It's only illegal for him to say such a thing if he also has a few machine guns and other preparations ready to go. Such statements, even with the appended "jk lol," deserve question. But I don't see how authorities managed to do anything more than question or search him.
Haha, yes. Their "We don't mind if you exercise your rights this time" attitude is unnerving.
Actually, it's pretty funny. What's the other option (besides not even acknowledging the demonstrations, which is the most sensical, I think)? Saying, "We strongly object to protests"? I would love to see them say something like that. It's almost like they think we care what they think of us, or maybe they are so delusional that they think they have the authority to call off a protest.
Or maybe they're getting at "We don't mind if you protest; while you do that, we'll carry on as usual. Your efforts are futile." That's not so funny.
When I read the title, I thought, "Hey, that sounds just like me." But after reading it, I realized that his use of "perfectionism" as an excuse is just incomplete. Perfectionism can explain underperformance, certainly. A perfectionist might write half of a timed essay, and the part that exists might be outstanding. But incomplete or slow is generally insufficient when it comes to a job. While he may suffer from a bit of perfectionism, that's not what holds him back; he's simply indecisive and using "Oh, I'm rewriting everything" as an excuse for his incompetence, uncertainty, or anxiety for solving the actual problems. "Rails vs. Node.js" is a contrived, invented problem. It's really easy to blame things on the language or framework when things are tough, but I think everyone does this to some extent; it's not a problem faced exclusively by perfectionists. Wise perfectionists understand that perfection is impossible. I think the best programmers, overall, are both pragmatic and perfectionistic. People just have to get over their overwhelming preference for one or the other and use both to their advantage.
Can an unbiased person explain to me how this revelation is a threat to national security? Are terrorists going to stop saying, "Ok we blow up white house tonight!" over Skype or something? Are people just afraid of the bad publicity that goes along with spying on citizens and other nations? If that's the case, it's really sad: It's like a mother yelling at her children for speaking up about her once-secret abusive nature. I fail to see the danger or wrongdoing in this.
My grandfather died of ALS a few years ago in his late 70s. It's sad and ironic, but he was a runner until the last three or four months of his life, when the disease rapidly crippled him and took his life. He was the sort of guy you would expect to live well into his 90s: He ate a perfect diet and exercised like he was 35. At the time, my grandmother was battling bone cancer, and we were quite concerned that my grandfather would be depressed living for multiple decades without his wife. Unfortunately and surprisingly, he died almost two years before my grandmother.
It's a brilliant design (far beyond its aesthetic novelty), and quite frankly I could care less that they lock things up or spy on me. Make sure to copy and paste your little comment on every Windows PC/phone/tablet announcement as well. Last I checked, it's easier to install Linux on a Mac than a new PC. Oh, you didn't know? Apple isn't the only "diabolical" company. Don't forget about Google, Microsoft, Facebook, the government, etc.
Actually, you know, you're right. We need to boycott these evil organizations. Who needs technology when the companies who make it are greedy? Who needs a government when it does stupid things every once in a while?
Am I an overly-cautious nubcake, or do any of you also refrain from clicking the link when it says, "We've been compromised. Come visit our site!"?
If I were a mean dude who hacked into some prominent site, the first thing I would do is submit a link to HN that points to a malicious "article" and laugh as malware gets thrust into thousands of computers.
Does anyone know how they do this, technically, and to what extent? Does Google just feed them billions of emails, or what? Do they type my name into a form on Amazon.com to get SSH access my EC2 server? And how the hell do they see my finances? Do all of those terms of service agreements say, "By the way, we give your private information to the government without question" ???
At first I thought it didn't matter that they can see what I do, because if I store a movie of my underground lair with nukes and a few F-22s in Google Drive, they can't use the evidence against me in court unless they get a warrant. But let's be real: if you've got a movie of yourself shooting some guy in the face in Google Drive, they're going to find a way to get that warrant before you delete the movie. And they'll have a copy of it to show the judge. You don't even know they've seen your not-so-secret stuff. The fact that they do this in a clandestine manner effectively makes it unconstitutional since the warrant protection is easy for them to circumvent.
Basically, the majority of people cannot appreciate art. Abstract ideas and brilliant commentary are simply not valued by the majority as much as a working system, even if it's as obvious a concept as Facebook. When you hire someone to write something, it's almost impossible to predict the audience's reception to it. When you make a website, a logical machine, you at least know you have something less abstract. A website is more tangible than a piece of prose. Words indeed have no value in themselves.
You would expect the people who make the software that facilitates web publishing to be paid more on average, no? Developers get paid more because they make the stuff that people want -- stuff that does something or solves a problem. It's that simple.
You ruined this masterpiece with the Taylor Swift reference. Actually, just kidding. You couldn't ruin this if you devoted a paragraph to explain, out of the blue, that Taylor Swift is a superior musician to Thom Yorke. And if you did, I would probably buy it. I don't praise prose often; but when I do,
Sorry, didn't mean to come across like that. I'm an introvert myself. I just respect people who are comfortable with themselves more than I respect those who hold envious contempt for others and make excuses like "I'm just above everyone else. That's why I don't hang out with them." Really, that was something of a self-critique: I am certain that some people I know once thought I was that guy who thinks he's just too good for everyone else, so I can relate either way.
Your second paragraph is freaking me out a bit. I don't want to believe it, but it makes sense, and history seems to support it. My theory, though, is that the smart, courageous, creative, curious, passionate people with a strong "EQ" aren't as subject to mental illness. It's one thing to be a recluse who scorns "normal, social people" and stays in his cave doing pretentious, so-so, slightly-creative intellectual work just to spite others, perpetually repeating to himself, "I am smarter than those people," and it's another thing to be a genuine, smart, creative, curious, passionate dude who can actually deal with being isolated from others when he needs to be, and who has the social skills and empathy to socialize when he wants to. I think it also matters whether you're a natural introvert or extrovert, because I theorize that introverts can better cope with the inherent solitude in a creative process. But to be relatively safe from mental illness, you've got to be one of those introverts who could, with some effort, fake it as an extrovert -- one with exceptionally acute social awareness. You need some serious emotional capacity and social understanding to distance yourself from depression if you're a bright, passionate, creative powerhouse, unless you're on the other side of the fence: a natural extrovert who possesses these qualities. In that case, you just have to fight the urge to socialize in order to get your creative work done (or perhaps you are creative while socializing).
I'm impressed that the student thought it through, but people are giving the grader too much of a hard time. If the question was instead, "If a machine can produce 2 cars in 10 minutes, how long does it take to produce 3 cars?" the teacher would be correct. If you've ever taken a standardized math test, it's easy to assume that the question is just a variation of that classic question. If I were a third-grader, I would have probably answered "???". So kudos to this kid.
That's awesome. In most MMOs, you would be permanently banned for doing something like that. And EVE actually encourages it. In the world of MMOs, that's great publicity - it really sets them apart, I think
Awesome article. But I disagree with "Don't try to be great." Yeah, it takes luck, and yeah, there's nothing wrong with being "solid." But with that mindset, you won't be great, even if you're lucky. Do you think Bill Gates spent his 10,000 hours programming by accident? Was there nothing better to do? No. He was probably obsessively passionate about it, and he took advantage of his opportunity to become great. And do you think Apple made such a name for itself by coasting along, doing what everyone else does? Few people and few companies become great by not trying.
I don't think I could handle a quarter century in prison. That's just insane. Had his sentence been closer to 30 years, he would have served his first term the year my dad graduated from college, and he would have been released the year I intend to graduate. Crazy. 25 years is longer than I tend to think. It's from, like, black-and-white Beatle-mania to the Apple Macintosh. Or, in this case, from the Macintosh to the iPhone.
I actually think it would be cool, at first, but I would be painfully quiet if I knew everyone used it. It's the kind of thing that would be neat to try for just a day. Once lots of people use it, there would be a nice little market for Retrospect-jamming hardware.