baak

>If I'm spending multiple hours a day every day using something

Yikes.

It's rational to demand an apology or explanation for a vote held six years ago that actually passed? Are you going to collect apologies from the other seven million voters as well?

Sorry, and I hate to be the one to say it, but his view isn't that far from mainstream. In fact, it would seem less than a decade ago, it was quite popular.

Just because your opinion is currently popular, doesn't mean the people who disagreed with you six years ago owe you an apology or they can't have a job.

That's a bit too broad. Someone holds a screwdriver incorrectly when screwing in a screw. The screw is slightly crooked because of the improper technique. Is the screwdriver fundamentally flawed because it allows the wielder to mess up? It's difficult for me to conceive something as portable, usable, cheap, and effective as the screwdriver, that does the same thing, and does not allow me to mess up. You have to make a sacrifice in some important category to get that. Programming languages can be pretty similar. Some are designed to make it harder to shoot yourself in the foot, but are far less popular (ADA is the example I'd use).

After a support session I usually end with "Let me know if you run into any issues."

I do frequently wonder if that's the best way to end the email... as what I want to suggest is "Email me back directly if something happens, but I don't think anything will."

Maybe: "Feel free to ping me directly if you run into any issues."

Badia adds it as well. I'm not just referring to here in the US though. I have a copy of Nitza Villapol's La Cocina Criolla, and almost every recipe calls for MSG.

Cubans consume a ton of MSG (sazón) and live notoriously long lives despite very poor living conditions.

Your last sentence is very troubling: You feel the negative effects when eating certain foods that you 'suspect' contain MSG. To me, that really sounds like you may psyche yourself out. ie. that you worry about MSG so much that it starts to cause you stress about it, and it's a self-fulfilling prophecy/placebo effect/whatever. Anyway, I can't tell you with 100% certainty that MSG is healthy or not, but I can tell you that there are cultures that consume it in large quantities that seem largely unaffected.

I realize you're probably playing devil's advocate, but there are more issues with the original statement anyway. He implied this was new. Rabies has always been a 100% mortality rate past a certain point in the infection. In addition, he implied that if you're infected, it's game over. It's definitely not. As you've said, there is a window in which you'll most likely be fine with treatment.

Crystal clear is a bit of an overstatement for the water in South Florida. Did you know Miami Beach closes for a day or two every year because the level of fecal matter in the water is too high? It's still kind of murky in South Florida, though The Keys are a bit better. You are a boat ride away from the Bahamas though, and there you'll find very clear water.

Definitely true on the Spanish. More than twice as many people speak Spanish at home than English. (though a lot of the Spanish speakers are bilingual, it's the dominant language in the county)

http://factfinder2.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/...

Big difference between Miami and the Keys is you probably have to evacuate every time there's a hurricane warning. Besides I always thought of the Overseas Highway through all of the Keys as a death trap. If the oncoming traffic swerves into your lane, you have no where to go but water. It used to be way worse before it was rebuilt too.

Suburban Miami wasn't bad at least... I certainly don't remember any gunshots growing up there. Now if you lived near Overtown, West Perrine, Goulds, etc. then yeah, you had to deal with gunshots. Same with every major city though.

The drivers are an interesting point. People in Miami drive way too aggressively. In Texas, I found the opposite in Austin. People here are passive to the point where it's dangerous. Someone will come to a full stop slamming on their breaks from about 40 MPH because they got scared of merging onto the highway fairly regularly.

It's funny that you mention the food being a vegetarian... the food is way more awesome with meat in Miami :) Cubans are known for their pork, beef, and seafood. The 3$ meals you can get at a Cuban dive in Miami put almost everything I've found in Austin to shame.

This is less a "women in tech" issue than it is a standard bullying issue. You think the "go back to the kitchen" comment is limited to just programming class?

So this mom never brings this up with the teacher, presumes if she does it won't help, and then writes a letter at the end of the year detailing all the problems? Mother of the year, right here.

Also, "VB? Seriously??" got funnier every time I read it too. Jokes never get old.

It's a pun... cooler heads prevailing doesn't mean peoples' heads are actually cooling down. The title was a play on words about the upset about global warming dying down.

I don't spend $261 in fuel every month. Actually, closer to $70.

A friend of mine makes a road trip every week for business. Do they also add the cost of the time you spend waiting for a charge at charging stations vs a quicker gas pump for road trips? A full charge is about an hour. Should the price be higher for him?

Look, I'm not saying it's still not a decent bargain when all is said and done, I'm just saying you can't roll it into your 'cost' and advertise that as the price you want me to pay. I am not paying that. I'm paying 190 bucks more a month based on my current fuel usage. My friend would be paying for it in an extra hour a week at least. These things count too.

I'm no expert on image manipulation. The only project I've ever done involving it was an ASCII Art converter. So it's possible I have no idea what I'm talking about...

That being said, I would be absolutely shocked if they weren't scanning photos of the event programmatically for items resembling a black bag, and then the people who were carrying them.

I used to hear this argument from WoW players a lot.

"It's skills you use in every business management, so it's just like work!"

Go ahead and list it on your resume if you believe it.

I don't know... Shooting hackers may actually be easier than getting people to pick and remember more complex passwords.

In all seriousness though, security is not that simple. Yeah, what you're suggesting would mitigate risk, but it wouldn't come remotely close to eliminating it. You can end/save lives through hacking, and if you're costing the opposition lives, you should be treated as anyone else would be.

If someone sneaks a bomb into your luggage and it goes off at the airport, didn't they just hijack your body to commit a crime?

Inconclusive either way is different from 'shown drinking isn't a problem'. So technically, he's right, even if a little too aggressive about it.

I haven't been doing this for very long, but so far I've found every client who wants software built either:

a) Doesn't know exactly what they want. b) Doesn't know what data is available exactly, or what it means/corresponds to.

With those two considerations in mind, I find anything Waterfall to be exceedingly difficult because I can't possibly come up with perfect requirements up front. And yeah, I know it would be best to spend all the time in the world trying to figure everything out perfectly up front, but it's simply not possible. It's not just my time I'm eating up, it's my client's time as well.

It's better to get as good as I can get without hitting diminishing returns on requirements gathering, then to present the client with incremental milestones, so they can play with it and give feedback, and I can adjust accordingly.

I also really don't like waterfall because at the end I have to say "Hey, here's the requirements you we agreed upon, here's the contract! You can't be mad." I think if at any point you ever have to bring out the contract, then you've massively failed in pleasing your client. Even if you're right, they're still unhappy.

>> "I feel like the six million dollar man. My physique has noticeably improved, my skin is clearer, my teeth whiter, my hair thicker and my dandruff gone. My resting heart rate is lower, I haven't felt the least bit sickly, rare for me this time of year. I've had a common skin condition called Keratosis Pilaris since birth. That was gone by day 9. I used to run less than a mile at the gym, now I can run 7. I have more energy than I know what to do with. On day 4 I caught myself balancing on the curb and jumping on and off the sidewalk when crossing the street like I used to do when I was a kid. People gave me strange looks but I just smiled back. Even my scars look better.

>> My mental performance is also higher. My inbox and to-do list quickly emptied. I 'get' new concepts in my reading faster than before and can read my textbooks twice as long without mental fatigue. I read a book on Number Theory in one sitting, a Differential Geometry book in a weekend, filling up a notebook in the process. Mathematical notation that used to look obtuse is now beautiful. My working memory is noticeably better. I can grasp larger software projects and longer and more complex scientific papers more effectively. My awareness is higher. I find music more enjoyable. I notice beauty and art around me that I never did before. The people around me seem sluggish. There are fewer 'ums' and pauses in my spoken sentences. My reflexes are improved. I walk faster, feel lighter on my feet, spend less time analyzing and performing basic tasks and rely on my phone less for navigation. I sleep better, wake up more refreshed and alert and never feel drowsy during the day. I still drink coffee occasionally, but I no longer need it, which is nice."

Yeah, I'm the one exaggerating.

>> "Consuming only Soylent costs me about $50/month, another order of magnitude improvement, and would be cheaper if I didn't need the energy for running every day. At scale the cost would be even lower.

>>Edit: this was a miscalculation from a mistake in my spreadsheet, at personal scale it actually costs me exactly $154.82/month."

...Again. I'm exaggerating.

His blog is overly sensationalized. It really does read like a sleazy ad. He even gave his experiment a product name 'Soylent'. Sure, I was being funny about it, but I wouldn't call what I said an extreme exaggeration of what I just read.

...didn't he have a Bachelor's in Physics? Either way, he didn't build/design the rocket himself. There was an enormous team.

Elon Musk designed the rocket? All by himself? Wow! What a renaissance man.

I figured he had physicists, engineers, mathematicians, biologists, chemists, and you name it. But I guess he just read a few books on his weekends and that was enough to design and launch the rocket.

This guy is a hobbyist who is claiming his diet has cured most of his ails. You aren't the least bit suspicious of that claim?

Did you read his blog? He's claiming it cured his skin disease, gave him mental superpowers, has him in the best shape of his life, it gives him more energy, it tastes great, and costs $150 a month.

Reads like a sleazy wonderpill ad.

Read the claims he's making on his blog and tell me they're not sensationalist. We're expected to believe he's become some sort of a super human because of a 900 calorie liquid synthetic diet that he invented with no formal training what-so-ever.

http://robrhinehart.com/?p=298

Under Results -> Qualitative.

And yes, reading is effective learning. I'll put it in perspective though: A biologist who dabbles in comp sci during his free time tells you he's invented a new sorting algorithm. This algorithm performs in O(1) in best, worst, and average case, shattering any proofs to the contrary. Here's the catch though: he's the only one using the sort. Every biologist who knows anything about computer scientist posts: I want to try this! But they can't because he is only using it for himself for now. Now... the biologists on their forums are looking at this and going, 'Wow! He's revolutionized Computer Science!'

Sounds legit, though.

Nobody is claiming steady McD's is healthy. There are actually people on the OP link and this thread who are posting that they want to try his system. That's what is scary.

This paragraph from his blog:

"I feel like the six million dollar man. My physique has noticeably improved, my skin is clearer, my teeth whiter, my hair thicker and my dandruff gone. My resting heart rate is lower, I haven't felt the least bit sickly, rare for me this time of year. I've had a common skin condition called Keratosis Pilaris since birth. That was gone by day 9. I used to run less than a mile at the gym, now I can run 7. I have more energy than I know what to do with. On day 4 I caught myself balancing on the curb and jumping on and off the sidewalk when crossing the street like I used to do when I was a kid. People gave me strange looks but I just smiled back. Even my scars look better."

Do you really trust this? Sensationalist at best. He's claiming that the diet helped him read a geometry book in one weekend and a string theory book in one sitting and a bunch of other mental heroics. How on Earth do people not see this as too good to be true?

>> " I read a textbook on physiological chemistry"

>> "I'd been reading a lot of books on biology"

Well award this man a degree already. Am I the only one who doesn't trust these kinds of qualifications? A software engineer who is a hobbyist bio-chemist is telling me about a system that "costs 150 a month, cures skin diseases in 9 days, will get you in the best shape of your life, and tastes great." (per his blog)

Really? I mean... really, really? If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. And in this case, it's probably very dangerous as well.

Are you suggesting it has to do with the technical implications of always-on DRM or the ethical considerations?

Pretty much this. Except you should also add that while he dedicated time to learning poisonous flowers that are encountered almost never, I spent that time getting in shape to move through the maze quicker, a skill/attribute used way more often.

There's something to be said about time investment. You're suggesting that tinkering takes time. If I want to keep current on all the math I learned in school, I'd have to invest a significant amount of time in addition to the time I already invest in keeping up-to-date with languages/frameworks/platforms/algorithms/datastructures/databases/etc.

How often would I use this level of math? I know I use the others on an almost daily basis. Coming up with something I need linear algebra for, though? Few and very far between. Maybe you use linear algebra often, but most of us don't have a need for it.

And if you disagree, then I think you should actually know abstract algebra, number theory, topology, etc., so that when the next problem comes along, you can 'quickly come up with an optimal solution'.