Jebdm

"Microsoft says the restriction is designed to ensure that users get the best possible performance from limited netbook hardware."

Because being able to run more than three applications at once makes your hardware less efficient?

(EDIT: To be fair, I suppose that having a low fixed number of applications could let you pull off some useful optimizations. However, most of those optimizations seem like they would significantly change the OS architecture, so I doubt that Microsoft performed them. Maybe they did, though.)

I assume you mean that syntax is less important than other language features, and I mostly agree. However, while there are of course many variations of syntax on the same basic set of features, some variations are better than others. It may be difficult to say whether Python, Ruby, or C syntax is best, but that doesn't mean that some aren't better than others.

For instance, terse languages, as long as they remain understandable, generally seem better. Whether to use braces or indentation may be a matter of preference, but few would argue that a COBOL-like syntax is preferable.

In short: "I used to open up another browser to bypass my Firefox anti-procrastination software, Leechblock, so that I could override noprocrast and read HN. This usually led to me reading other, less interesting sites like Reddit. Now that I can't override noprocrast, I decided to use it exclusively and removed HN from my Leechblock blocked list. Now I don't end up reading Reddit afterwards. Thanks!"

Moderately interesting, but the linkbait title was unnecessary.

Actually, there already is a service which connects advertisers with Twitter users for paid advertising, but I can't remember the name of it for the life of me.

Fortunately, it hasn't caught on. There isn't much incentive to sign up; advertising makes you look like a tool, the money available is bound to be small, Twitter in general doesn't incur overhead, and people mostly use Twitter for fun.

Perhaps Twitter make it against the TOS, but even that seems overkill. The "viral" nature of Twitter should keep the negative effects of advertising to a minimum.

You can do it in any OO language easily as well. For instance, in Python:

  class UnsafeString:
    def __init__(self, str):
      self._str = str
      self._sanitized = None
    def __str__(self):
      return self.sanitize()
    def unsafe(self):
      return self._str
    def sanitize(self):
      if self._sanitized != None:
        return self._sanitized
      else:
        self._sanitized = sanitize(self._sanitized)
        return self._sanitized

That way, as long as you wrap all input in the UnsafeString class, you'll have to be explicit if you want the unsafe version and you'll get the safe version by default.

The big problem I see is that if you ever want to do something which has to be precise, you'll have to have two processors. Perhaps in the future we'll see chips with a "probability drive" in addition to the normal cores.

Now we've just got to develop an improbability drive...

"Sometimes, when I'm looking at the code of a complete stranger, I get that same, weird feeling I get when I'm creeping through my neighbour's house. Picking up their stuff, looking through their fridge."

Um...

I think he was just trying to explain the difference which we intuitively see between the two kinds languages he lists, because it's not obvious what exactly the difference is.

One of these groups he calls the "puzzle languages" and the others are "not puzzle languages". Puzzle languages are usually clearly oriented toward one particular way of doing things; trying to use a different way sometimes works, but is usually fairly fragile and almost always out of place. This can be intentional or unintentional; Haskell's purity is an example of intentional limits, while the ugliness of using function pointers in C is an example of an unintentional (perhaps?) one. Converting from the original solution to a cleaner one is the "puzzle". The advantage of this is that, if you learn to use the constructs in the way the language "wants" you to, your code will be nicer and you will be able to be more productive.

On the other hand, the not-puzzle languages don't limit you as much. There is little stigma associated with doing things in any particular way, and often the methods considered "dirty" in puzzle languages are the easiest or accepted way. There is often a "cleaner" method of doing things, but the language and the language's culture don't try to push you towards it. This can make the non-puzzle languages somewhat easier to work with, because they don't push more complex abstractions on you, but as a result they lose some of the expressiveness which forcing abstractions can give.

I'd disagree with him for making such a strict distinction between the two. It's a bit of a spectrum, based on the degree to which the languages try to restrict you. For instance, one (debatable) ordering of some languages is Javascript, Perl, Python, Java, Assembly, Haskell. Note that these distinctions don't necessarily convey the existence of high-level abstractions within the languages; it only conveys the degree to which they attempt to force you into whatever abstractions they have. (In fact, it seems that the less puzzle-y languages tend to support a wider variety of abstractions.)

I don't think the idea of puzzle-yness captures the distinction quite like he wanted it to, but it nonetheless is an interesting idea.

So what you're saying is that you'd be okay with using blackmail to get into TED?

Is openness not a political issue?

I think what he meant by "weakly identify with" was that people have opinions about these things but aren't hardcore about them. People will identify with the movies they like, what kind of pets they prefer, etc. On the other hand, I feel like very few identify with snail mating at all.

(As a side note, snail mating is actual fairly cool-looking: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxejE8HB9lY . I actually like this one of slugs a bit more, skip in to about 2:30 for the good stuff: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSW9kWIRCOQ )

Perhaps all that saves these kinds of conversations from spiraling into "religious wars" is peoples' recognition that these things are arbitrary and ridiculous to get upset about.

For instance, I am a dog person and my girlfriend is a cat person. Occasionally, we start to debate the relative merits of each. And there may in fact be one which is in general "better"; after all, most people would agree that dog ownership is better than man-eating tiger ownership. But since we both recognize that dog and cat ownership is a rather silly thing to get upset about, we don't.

On the other hand, politics (for example) are considered to be important. And while we may realize that it's nearly impossible to find a "right answer", that our discussion will likely lead to nothing, etc., we don't feel silly getting upset about it. That, combined with our identity-based connection with politics, leads to flared tempers and out-of-control discussions.

There are a number of people who have worked to abolish grades over the years, so I don't think your direct action point makes much sense. Additionally, this seems like the sort of issue that, simply due to inertia, won't be changed without some sort of revolution.

Again, I'd argue that he's not diminishing the prospects of other students (assuming most other graders grade "normally"), simply because other grades will balance them out. One A+ isn't going to make or break an interview. Besides, this sort of thing happens constantly anyways, simply due to the fact that different graders grade differently.

I think your last point comes down to a moral value judgment. You say that he doesn't have the right to try to fix the system on his own; I'd say that he has not only the right but the responsibility. I think this especially makes sense when you consider that, if grading is as flawed as I say it is, using grades to judge is discrimination (and I mean it in the pejorative sense).

Think of it like racism. If there really is an intelligence gap between different races, and you are supposed to label peoples' races so that employers could judge them, then my moral intuition would line up with yours; it would be wrong for you to label everyone as white (or whatever the best race was supposed to be) just because you believed that race was a good indicator of intelligence.

But if race isn't an accurate indicator of intelligence, but people were using it as a measurement of intelligence anyways, then my moral intuition says that you would have a responsibility to do everything you could to fight against racism, which could include labeling everyone as white.

Actually, it seems a rather sticky point.

I see what you mean, but I don't think I agree. For one, direct action seems to often be the best way to at least get started the sort of revolution that would have to occur to get this change made. (I'd argue that the only reason that the majority of people who believe in grades do is that they haven't taken much time to think about them.)

In addition, this isn't a case of, say, someone believing that people would be better off if they were occasionally hit with water balloons and thus deciding to throw them at random passerbys. (Whether that person would be justified in pelting everyone is subject to debate.) Instead, this is a case which only effects the people who chose to become his students. And how is he hurting them?

He isn't hurting their future prospects of getting a job (though I guess that maybe you could argue that he is diminishing his school's reputation or something like that). He isn't hurting their ability to learn--I think he's right that not using grades helps students learn better, and either way we generally give teachers the right to choose how to teach their students, since they're usually the most qualified to make that decision. The only possible way that he's hurting anyone is if later on one of his students get hired when they shouldn't have (or visa-versa), and arguably that decision isn't on him; if he's truly wrong about grades, then the rest of the students' grades should reflect that.

(Perhaps you could say that if some of the students wanted a grade, they should be given one, but I feel like he would be willing to give them feedback/change their grades if they asked him.)

You're comparing apples and oranges. In many cases, it really is a bad idea to circumvent the current system. But there are a couple of big differences between traffic lights and school grades.

For one, traffic lights work. When people obey them, they (excepting a faulty light) don't get into wrecks. They may not be efficient, but they get the job done.

School grades don't work. Because people make comparisons between things that aren't really comparable, a lot of people get jobs when perhaps they shouldn't or don't when they should. This is much more like a system where traffic lights are sometimes all green than ones which are timed in an annoying way.

What's the right thing to do when traffic lights are malfunctioning this way? The first thing you should do, obviously, is call the authorities. But what if the authorities don't believe you? You tell them that the lights are all green, but they know their system works perfectly.

This is further complicated in the case of grading, because there isn't one central authority. There are thousands of schools and employers who all work with this system; getting them all to switch is no mean feat. So let's instead imagine that every traffic light is independently owned and operated, and that while the traffic light operators feel like they are all working together, there are some subtle differences between their algorithms which obviously lead to screwups.

Since the people who run the traffic lights aren't responding to you, what should you do? Obviously, for your own safety and the safety of those around you you should stop at every intersection regardless of the light color. And if you have the ability, it would probably be a good idea to climb up and cover up the lights yourself, so that others who come to the broken intersection don't get confused.

I'd dispute the statement that good grades are a useful measurement of ability to function in society. All grades really measure is students' abilities to get good grades. There are lots of factors that can go into getting a good grade, especially in courses where the grading process is necessarily subjective: writing in a style which appeals to the grader, building a relationship with the grader, studying in an optimal way for taking exams, being dedicated to your studies, etc.

Parts of this skillset are obviously useful in general. A person who is able to figure out how to appeal to their audience will do well in many fields. Some are more tricky; for instance, one might assume that someone who studies optimally for their exams will be able to figure how to perform other tasks optimally as well, but this is often not the case. One particularly misleading thing about grades is that they are often seen as an indicator of how dedicated/good of a worker students are. This might sometimes be the case; some students get good grades primarily because they work very hard. But some students get good grades without much effort, some only work hard because they have someone driving them (such as their parents), and some do well in an academic atmosphere but will burn out in a more job-oriented one. The biggest of these fallacies is that a student with low grades is a poor worker or bad in their subject; there are students who worked hard but just had a bad teacher, students who are overworked, students who prioritize certain classes over others, and students who are disenchanted with academic work but who will do well in a "real-world" atmosphere".

As an anecdote: I go to a fairly alternative liberal arts school that is nonetheless highly ranked (not that rankings are good judges of schools, but here's the US News page: http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/college/items/... ). My school accepts a fair number of students who in high school did not perform well academically. Many of these students pick up their grades while here; nearly all of these students are very smart and capable.

The problem with grades is that they fail to provide any breakdown of the factors which contribute to them, which is the truly useful information. Even in the cases where a student got all A+'s or all F's, where it seems that the student is probably overall competent or incompetent respectively, there are still external motivations which are not taken into account but which are nonetheless vitally important.

Another big problem with grades is that they fail to take into account differences between environments, school policies, and graders; that is, even when grading policies are objective, they differ from place to place but are compared nonetheless. Different graders grade differently; some may give A's to everyone who is qualified, while some may give them to only those who are most qualified. Some of these effects can be damped through normalization, but usefully normalizing grades seems difficult as well. Imagine trying to normalize grades between MIT and community college students. Additionally, the information required to do any significant statistical tricks is often not avaliable to those who could use it, and those who could use it would probably not take the time to even if they could.

Finally, I feel like you completely missed the professor's point. (I'm assuming he believes arguments similar to mine.) Since grades don't provide signifcant metrics of anything, using them to judge people is both discriminatory and a bad idea. Thus, the responsible thing to do would be to get rid of them altogether (or at least reform them so that they actually measured something). But since he doesn't have the power to do that, he does the closest thing he can: give everyone the best grade possible. This has several positive effects: it lessens the potential future discrimination against his students; it, as you said, "compromis[es] that whole system", making more obvious how arbitrary it is and hopefully leads to its undoing; and it (he believes) makes students learn better.

He hasn't ignored the second task at all.

Perhaps it would be good to put a karma threshold, or at least a time limit, on the ability to submit stories. (A karma threshold might be bad for people who like to browse but not comment.)

That's a really good point. I thought that maybe you could solve this by dividing the story karma by the comment karma, but then you get the opposite effect; it hurts you to make a new comment on a front-page item and helps you to make one on a less-upvoted item. Maybe that itself would be a good thing.

Another approach would be to normalize the comment's score against the other comments on that story, and use a threshold on that. If there were 4 comments with karmas 1 to 4 and another story with 100 comments from 1 to 100, the 4 on the first would be just as good as the 100 on the second. That might be too much work, though ;)

I feel dumb for contradicting myself in a single thread, but after thinking about this for a bit I think I agree with you that it shouldn't be a part of the UI. However, I think the idea of implicitly boosting people with a good history is a good idea.

One idea would be to invisibly boost the ranking of comments by orange users, at least at first (we don't want to give a bad comment more credit just because the commenter has made good comments in the past). Let a new comment by an orange user rise for the first hour or so, and then drop it back down to where it would be if it was posted by a normal gray user.

Also, let us jump from nested comments to their parents.

I like the orange-username thing. Maybe it would make sense to apply it to submissions as well as comments?

The technique is cool, but in this case the customization doesn't seem very helpful. The default buttons are more comfortable to use, I think, although a flat color background or a rounded button or something might be nice. A gradient on something so small, on the other hand, is overkill. (I don't mind all gradients; a soft gradient in the background can have a good effect.)

I do like the way they regrouped the buttons on the toolbar, but I wish there was a little more space between them. Put a few pixels between the buttons in each group; then, perhaps, put a slightly different color behind the buttons to emphasize their grouping. It'd also be nice if the "more actions" dropdown was right-aligned.

I really like the interface on the "Move To" and "Labels" buttons. The "move to" option doesn't seem to fit in very well with the whole label-based interface, though. It's much more intuitive to label something and then archive it (it's just one more click/keystroke). "Move to" doesn't add any new functionality; it does makes label+archiving slightly more convenient, but it clutters up the menu, so I'd say remove it.

And once the "move to" button is gone, it probably makes sense to move the input box that you get when you click "label" directly onto the bar with the archive/report spam/delete buttons. Add a dropdown arrow to get to the list of labels/management stuff, and put "Labels" grayed-out in the input box by default to clarify what it's for.

The easiest improvement, I think, would be to iconify the Archive, Report Spam, and Delete buttons. That would be fairly easy to do, and it would make it easier to distinguish the function of each item and declutter the menu.

The last thing I'd like to mention may just be a matter of taste, but I definitely preferred the older color scheme. There isn't a big difference:

              OLD                   NEW
  MAIN BOX    light blue            light blue
  RSS BAR     lighter blue          darker blue
  READ ITEMS  lighter gray-blue     light gray

This change in color scheme totally switches the "look and feel" of the app for me from a pleasant, Google-y environment to a corporate, enterprise-y one. Maybe this was intentional, but I'd like to change it. There is a "classic" theme available, but it doesn't quite get the colors right and regardless I use Google Apps and Themes haven't been rolled out to me yet. For now, I'm reverting to the "older version".

Overall, I love Gmail. Just a little constructive criticism ;)

But how do you know they are jwesley's?

Yeah, I agree. Our ability to use our brains so that we don't have to wait for evolution is our primary evolutionary advantage.

I don't know that increasing longevity would decrease diversity, because increased longevity doesn't necessarily open up the "window of opportunity" for having kids.

No; the default is decay (as we see from the second law of thermodynamics), and we would have to explicitly inhibit decay in order to stop death. There is no evolutionary incentive to stop death due to aging.

Sure, but I don't think this effect is enough to be significant to most evolutionary processes, especially if (and I believe this is the idea) in aging you don't become feeble. As long as there are enough resources to go around, there isn't a big problem, especially since people are resources themselves.

(If this weren't the case, you would think that evolution would drive us to die shortly after we had children, or at least after we lost our ability to have children.)

"Evolution has almost exclusively adopted destructive aging processes in every form of life on the planet. The fact that we can't conclusively answer why this is so is reason enough not to temp fate in this way."

I'd say it's pretty obvious, although I'm no biologist: natural selection doesn't "care" how long you live, as long as you live long enough to have (and possibly raise) kids.

Evidence?

I hope that was intentional wordplay. If not, I'll just pretend.