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The Worlds concept, as far as I can tell, is actually more general than STM and what you described

Where in my comment did I describe Worlds in a limited way? I just gave one small example of one possible application of them, in reply to a comment specifically about their relationship to transactions.

calambracon Python Worlds

You're missing the point. Here's the basic transaction paradigm for remote resources:

    try:
        remote_resource.start_transaction()
        #dostuff
        remote_resource.commit()
    except e:
        remote_resource.rollback()

How do you do the same thing when modifying a local variable? You might try making a copy, modifying that, and then assigning back, but that's boilerplate, and it's easy to get wrong. Worlds are a more primitive mechanism that would be baked into a language, such that building a generic transaction api for local actions on top of worlds would be trivial. The fact that it could look exactly like the transaction api that you currently know and love for remote resources is a feature.

calambracon Python Worlds

Dumping the current state with deepcopy is probably prohibitively expensive for real world use. Toss in some copy-on-write, and I think you've got something simple and usable...

calambracon You're the Smartest Guy In The Room ... but please, try to restrain yourself.

Don't worry, my comment was intended to be fun. Apologies if that didn't come across.

calambracon You're the Smartest Guy In The Room ... but please, try to restrain yourself.

Standard British usage is punctuation inside only if part of the quotation itself

The period is a part of the quotation itself.

calambracon You're the Smartest Guy In The Room ... but please, try to restrain yourself.

Ignoring that it's not actually a sentence:

3. Use a pair of commas in the middle of a sentence to set off clauses, phrases, and words that are not essential to the meaning of the sentence. Use one comma before to indicate the beginning of the pause and one at the end to indicate the end of the pause.

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/607/02/

calambracon You're the Smartest Guy In The Room ... but please, try to restrain yourself.

While we're being pedantic assholes:

I was with him until he said, "I could care less."

Couldn't, dammit, COULD NOT. This irks me to no end.

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/577/01/

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=damnit

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/dammit

calambracon Stallman withdraws claim : No Evidence of Backdoor in Mac OS X

He would probably love nothing more than to get sued by Apple, honestly.

calambracon How Races and Religions Match in Online Dating

s/ice cream/samsara/g

calambracon Google wave starts rolling, picks up over 100,000 new riders

I have developer sandbox access, but I haven't seen anything about this rollout, nor have I gotten any invites to hand out. If/when I do, I'd be happy to share a few here.

calambracon If Craigslist cost $1

So you're saying your mind isn't blown? Hmm, might have to start shaving my head...

calambracon If Craigslist cost $1

as far as I know they already are for some categories.

The fact that CL is already doing the thing that Godin just descended from the sky to tell us CL should do is, to you, evidence that this isn't 'unbelievably weak'? Will you start reading my blog if I promise to fill it with gems like "What if Google started matching ads with searches?" or "What if Amazon started up an affiliate program?"

For the record, I think Spolsky can be pretty unbelievably lame, as well. People have been talking about how CL should monetize for years.

calambracon If Craigslist cost $1

Gosh, all that sounds amazing. Let me blow your minds, though: what if CL cost two dollars?

This is unbelievably weak. Godin's not exactly on a hot streak right now, is he?

calambracon [dead]

I guess my point in saying he's not a people person is to reiterate that folks should just kind of ignore him when he says something like this. Getting personally offended by a Richard Stallman comment is like getting personally offended by a young child wetting the bed. His role is 'tireless proponent of a powerful idea', not 'personable leader'.

calambracon [dead]

Have you met Richard Stallman? Not exactly a people person, anyways :)

To be clear, I have nothing but mad respect for Stallman, even though my personal beliefs differ from his. He can be extreme sometimes, but his firm adherence to his beliefs is important. Calling him a traitor is completely out of line.

calambracon Seth Godin Tries Out Brandjacking

After looking at the actual site, the worst thing about it turns out to be the logo. Seriously, the two squids holding tentacles is one of the most disturbing SFW images I've seen in a while.

Anyways, I don't see anything about this that's as horribly unethical as the picture the article is trying to paint. It's certainly not as bad as the Get Satisfaction fiasco, where GS was doing everything short of directly claiming to be an official support channel for companies that had no affiliation. This is just a lame aggregation with a lamer business model. I'm more disappointed in Seth for a lack of creativity, style, and value.

calambracon Microsofts dual screen tablet PC

Do MS have history of vaporous hardware announcements?

No, they have a history of promising breakthrough innovation and then woefully underdelivering.

calambracon Seven Puzzles You Think You Must Not Have Heard Correctly

You're right, I misread it as "The prisoners get the Warden to label the boxes randomly", with the same implicit assumption as anigbrowl, that the prisoners don't have enough information beforehand to assign an order to the boxes.

calambracon Seven Puzzles You Think You Must Not Have Heard Correctly

It was a funny reference to Federer blowing it against his final opponent at this year's US Open, despite dominating the whole tournament.

calambracon Seven Puzzles You Think You Must Not Have Heard Correctly

I'm all for thinking outside the box, but the whole point of a puzzle is to set up a set of constraints and work your way from there. The solution to #1 seems to contradict that spirit - without spoiling it, it's true the description didn't say they couldn't do what they need to do, but it also didn't say they couldn't riot, kill all the guards, and just escape to avoid playing the game altogether...

calambracon Mojito island is a mirage

That's not what they're saying, though, at least not since they started posting these essays after the Mint sale. They've been talking as though taking a giant payday is somehow morally wrong, that it's backing down and giving up some kind of good fight. That's a much stronger stance than "Don't wait for a rich man to come along and give you permission to chase your dreams, just chase them anyways." - it's actually editorializing on what the content of those dreams should be.

calambracon Mojito island is a mirage

I know what you're alluding to, I'm just saying it's an arbitrary distinction. There's absolutely no reason taking a giant payday from a single source is somehow inferior to taking money from thousands of customers in terms of your personal freedom.

calambracon Mojito island is a mirage

Unless you're the government and can just print as much as you want.

Yeah, ask Zimbabwe how that's working out.

you can chose to do interesting stuff that will make you money while you work for the man.

I don't think that's the point they're making at all. They're saying don't work for the man, and don't look for an opportunity to sell your work to the man for a giant payday - "do your own thing" and keep doing it.

calambracon Mojito island is a mirage

My big problem with this whole "FU" money concept, and your thought I quoted above, is that people seem to think they need to get this opportunity from someone else.

That makes no sense. Of course you need to get that opportunity from someone else: your customers, your family, your investors, or your buyer, whoever is handing you the money you need to meet your needs. At the end of the day, if someone else hasn't given it to you, you aren't getting it.

calambracon Google Wave: You need to pay attention to this

What about Wave do you feel is bloat?

calambracon Greetings

I instinctively disagree with the first point (and completely agree with the second, but regardless, I don't think a card with a number makes for an open invite), but then again, I don't cold call a lot of folks. The idea that someone would hand over control of their time to other random people just strikes me as strange.

calambracon Greetings

I completely agree that you shouldn't be handing out business cards with your phone number if you don't want calls, but regardless, I stand by the belief that phone calls should be reserved for people you actually know want to be called, and I don't think a business card with a phone number gives you that knowledge.

I don't think this is arrogance, it's just a social norm that I personally think is pretty well established at this point. An actual phone call has a level of formality/familiarity to it at this point, and I think it's just rude to presume you can unilaterally breach that. Everyone's time is valuable, and it's kind of a dick move to try to take that time from someone (regardless of who they are) just because you want to give your pitch to a stranger.

calambracon Greetings

Why would anyone answer the phone from a random number? You go to voicemail, then the person either ignores it or listens just long enough to get the name of the person they need to put on the shit list. Don't call, especially someone who has written a blog post specifically saying "don't call".

calambracon Writing Your Own Toy Compiler Using Flex, Bison and LLVM

WTF is wrong with you? That was one of the most informative comments I've ever seen on this site. There was a ton of useful information in there, way more than the short little guide in the OP (which I'm not knocking at all).

calambracon Brad, let's get together

Brad Fitzpatrick needs to prove he cares about the web?

To Dave Winer?

This is ridiculous.