KeithMajhor

I'd never heard of them before. I wonder if they keep the old scans and resell duplicate books. They could make a bunch of extra money on half.com or similar. Depending on how they're scanning the books it'd also save time. Then again, it could be that they're required to destroy the scanned book in order for it to be legal.

This was a great post. Just a little nitpick. I think this line near the bottom:

var something = maybe(doesntCheckForSomething(value));

Should actually be:

var something = maybe(doesntCheckForSomething)(value);

If I'm wrong then I likely missed something so please let me know. Thanks.

I prefer this one: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/juicetank/juicetank-the-...

I don't think he's saying it's ok. He's saying that in spite of Apple being unethical the present condition is an inevitability. We can try to shame Apple into doing the right thing but it won't fix the real problem.

You could also have some anonymous understanding of B. This reminds me of Richard Feynman's story about his dad and the bird.

Well that's nearly impossible when a tap is a zero length swipe.

Here is some relevant discussion: http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/node/2003

Also, codata doesn't solve everything. You still can't filter infinite data. Filtering with \x -> x > 0 won't terminate for all infinite lists of numbers since [0 0 0 0 0 ...] is a potential case.

It's plain HTML5. That scrolling behavior isn't a freebie. The scroll bar you see is actually for an empty div. There's an attached scroll event handler that they're likely using to run the animation.

I think Twitter is using Clojure now that they've acquired BackType.

I've felt like that at times but I think it's important to be unbiased. We're not the only people who give a shit.

If the unique id didn't work out you could charge per post instead. Spammers would post more than other users. Extra accounts or not. Is there any way to make payments like this easy?

I'm in Oregon and Wyden came up for me but hes already a SOPA/PIPA opponent. Shouldn't he (and the others) be omitted to direct traffic to where its needed?

I'm not trying to have an attitude. I said it once but I'll say it again: You're reading too much into whats being said.

I like your analogy. It perfectly exemplifies what I'm trying to say. Can I not use their services and be careful while doing it? Driving my car is dangerous but I do it every day. I'm not trying to say that they're bad. If you're distilling the word "dangerous" down to it's connotation then I can understand your disagreement. Please understand that I'm not doing that.

"Their products are deliberately engineered to make it painful to seek affordable alternatives when you need new parts."

Some of apples products have RAM directly soldered to the motherboard. This has legitimate engineering trade-offs. Of the ones that don't do this: Are there any that deliberately void compatibility with alternatives. It looks like most of their cables have alternatives too. Their stuff is expensive sure. But are they deliberately locking you into using their accessories?

In all seriousness. What does "open" even mean? I've noticed that no one is saying "open source". Not that I know what that really means either. Android isn't developed in the open they just release the source code. That's the only real difference from Windows 7. So is this all just relative to the phone market? It's "open" as far as phones go?

I get the feeling "open" is not something you can be. It's a continuum. Things can be more or less "open" but nothing can actually be "open".

Dangerous: "Able or likely to cause harm or injury" [1]

Google is exactly that. I think you're reading too much into whats being said. Are you suggesting we shouldn't keep a watchful eye on Google? They have a tremendous amount of power.

1: http://www.google.com/search?q=define:%20dangerous

Can you give any examples of this? You may be over-generalizing. Most of their products don't even have replaceable parts. Are you sure their reasons aren't legitimate?

I love Google but they're at least dangerous. The "bad" may come later.

It'd be cool to have a lisp that you could edit structurally with an iPad. Structural editing is a foreign thing when done on a keyboard. But it's 1:1 on an iPad. I know that's not visual in the way you meant. I just think it'd be easier to grok than syntax.

Also, Conal Elliot did a talk about how to visualize higher order programming. He demonstrates a UI for manipulating higher-order functions. I don't know how directly useful it would be but it's at least a good place to farm for ideas. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faJ8N0giqzw The demo starts at 22:22 if you just want to skip to that.

HA. Error correcting codes? You realize that means the person thinking in bits would have to do that themselves. A 7-bit parity would be harder to do than just dialing the damn thing. Even then all it'd be able to do is tell you that you messed up. Something that actually makes corrections on the fly (Hamming). No way. I couldn't do it and I know how Hamming works. I really doubt a consumer could do it or would want to.

Dude you are awesome. I used to think splats and destructuring were what made CoffeeScript more than just pretty Javascript. But this new stuff is doing even more substantive work on our behalves. Thank you.

Lets break it down.

mseebach: "You're writing that as if SOPA was one side of an argument where good people could reasonably be on either one side or the other, and HN and Google just happens to be on the same. But it's not, SOPA has a right and a wrong side. We're on the right side..."

parody: "My opinion is right because I say it is."

mseebach: "Google is on the right side and good people are either uninformed or on the right side."

parody: "Anyone who doesn't hold the same opinion is either bad, or needs educating."

mseebach: "It's not unreasonable to wish for Google to employ some of their considerable clout in evangelising the right side."

I was wrong. This part has value. The "right side" part of it is overreaching though. In my opinion.

Also, I didn't call him stupid, I called the downvoters stupid. I meant it in the way people usually do: I don't like it. The people who can downvote are supposed to be the pillars of our community. Yet they seem more interested in policing opinions than quality. More interested in SOPA than HN. Then they turn around and complain that it's all going to shit. Come on... lets promote the strongest arguments and promptly refute the lousy ones.

I don't know why you're getting downvoted. People get stupid when they're this opposed to something. His argument had absolutely no value and your characterization of it was spot on.

You're refuting a point he didn't make. He never wished anything away. He wished that a different means to an end was more common.

Then those organizations (riaa/mpaa) will have to be useful or die.

I remember going back and forth with you about that escher illusion a guy built in his garage. Just an example of what I'm talking about and why I think it's cool. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2233584

"1. Avoid long back and forth threads. Say what you have to say and get back to work."

If everyone followed all those rules I think this one would be detrimental. Seeing you smarter-than-me people go back and forth about stuff I'm right on the verge of understanding is pretty cool.

On reflection I think I may have been trolling. Personally, I prefer lower case with dashes interposing distinct words. I've rarely gotten to use that in practice but haven't cared much. I didn't realize people got so upset about things like letter case. It seems like that would hinder creativity or at the very least waste time.

> Don't bother bringing up IDEs as a way to cut back on mistakes, or to help creativity. Real programmers don't need them. I still program in PL/I under OS/360 on Hercules, and that compiler hasn't been updated since about 1972. Ah, simpler times: when your keyboard weighed more than one of today's laptops, when real engineers built both the hardware and the software, and when CamelCase was merely a waking dream.

Whoa ouch. I don't measure up to that at all. I'd love to be skilled enough to design/build my own hardware. I just don't think it'd help me build websites or do much else. I don't use an IDE though so hopefully that is making me more productive in some way.

I guess that was a stupid question. Here comes the thought_alarm... ;)

Honest question. Is case (in)?sensitivity something people actually care about?

Right but if I have to make up a different one for every site then I'm still stuck using the super-secret text file.