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Bo102010on OpenVim: Learn Vim in Your Browser

I had to turn of Firefox's Find As You Type to make it work, but well worth it!

I have gone so far as to FTP files to myself to edit on a more familiar editor, then FTP'd them back to the target machine rather than use vi, so it's high time I internalized the basics.

Bo102010on Facebook is scaring me

I had my privacy settings set to "Custom" for wall posts, photos, and some other profile elements.

I excluded a list of people from seeing posts I made and posts other people put on my wall.

When I used the "View my profile as," I wouldn't see the excluded elements.

Once the new design launch, I realized that all these settings were lost - I can do "View my profile as" one of the people on my excluded list, and see the stuff I didn't want shown.

Bo102010on Facebook is scaring me

I ditched Facebook this morning when I realized my carefully-constructed "Don't show this part of my profile" list was wiped out in the last redesign.

I've always thought the complaints people make after each redesign were simply resistance to change, but this time it doesn't seem worth it to continue.

Bo102010on This is what happens when one guy practices art every day for nine years

I went from 0 knowledge of Python to what I feel is quite a good handle by working on Project Euler nearly every day for just over a year now. Highly recommended!

Bo102010on I know my lack of extreme excitement can be off-putting

I'm the same way - I can't remember the last time I became so excited about something that I became visibly animated.

Like Gabriel says, that doesn't mean I'm not passionate, but others may interpret it as such, or think that I don't care at all about anything.

When something happens and I feel like there's a risk of someone misinterpreting my lack of visible reaction as something it isn't... I give a visible reaction.

That is, if something legitimately good and exciting happens, and I'm the only one in the room not celebrating, I'll force a smile/laugh/shout if there's someone present who doesn't know me well enough to understand my stoicism.

I don't feel like a fraud or phony for doing this; doing it is like accommodating a guest. If I raise my voice when talking to someone who has hearing loss, I'm not faker, even though I don't normally talk that way. If I use simple English to talk to someone who primarily speaks Spanish, I'm not being duplicitous.

It's not a disavowal of my personality or "wiring" to do this; it's a recognition that not everyone is so familiar with me to understand my particular emotional set point.

Bo102010on ReactOS "ready approximately for 80% of real world usage"

You're attributing more to my tentative venture than I intended. I'm not saying updating or wide-scale deployment is better on Windows than Linux. I'm saying that, for example, installing Python 2.5 alongside several other versions of Python is easier on Windows.

Bo102010on ReactOS "ready approximately for 80% of real world usage"

I'm not a fanboy of Linux or Windows (I use both at work and at home), but I would venture application install experience?

I was reading (http://blog.vrplumber.com/index.php?/archives/2526-Python-2....) today and thinking, "This wouldn't have been much of a problem on Windows."

Bo102010on Sneaking into the Fortune 500 through the back door

In my experience, the biggest problem is that "one size fits all" IT rules don't make sense for many organizations that employ them.

For example, I've worked for two ISPs in which engineers are responsible for larger networks than the IT department is, yet the engineers are still not allowed to, say, install a new version of Java on their own machines.

Bo102010on Learn Vim Progressively

What I would love (and suppose I should make) is a CodeAcademy sequence for vi.

Bo102010on The stock market hates HP's new strategy

I don't think the HP leaders will regret the change of focus to businesses instead of consumers. Every day we hear that businesses are sitting on increasingly huge piles of cash and that individuals are increasingly jobless.

Then again, I'm not scooping up bargain HP shares, so my idle speculation isn't extremely compelling even to me.

Bo102010on Why U.S. Broadband is So Slow

Yes, but what of the charge that the FCC has consistently given preference to well-monied lobbyists (e.g. the National Association of Broadcasters vs. Low Power FM radio operators) when handling spectrum rights? Is there a way of managing spectrum that is more efficient for businesses and more beneficial to consumers? We don't know, because the FCC is governed by increasingly antiquated rules.

Bo102010on Why U.S. Broadband is So Slow

I might even strike the "recently" from that question. (I'm not being facetious)

Bo102010on Dive Into Python 3 (online book)

I have DiP3, and have used it for a couple of tricks, but I found learning Python through Project Euler + documentation to be much more useful.

Also, having learned Python 3 first, I can't stand porting things to Python 2. It's like taking a final draft of an idea and trying to turn it into a rough draft.

Bo102010on Just the Facts: S&P's $2 Trillion Mistake

Yikes. I refer you to Tyler Cowen's review of Klein: http://www.nysun.com/arts/shock-jock/63867/

Some highlights: "Ms. Klein's rhetoric is ridiculous. For instance, she attaches import to the fact that the word 'tank' appears in the label 'think tank.'"

"What the reader will find is a series of fabricated claims, such as the suggestion that Margaret Thatcher created the Falkland Islands crisis to crush the unions."

"If nothing else, Ms. Klein's book provides an interesting litmus test as to who is willing to condemn its shoddy reasoning."

Bo102010on A new kind of interchange eliminates left turns.

There is one of these 300 meters from my apartment.

It's not very confusing exiting the highway and turning left - just follow the lights.

It is kind of confusing exiting the highway and turning right. Right-on-red is allowed, and to make such a maneuver you have to look in strange places for traffic that might hit you. I've almost messed it up a few times. The other option is to let people honk at you while you wait for a green.

I'm curious as to what will happen when the power to the lights fails.

Bo102010on Firefox update policy: the enterprise is wrong, not Mozilla

Basically when one of their low level "packaging" people screws up the install script. It took me 3 months for an IT department to give me an updated Java VM, as they had marked it "incompatible."

Bo102010on The ethics of sunscreen

"How can consumers look at this example and not believe that the regulation of marketing claims is the only way to insulate consumers from short-term selfish marketers in search of market share, marketers who will shade the truth, even if it kills some customers?"

Seems like Seth isn't thinking very creatively about this. How about letting marketers say whatever they want, but the FDA publishes a pamphlet that is posted in the store aisle that ranks brands according to the latest research on effectiveness?

I don't necessarily endorse this solution, but Seth's "only way" seems to me to be... not the only way.

Bo102010on Just how many failed startups can Google afford?

If I were speaking for Google, I would reply: If all of our experiments succeeded, it would mean we are too conservative in what experiments we conduct.

Bo102010on Fire the workaholics (2008)

I don't agree with the article. If my employees were showing signs of workaholism and I didn't send them home, then their burnout, lack of creativity, and drag on morale would be my fault, at least in part.

Bo102010on Integration by integration under the integral sign

This was pretty cool. Once on an exam in a differential equations class, the instructor made a mistake in the problem that required integrating sec(x).

This is a fairly difficult integral, since it requires the trick of multiplying by 1 in a clever way. http://math2.org/math/integrals/more/sec.htm

Bo102010on Google Exec Says It's A Good Idea: Open The Index And Speed Up The Internet

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=google+abandons+qr+codes

Not saying it's an accurate summary, but I don't think you were actually very curious!

Bo102010on Harvard's Edward O. Wilson tries to upend biology, again

http://lesswrong.com/lw/300/group_selection_update/ for a version of the view E. O. Wilson is proclaiming.

My guess is that E. O. Wilson is probably right about ants, David Sloan Wilson is probably not right about group selection being like Daniel Dennett's universal acid, and Steven J. Gould was probably wrong in most of what he promoted.

Bo102010on Harvard's Edward O. Wilson tries to upend biology, again

http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Group_selection for the prevailing view.

Bo102010on How a law firm tested "phantom" AT&T smartphone data use

Clearly this guy's test was incomplete and guaranteed to give the result they sought...

However, I have worked in capacity planning at a mobile telecom, and it's scary how confused that alleged experts are about "bytes" and "bytes per second."

Given that experience, I'm not surprised that AT&T would get "bytes transferred" wrong, but I think it's more likely due to incompetence and not malice. I wouldn't be surprised if they underbilled people also.

Bo102010on New bill upgrades unauthorized Internet streaming to a felony

I don't think you've read this book.

Bo102010on Company was hosting cardiac patient monitoring on EC2

Do not believe.

Bo102010on Ubuntu Unity usability testing results and analysis

I tried both for the first time last week.

Unity is not bad by any stretch, but it feels unfinished to me when I use it. I kept hitting the wrong thing and breaking the flow of whatever task I was doing. I'm sure with some more experience with it I'll quit doing that, but it kept violating my expectations and stealing my attention from more important things.

Gnome 3 was a big change, but felt much tighter and polished. I didn't seem to have to think too much about how to do stuff.

Based on that experience, I think I'd like to use Gnome 3 on Ubuntu long-term.

Bo102010on Ubuntu Unity usability testing results and analysis

Where I've worked, you'd be more likely to see a spreadsheet poorly pasted into a PowerPoint presentation with a poorly scaled bitmap of a logo in the corner that is a 6 MiB attachment to an email...

Bo102010on Ubuntu Unity usability testing results and analysis

Is there a good name for a spreadsheet application besides "Spreadsheet?"

"VisiCalc" was the first one on a PC, "Lotus 1-2-3" became popular later, "Excel" is now the dominant one...

Bo102010on Ask HN: What is -2^2?

I read it as shorthand for (-1) * 2^2, so -4.