alaithea

This is similar to how one of my English TA's in college taught me to write essays. Perhaps this is standard advice, but to hear it so plainly put was new to me.

Paragraph 1: First sentence: Your thesis statement. Follow it with several sentences that back up different aspects of your thesis. Write a paragraph for each of those supporting sentences. The first and last sentence of each of those paragraphs should be the original sentence stated a bit differently. Last paragraph is a restatement of your first paragraph.

It sounds like a lot of repetition, but once I started following his advice, my writing quality improved vastly. It tends to impart a razor-like focus to the writing. Not to mention that the systematic quality of it almost makes it feel like the paper is writing itself.

There seem to be differing opinions on that. A bit of a Googling suggests that you wait until the cord has stopped pulsing, which might be as soon as a few minutes.

I'm not sure why the risk of infection would increase with the cord intact versus it being cut (where germs could potentially get in anyway). The baby's and mother's blood don't mix, so even if there were a "wound" on the placenta where it came unattached, that would be on the mother's side.

You don't clamp it. You wait (IIRC) 15-30 minutes before doing anything to it, to give it enough time to drain. The immediacy with which the cord is routinely clamped and cut rose quite a bit in the 80's and 90's. It only makes sense that you shouldn't tamper with nature so much as to cut off the cord from the baby immediately after birth, while there's still blood flowing through it.

I'm not really sure why doctors started doing that, but it reminds me of our society's pressure towards having everything natural seem perfect and sort of sterile, like when our grocery stores reject all but the most flawless produce. We wouldn't want our babies to be handed to us with all sorts of icky, biological stuff like still-intact umbilical cords attached.

I agree that it sounds like meditation. In a yoga class I attend, which combines an hour of light flow yoga with about a half-hour meditation (first about 20 minutes prone on the back, and then 10 minutes sitting cross-legged), I often enter a sort of immediate REM-like state. While the teacher was talking about clearing our minds, I was having wild, vivid, waking dreams. It's pretty fun to get into that state, and it definitely makes me feel good afterwards. The OP's "napping" sounds a lot like this.

> Why is a purposefully acquired taste superior to one that didn't require effort?

Some songs are instantly likable, often because they are simple and their hooks are easily grasped. I would compare them to children's songs. You know the tune and words, and may find it fun to sing along with once in a while, but as an adult, you're not going to get anything deep out of "Row Row Row Your Boat" over the long run. Enjoyment tends to decrease with time and exposure.

Other songs are not instantly likable, but as you get to know them, they reveal wonderful, joyous tidbits and layers, and your enjoyment grows with time and discovery. They are not so simple as to be grasped immediately; they must be learned and examined, just like any other advanced subject.

There is nothing wrong with popular, easy art, and it's not really a matter of acquired tastes being superior, just that acquired tastes can ultimately be far more rewarding to the individual, as they provide lasting, increasing reward in exchange for your effort and attention.

When I saw the husky puppy, the first thing I thought of was Philip Greenspun and his Samoyeds. http://philip.greenspun.com/

Funny coincidence that he mentioned him in the article, as one of his forerunners. Maybe it wasn't coincidence.

In my limited experience, in tech companies, they tend to work just above project managers and shape product development and direction, by interacting with clients and the industry at large. But this is still a rather vague idea of what they actually do all day. Isn't that like most developers' impressions of managerial jobs?

I wish they had gone into what genetic markers got assigned to which diet types, but that might be a bit too much for the BBC. A quick search of Google Scholar is not turning up a likely candidate for the paper.

Everyone in the study was on a diet, but they put some people on the "wrong" diet for their genome. They were the control. The 2-3 times more weight lost was comparing those two groups in the study, not comparing to people outside of the study.

That's actually a drug originally developed for glaucoma. The eyelash-growing part was a side-effect.

Stopped reading at gratuitous religious reference to "God-given" gifts.

Works now, thanks.

It looks really cool; if only I could get it working.

Anybody else having trouble with the Ubuntu PPA? I can sudo add-apt-repository ppa:dreampie-devel/ppa just fine, but when I do apt-get update, the dreampie stuff comes up 404.

Eddie Bauer makes a great wrinkle-free oxford. No ironing is a beautiful thing.

Whether a suit looks good for your height just depends on the proportions of the suit compared to your body. A short guy can wear a suit just as well as a tall guy (or vice versa), if he has the right length jacket. This is because the jacket divides the body into two visual sections, the primary effect of which is to either visually shorten or lengthen the legs. Shorter guys look stubby if their jacket is too long and cuts through their thighs.

Hint: many clothes come in [S]hort, [R]egular, and [T]all length variations. It's good to figure out which one you are and buy the appropriately proportioned one, or err on the side of too long and have a tailor crop it for you.

Upvoted for your mention of dressing to signal your respect for others. It seems many geeks rarely think of this. To many geeks I have known, their down-dressing is about their comfort and desire to buck mainstream culture. That's fine, but it would be nice if they realized that dressing nice at work or out with friends can also mean you think those around you were worth some effort. After all, you don't have to look at yourself all day, but everybody else does.

Here's an interview with the founder, which includes a screenshot of a message view.

http://www.emailserviceguide.com/2009/10/interview-with-jere...

Not just like with libraries. Library books are free.

As an avid library goer, I'm tempted by the Kindle, but I don't actually want one. I get 95% of my books from the library, so for people like me, a Kindle is just a way to spend money more easily and more often.

I'm not sure they have any. Their marketing and communication tend to be pretty minimalist. I happen to like it that way.

You can always get a free guest account to try it out. Or if you ask nicely enough, one of us who have accounts might be able to post a screenshot. ;)

I find it to work pretty well, as long as I keep it trained by moving stuff that gets past it into the Junk folder. You can fine-tune lots of its settings (change thresholds, etc.) in the control panel.

I pay a small amount yearly for an account at FastMail (http://www.fastmail.fm) They have a very solid IMAP service, and a robust (though not Gmail-fancy) web interface. In the five years or so that I have had an account with them, I think I could total up about a half hour of downtime that I can recall, so they are very stable. I recommend them highly. (I'm not affiliated with them, just a satisfied customer.)

I love how he describes the two types of geeks. I would argue that there is something in between the two, but it's eloquent nonetheless. "The second type is tech-inflected liberal arts types." This makes me laugh, because I probably have to count myself nearer this camp than the first type, "the guys who would invent computers if they didn’t already exist."

The one thing I didn't like so much about the article as it tries to dissuade the fears of developers surrounding networking events, but it doesn't really emphasize what the point of it in the first place is.

1. Make friends 2. ??? 3. Profit!!

I'm not worried about what happens at application, but what happens when it breaks down and comes loose from the surface. The former may be in a controlled environment, but the latter may not.

"Just" silicon dioxide? Ever heard of the irreversible lung disease, silicosis? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicosis

I think some of this problem could be averted by better communication skills on our part. If I notice someone repeating something to me, maybe it means they don't think I've gotten it, so the best response would be to say it back to them in my own words. I've found this technique to be marvelous when I can remember to use it. ;)

One of my pet peeves is when people repeat themselves too often. Maybe I am more computer than human.

We have an eeePC at our house. It is one of the seashell models and only 3-4 months old. About two weeks ago, the power supply blew. Once we got a replacement power supply and were able to turn the eeePC back on, the screen had a large, wave-shaped swath of dead pixels at the bottom edge, so bad that the taskbar needed to be moved to the top, in order for Windows to still be usable. I've never had a laptop fail so hard, so soon.

Depending on the OP's expectations and attitude, saying that it will take a lifetime could be a bit discouraging. Some say that seven years of dedication is all that is really needed to reach "mastery" in most subjects ("mastery" is of course subjective), and I tend to agree. Hardly a lifetime!

Seven years was roughly how long I took lessons on the piano, and later on the violin, and that, along with a knack for music, was enough to reach an advanced level and be able to play most of the standard classical repertoire.

Hooray for learning the violin! It is one of the most difficult instruments, but also one of the most rewarding.

How much of that $99 is the Windows CE or XP license? At those prices, including a non-free OS, it seems too good to be true.

Why do they preach open source, yet not got all the way and use an open source OS?

During my last job search (this past summer), I was contacted by several recruiters. I had phone interviews with several, and an in-person interview with one. I found them to be unhelpful and a waste of time at best, and demeaning and condescending at worst. They treated me like fodder, and were obsessed with keyword and "years of experience with X" matching.

In my entire programming career so far, I have always been hired by principals who valued my intelligence and problem-solving ability over my experience with particular languages or frameworks (e.g. I always get hired to do something I've never exactly done before -- though not intentionally).

I plan to never work with a recruiter again, since their approach is completely orthogonal to mine. I suppose the author's point about higher-level/management positions might be worth considering, so I might reconsider my position on recruiters if/when I cross that career bridge.