but it does puts in place a basic environment & practices to produce good usable code at a fast pace.For me, the idea is to treat your developers like profesionals and have a method to measure that they are behaving like such.The hardest part for non manager types (i.e coders push to be managers) is to have the social skills to lead and motivate. That.. I have yet to find a good a book for.BTW, It would be good if you already have in place basic software engineering in place: source control, automated builds (ala cruise control), automated unit tests, code coverage tools |
What are the good alternatives to Google Groups? | nate: If you need a private group, we built http://tgethr.com to be an alternative for us to use instead of a private Google group. We have things like code formattinghttp://support.tgethr.com/faqs/how-to/how-do-i-use-code-form...Integration to services like bug trackers (unfuddle) and dropbox. |
How do you vet the startups behind the job postings on Startuply? | clueless123: As the saying goes: You gota kiss a lot of frogs before you find a prince |
Get in touch with low latency people from Sun, IBM or RedHat? | dvhart: HockeyPlayer, I lead the Real-Time Linux development team at IBM. Feel free to contact me directly dvhltc at us.ibm.com, I've shared this link with the Real-Time Java people so they can get you the appropriate contacts there. |
What is the role of an Engineering Manager? | plinkplonk: "I have been asked to be a much more proactive manager who actively keeps tabs on the developers and pushes the project forward."(This may sound flippant but that isn't the intended effect.) If you are the technical co founder of a startup and the early hires aren't managing themselves well, maybe you hired the wrong (type of) people?Hard to give useful advice for such a generic/vague situation. But if I were you I'd just replace them with more self directed people. In an early stage startip I wouldn't want to do too much people management especially if it distracts the tech co founder.My 2 cents. |
Get in touch with low latency people from Sun, IBM or RedHat? | fultonm: My name is Mike Fulton and I am the lead architect for WebSphere Real Time, which is a real-time Java runtime environment for use on Linux and AIX.
We provide real-time technology in our JVM, including Metronome (already mentioned) for improved determinism, improvements to our JIT compiler to reduce jitter, support for ahead-of-time compilation, if you want to completely eliminate the variability of a runtime java compiler, as well as full support for RTSJ - the real-time specification for java (and a bunch more stuff that I'd be happy to talk about)My id is fultonm@ca.ibm.com |
Get in touch with low latency people from Sun, IBM or RedHat? | whenry: Consider looking at Red Hat MRG's realtime offering. Red Hat have done work with both IBM's and Sun's realtime JVMs.http://www.redhat.com/mrg/realtime/
http://www.redhat.com/mrg/faq/It's geared towards low latency.
Let me know if I can help more. |
What are the good alternatives to Google Groups? | kbob: Mailman.
http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/ |
The best way to put technical skills to the greater good? | raxiux: http://www.rhok.org/ |
Am I the only one having problems with SparkFun's website? | ErrantX: Check their IRC. The free day offer meant about 3000+ ppl are trying to place orders at once :) |
The best way to put technical skills to the greater good? | jeffmould: Check your local papers for volunteer opportunities. If you are located near a big city, some of the local non-profits/government funded groups may be looking for assistance with social marketing, web development, marketing, etc.. These are usually part-time, low pay (or even no pay) jobs, but are great opportunities to build your portfolio, skills, and make invaluable connections/references. You can also occasionally get free press out of the deal depending on the organization. |
The best way to put technical skills to the greater good? | tezza: * I do a lot of work with IT4C[1] here in the UK.Its basically a listings board where charities advertise for tech people to help them.Through various "Meet the Charities" nights I've met lots of charity founders and I help them in detail. Some charities are looking for any sort of help available, not merely tech.* I help out old aged homes installing easy to use computers for their occupants.* I write software for disabled people to interact with the computer more easily (my cousins child has quadraplegic cerabral palsy)--------------[1] http://www.it4communities.org.uk/it4c/home/index.jsp |
The best way to put technical skills to the greater good? | maxklein: Who do you want to help? Human beings? Animals? Plants? Progress? Life in General? Exploring?What is a good cause for you? |
The best way to put technical skills to the greater good? | edw519: I've always thought that the best way to put your technical skills to the greater good is through your day job, not instead of it.Some of my days jobs have been to write software to ensure that: - people get the right prescription medication on time
- firetrucks and ambulances get to where they're supposed to be
- parts that go into cars and planes are properly certified
- prisoners are kept in jail
- those same prisoners get proper medical care
- electronic equipment gets assembled properly and on time
- medical supplies get dispatched to where they're supposed to
- insurance claims are processed properly
- quality data is properly maintained for food items
You don't need to do charity work on the side in order to contribute to the greater good.OTOH, if you don't think that the work you do during the day contributes to the greater good, then maybe you should consider doing something else with your valuable time.Do good and get paid. You can do both at the same time. |
The best way to put technical skills to the greater good? | access_denied: Giving free courses / seminars on how to prevent computer fraud. (Like explaining "password", "phishing", ect pp) |
Am I the only one having problems with SparkFun's website? | bockris: I had my cart full a couple of days ago and was sitting on a checkout page and never got through. |
Is asking your friends to vote your HN postings to the front page ok? | pasbesoin: I think HN wants ranking based on content and not the poster's social network. |
The best way to put technical skills to the greater good? | jonnyrotten: http://www.idealist.org |
The best way to put technical skills to the greater good? | Quarrelsome: Wikileaks were recently looking for some technical help. |
The best way to put technical skills to the greater good? | Vindexus: I've always wanted to use my web skills to create a site that generates revenue for a charity. Perfect example: http://www.freerice.com |
The best way to put technical skills to the greater good? | wgj: Assuming your technical skill is related to software: More and more non profits, charities, and even for profit companies that are serving the greater good, are using a lot of open source. Contributing to, or improving, open source projects is one way to make a difference. |
List your Etherpad alternatives | nathanb: Dropbox + vi? |
Insights into securely distributing binaries (call home)? | fragmede: There are various proprietary solutions to this, and for better or worse, flexlm (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FlexNet_Publisher) is the first that comes to my mind. |
Insights into securely distributing binaries (call home)? | lann: In case this isn't obvious: expect whatever protection you employ to be cracked if your product is ever successful (and maybe even if it isn't). |
List your Etherpad alternatives | seiji: If those sites have email set up correctly, you can sign up for free pro accounts. Just go to /ep/pro-signup/ at any etherpad domain. |
List your Etherpad alternatives | tomh-: What about Google Wave? :) |
The best way to put technical skills to the greater good? | sachinag: http://www.codeforamerica.org |
The best way to put technical skills to the greater good? | ryanwaggoner: "Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive."-Howard Thurmon |
The best way to put technical skills to the greater good? | portman: Digital Divide Data
http://www.digitaldividedata.comThey are a nonprofit in Cambodia and Laos who hire and train the disabled - people who otherwise would not have ANY job - to do data entry and other outsourced IT.And they're always looking for technical minded people to help out, either remotely or (even better) on site in Southeast Asia.My wife and I volunteered there for 18 months in 2003-2004, and it was the experience of a lifetime. Please check them out.And thanks for the opportunity (rare on most forums) to plug a good cause! |
The best way to put technical skills to the greater good? | mechanical_fish: Build something people want.Whether or not that's your day job or not is immaterial.My favorite parable about the societal role of an engineer's technical skills is this story about Steve Jobs:http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&s...Steve's pitch is an attempt to capture the essential paradox of engineering: You have a lot more leverage than you think, or even than you can believe. When you improve (say) the Linux kernel, you improve a lot of people's lives, and they in turn improve other lives.Even trivial things improve people's lives. I watched the Ig Nobel Prize committee award a prize to the Japanese electrical engineer/jazz musician who invented karaoke. It was a surprisingly touching moment. |
Simple, fast JavaScript Framework? | mbrubeck: I'd look into jQuery 1.4 (currently in alpha), which is broken into modules so that you can use less of it. This isn't yet released, but it's possible to build and use it from the source tree. See the comments in build.xml for instructions on building a smaller jQuery.There's also http://xuijs.com/ which is very minimal and targeted specifically at mobile browsers. It may not support older desktop browsers, though. |
Get in touch with low latency people from Sun, IBM or RedHat? | HockeyPlayer: I've gotten good IBM contacts, thanks all!Anyone from Sun here? |
The best way to put technical skills to the greater good? | cjoh: come help the Sunlight Foundation. Please!http://sunlightlabs.com |
Hacker News Los Angeles Meetup? | krisneuharth: I'm in Irvine but I would be willing to make the trek up there. |
The best way to put technical skills to the greater good? | vanessa: I’m working to startup a web service called Catchafire that connects professionals who want to volunteer their skills with non-profits and social ventures who need them. Catchafire just finished a pilot program in NYC – I was able volunteer my tech skills then and it was a great experience – and we’re currently working on alpha. We’re always looking out for development help, so feel free to contact me (info in my profile) if you’re interested or have questions or suggestions.Has anyone else on HN been able to volunteer tech skills directly? What was your experience? |
Am I the only one having problems with SparkFun's website? | marcamillion: I know...i emailed them and by the time my email got to them, the reply I got was "freeday ended 2 minutes ago".How convenient. |
The best way to put technical skills to the greater good? | abyssknight: Hackers for Charity! http://www.hackersforcharity.org/I also have a friend who runs a non-profit called Caring Compy: http://caringcompy.blogspot.com/There's a ton of things you can do to better yourself, and the world. |
The best way to put technical skills to the greater good? | ddemchuk: Build a startup that creates revenue for both yourself and your clients. Employ people, get your clients more capital to employ people themselves because of what you can do for them, and help reinvigorate America's economy.In a capitalist country, the best way to contribute to the greater good is through productivity and excellence. |
The best way to put technical skills to the greater good? | a-priori: I'm currently hiring a small team of developers at Philanthrokidz, a new startup in Waterloo, Ontario. If you've got programming chops and want to use them to make the world a better place, drop me a line. My email's in my profile (behind a CAPCHA).http://philanthrokidz.com |
Have you used Appcelerator Titanium for mobile or desktop dev? | codeslinger: I haven't used it for a production app, but I will say that it kicks AIR's ass with regards to CPU and memory usage. Titanium has way lower resource utilization for the same app as compared to Adobe AIR. |
List your Etherpad alternatives | waldrews: Anyone here with Java hosting experience want to do a (cheap) paid account model? Looks like we all still need a well maintained one. |
The best way to put technical skills to the greater good? | apsec112: http://www.givewell.net/giving101/Changing-Someones-LifeYou can save someone's life for under $1,000. |
The best way to put technical skills to the greater good? | rmijic: http://lesswrong.com/lw/1hn/call_for_new_siai_visiting_fello..."At bottom, we’re looking for anyone who: * Is capable (strong ability to get things done);
* Seriously aspires to rationality; and
* Is passionate about reducing existential risk.
" |
Framework or no framework | zeynel1: Link to previous discussion: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=946640 |
Framework or no framework | paulgb: Take a look at pylons. It's like django, but it offers more flexibility in choosing which components you use. If you think you would be better off without the ORM or template engine or form library, it's easy to just not use it. |
Why are video games violent? | mbrubeck: I think it's partly because the game market has segmented by console; you might find more high-quality non-violent games on the Nintendo Wii. |
The best way to put technical skills to the greater good? | keefe: First, make sure your own responsibilities are under control so you don't become a drain on society. Next, volunteer your time - maybe as part of an open source project, something you think is valuable. |
Framework or no framework | yannis: I would stick with a framework especially during the initial phases of the Project, especially if you are new to Python. I am also fairly new and I found that I learned more by peeking my head in Django's codebase than any other book! Agreed it has a rather steep learning curve but is worth the effort.You can incorporate double metaphone or soundex for partial search based on phonetic similarities. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Metaphone) there are links listed in the entry including python routines.You can also try http://www.alchemyapi.com/ for named entity recognition (free for up to 70000) requests and peanuts for more. |
which features shall we charge for? | pmichaud: Typically people pay if they have a desperate need and.or if you provide almost exactly what they need, but not quite. So #1 and #2 might work if people have a need more just a little more information... but why would they? Answer that, and you find out what you can sell. |
List your Etherpad alternatives | erikwiffin: Not etherpad, but I found it worked better for me on a bad internet connection with a slow processor.http://moonedit.com/ |
How to apply for positions that require government clearance? | yan: Usually, the company/agency hiring you would sponsor your clearance and they'd ask you to start if they're interested in you. Once it starts, expect it to take 5 months to a year.edit: see http://www.opm.gov/Forms/pdf_fill/sf86.pdf |
How to apply for positions that require government clearance? | jleyank: Well, if Lockheed's in the US, they you better be a US citizen. Better have a clean criminal record, and be comfortable with having your past prodded and poked. And you'll be pissing in a bottle, probably as a condition of employment, maybe more often. Probably good to not have connections with "unusual groups of people", and you might think of sanitizing your net footprint as much as possible.I don't know whether TS is high enough, but there's a chance you'll be "on the box" as well. I assume you're aware of all this up front, before even considering such a job? |
Framework or no framework | csuper: I think you should stick with the framework, at least until your requirements exceed the frameworks capabilities.There is always a simpler solution that you can one off. But is it worth your time to reinvent the wheel?Also, I'm curious - were you able to do the same thing in Python that you did in Scrapy because you tried Scrapy first? |
How to apply for positions that require government clearance? | pwnstigator: Clearance takes about 6-9 months. Foreign associations and illegal activities get a lot of attention.They'll ask about drug use. Don't lie. Any illegal drug use in the past 12 months is disqualifying, but it's better to fail on this and get the clearance a year later than to get caught in a lie and have that on your record. (I doubt they'd throw you in jail, but a lifetime ban isn't unlikely, from what I've heard; whereas it's unlikely that you'd be turned down for smoking pot 3 years ago.)Underage drinking (even within past 12 months) won't lock you out but you'll be expected to be sober during your time of active clearance, up to your 21st birthday.A lot of people will be interviewed whom you didn't supply. For example, your hall director if you're a college student, and possibly a professor or two. Your references will all be asked for references.Based on what I've heard, I'd guess that the acceptance rate for born US citizen without criminal records or recent drug use is 60-75%, but that's just a wild guess. |
How to apply for positions that require government clearance? | hga: Actually, Top Secret is not very high (e.g. well below DOE Q or of course TS/SCI).Basically, you just have to be honest in your application, and of course you have to be a reasonably trustworthy person (and not black-mailable; e.g. it's OK to be GLBT, but not in the closet).As noted elsewhere in the comments, you'll have to fill out a long form, people you know will be interviewed (my knowledge of all this is mostly from supplying interviews for a couple of friends), and as noted it will take some time. You won't be able to work on your actual project until you get the clearance, which many find annoying, but for this sort of job perhaps they'll have you learn the development environment, work on tools, etc. (I had one friend give up on a LLNL sysadmin job because he couldn't do anything to speak of.)If you're concerned about accepting a job that you might end up being let go from because you didn't get your clearance, check out this page: http://www.home.earthlink.net/~lastone2/individualsales.html and the general web site of LeRoy A. Stone: http://home.earthlink.net/~lastone2/home.html.He provides a service that will give you an estimate of how likely it is you'll get a clearance. I used him back in 2003, although his assessment became moot when my job offer essentially went poof.One really important aspect of this job: it's a two-fer in terms of having a long career in software. The embedded community has more respect for gray hairs than any other, and work that requires a clearance by definition can't be outsourced overseas or given to H-1B or L-1 visa holders. |
Why are video games violent? | ddemchuk: Reptilian? What about human society isn't violent?Violence is (generally) illegal and because of that, it's taboo. Allowing people to do something that is taboo without threat of repercussion sells. Allowing someone to say, race each other to see who can buy the most groceries fastest, can be done in real life without getting in trouble, so it's boring. If games could have gratuitous sex and drug use (beyond Grand Theft Auto), they would sell just as well if not better.You don't get continues in life if you catch AIDS... |
The best way to put technical skills to the greater good? | apsec112: Learn to think better. (www.lesswrong.com is a good place to start, especially the sequences.) Learn new skills. Learn how the world works by reading books that challenge you and by seeking new experiences. Work outside your standard identity. Also, simply be kinder and better to the people around you in your personal life, especially your children, and be less conformist but more results oriented (most non-conformity tends to involve working from an ideology rather than trying to accomplish good). |
The best way to put technical skills to the greater good? | tigerthink: http://yudkowsky.net/singularity/intro |
Why has humanity failed to innovate in the past decade? | csuper: Because all of the necessities are covered? Death by comfort? |
Why has humanity failed to innovate in the past decade? | gprisament: The movie Idiocracy explains it all. |
Why has humanity failed to innovate in the past decade? | makecheck: Part of the problem is that there are too many lock-in and obfuscation mechanisms in place: monopolies, patents (ironically created to "help" innovation), and legal nonsense making everything 1000% more complex than it often needs to be. How many people have jobs whose sole purpose is to sift through this crap: be it insurance forms, etc.? The argument is always, "well at least they have jobs"; when the reality is that it's not a good sign for society to have so many people with jobs that are not directly adding value.Part of the problem is the end of the Cold War. When the U.S. was interested in "beating" the Soviet Union to space travel, etc. there were lots of things going on. Now, perhaps China and India will step up to compete in this way and drive future developments. If there aren't superpowers, things slow down.Part of it is that some people just don't care where we are, versus where we could be. As crappy as life can be, the average quality of life still seems to be higher than at any point in the past. It seems that the majority of people stop demanding something better, once they are basically comfortable. (There are exceptions to that, of course.)These things all have side effects, such as fewer jobs, less chance of receiving a good education, etc., so that after awhile, a small problem becomes a big one. |
Why has humanity failed to innovate in the past decade? | gkefalas: In terms of medical advances, there may not have been any major blockbuster disease cures found, but there were several very important advances & innovations. I'll crib from ABC News and call out a few that I think are impressive as a layperson: http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Decade/genome-hormones-top-10-m...- Heart disease numbers dropped considerably: so many heart-related diseases and emergencies that previously would be fatal or have many more severe consequences are now survivable and livable.- Stem cell research: even with the lack of US/federal funding, stem cell research started to bear fruit, and looks to only grow from here.- Improved cancer survival rates for many types of cancers: Huge. We're a long way away from a real cure, but survival rates have never been higher.- Incredible advances in arthroscopic & noninvasive/outpatient surgery & procedures: In 2004-ish I blew out the "terrible triad" of knee ligaments; my surgery scars are just little dots. My brother had similar surgery just about 6-8 years prior to that, and he bears the ugly long scar over his kneecap.That's just gleaned from one decade-end retrospective article, and is just focused on medical advances.But also, stop and think back to the internet in 2000 versus where we are now. There's been a hell of a lot of innovation there, as well; think of all of the things that are now possible or even commonplace to do online that were merely a gleam in our minds a decade ago...If anything, just thinking about the pieces and foundations that were put in place throughout the 00s excites me for the possibilities of this next decade even more. It should be a very exciting time. |
How do you organize your git branches? | rlpb: I use branches called feature/foo, feature/bar, etc, and bug fixing branches named after the bug, eg. bug/42. Before a complicated rebase I often back up by branching to a branch named backup/foo, and I also have bits of experimental code in branches like experimental/foo or deadend/foo.I rebase feature branches against master before merging them, so they are always a fast-forward merge. Then there's no reason at all to keep them around after the merge, so they go away. Same with the bug branches.Do you know about "git branch"? It gives you a list of branches. What are you storing in your text file in addition to this list? |
Why has humanity failed to innovate in the past decade? | robryan: As a society we put a lot of effort at the moment into incremental improvement rather than completely new innovation.When TV, Cars, Computers, The Internet were invented they were all breaking new ground in innovation because they were big areas that helped with life.Now I think more smart people look at the way things are and can't see as many obvious things missing, so instead choose to incrementally improve what we have, either that or the goal is very ambitious and puts people off attempting, such as manned spaceflight beyond low earth orbit and a cure for cancer ect |
Why has humanity failed to innovate in the past decade? | shib71: Access to knowledge through things like open courseware and one laptop per child. These movements are in their infancy now as they get bigger the 00's will be known the decade they were born.Mobile phones (and the related communications) have gone from first world luxury to being more common than clean fresh water in many third world countries. |
Why has humanity failed to innovate in the past decade? | brlewis: This has been a great decade for computing. 1.4MB removable storage was the norm 10 years ago. Right now I have incredibly fast 4GB removable storage in my pocket. Ten years ago we didn't have USB 2.0. Wireless protocols weren't as good. Digital cameras were mostly toys, and digital video was almost nonexistent. CVS was state-of-the-art version control. Hosting was expensive. I love 2010. |
Why has humanity failed to innovate in the past decade? | whatusername: The # of people lifted out of extreme poverty in China/India is pretty substantial.The Human Genome project and sequencing.Wikipedia is pretty substantial. All that information for free for everyone. |
Why has humanity failed to innovate in the past decade? | drcode: I agree completely- I don't know why so many people insist that technological progress is improving at an exponential rate when the empirical evidence seems to contradict this so clearly. |
Why has humanity failed to innovate in the past decade? | DTrejo: HN was created. |
Why has humanity failed to innovate in the past decade? | gabrielroth: There were a lot of innovations in the financial sector in the last ten years, because that's where a lot of the incentive to innovate was coming from. Unfortunately, some of those innovations were very destructive, and most of the rest had no benefit to society. There were probably some new tools that resulted in more efficient allocation of capital, but those gains were swamped by the damage done. |
Why has humanity failed to innovate in the past decade? | jsz0: I think you're being a bit too hard on humanity..-Dozens of extrasolar planets discovered.
-Confirmation of water on Mars.
-Completed the principal construction of ISS
-Cassini–Huygens
-AIDS drug therapy drastically increasing life spans
-US elects a black President
-Lowest number of homicides in the US since the 1960s |
Why has humanity failed to innovate in the past decade? | jacquesm: I think it may be that you simply have enough bandwidth to do whatever it is that you want to do, would you be willing to pay a premium to get more ?I have 20Mbps here and 90% of the time I'm under 10% usage.And I consider myself a pretty heavy internet user.Innovation is probably not measured very well by looking at your DSL upload speed.A decade ago your pc would have been running at 3 to 400 MHz tops (single core!), have 32M of ram and maybe a 40G drive (if you had the money).By those measures the price of storage and of processing has come down considerably. (edit: and don't forget the SSD revolution that is about to become true, if you like spinning media have a good look at them because they're about to go extinct).And then there are lots of fields outside computing where we have advanced tremendously in the last decade, one of my favorites is the 'camera pill'.http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3606947/But there are plenty of others. |
Why has humanity failed to innovate in the past decade? | tigerthink: Google Maps is pretty cool. |
Git Hosting | sophacles: IME git configuration on a decent host is pretty trivial. Just do it over ssh not http. Its a little bit of effort to set up, but not really. If you want the fancy web fontend, things are a bit different, and I can't offer experience there. |
Why has humanity failed to innovate in the past decade? | epochwolf: Well we have wikipedia now. I think that's a huge leap forward. |
Why has humanity failed to innovate in the past decade? | ynniv: Any increases in privacy, civil rights, human rights, intolerance?These are ancient problems... don't expect a quick fix, especially via technology.http://www.ted.com/talks/billy_graham_on_technology_faith_an... |
How to apply for positions that require government clearance? | ciar: I was recently hired for an IT position that required a Secret clearance. I had read a great deal about obtaining the clearance and had help from my prospective employer that made the process much easier. The best advice (as an earlier poster noted) is to tell the complete truth. Leave nothing out, no matter how embarrassing, because the people doing the background checks and interviews will check out everything. Also, make sure that you check your credit report and be aware of any criminal records that may be hanging around from your past. Secret level checks go back seven to ten years, and top secret will be at least ten. The security officer at your firm should be able to answer any and all questions you have. I was told that interim approval would take 2 to 14 days and full approval could take up to 6 months. With no criminal record or associations with foreign nationals, and a fair credit score my full approval happened within a month. It can seem daunting, but the end result is worth the effort. I hope this helps. |
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