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darshanon _why the lucky stiff on The Setup

It's definitely the underscore: http://usesthis.com/ is accessible, as are all the other interviews, but http://_why.usesthis.com/ isn't.

And it doesn't seem to be the browser's fault:

  $ ping richard.stallman.usesthis.com
  PING richard.stallman.usesthis.com (74.207.245.100) 56(84) bytes of data.
  64 bytes from waferbaby.com (74.207.245.100): icmp_seq=1 ttl=51 time=63.6 ms

  $ ping _why.usesthis.com
  ping: unknown host _why.usesthis.com

So I can't resolve the domain name for some reason. This happens on both my home Gentoo box and my Slicehost Gentoo server.

darshanon HTML is object code

Yes, of course. But it was clearly meant as an analogy.

The elements of good coding style that apply when writing a program in C don't necessarily apply to a compiler when it compiles a higher level language down to C.

Similarly, the best practices for writing HTML by hand don't necessarily apply to a program that generates HTML from a higher level abstraction.

darshanon My Thoughts on NoSQL

I'm surprised not to see MongoDB mentioned; it's the document-oriented database I find most intriguing:

http://www.mongodb.org

I don't know enough about its alternatives to offer meaningful comparisons, but things I really like about MongoDB in the brief time I've played with it:

- It's trivial to get started with.

- Everything just makes sense.

- No schemata to deal with.

- Excellent Ruby support right out of the box.

For the very simple use cases I tend to deal with, I've always defaulted to throwing my data into MySQL or SQLite, and I think MongoDB will replace them for me.

darshanon Ask HN: most common hosts of URL submissions?

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=680104

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=679937

darshanon Ask HN: Updated recommendation on Rails versus Django?

That's why you play around with new technologies in your free time. Then, when it's time to build your next big project, it's not "I have three years experience with X and none with Y; which should I use?" but rather "I have three years experience with X, but I've been playing with Y for the past year and I think it's a better fit."

darshanon Poll: Do you smoke marijuana?

The few times I tried it, I felt really awesome for about 10 minutes, then suffered terrible anxiety and insomnia for at least a week. I've spoken to several other people who've had a similar experience with it.

Those are pretty negative effects, in my opinion, but maybe you mean permanent, physical damage, or something like that?

darshanon Android on x86

Since this is for those who "want to give Google Android a try, but don't feel like buying a T-Mobile G1," and not meant to be actually useful as an OS, I don't understand what this has to offer over the SDK. (The SDK runs Android in a virtualized environment on Windows, OS X, and Linux.)

I read the project summary and skimmed the "readmefirst.txt" and I still don't get it. Is it faster? Easier to install?

darshanon Start Implementing HTML5 Today

This just links to the root of the blog for some reason. The article is here:

http://html5doctor.com/how-to-get-html5-working-in-ie-and-fi...

I'm not sure if it's possible to change the URL now, but if so, it would be a good idea. The article is the first item in the blog now, but that will of course change quickly.

darshanon Why are There 60 Minutes in an Hour?

You're right! I didn't look closely enough. You can indeed symbolize 72 with the method shown in the picture.

Now that I finally get what viggity was saying however, I think that what you can count to with two hands wasn't what was significant -- it was that a full, open hand was worth 60.

darshanon The evolutionary origin of depression

From the opening paragraph: [He] likens the relationship between mild and clinical depression to the one between normal and chronic pain. He sees both pain and low mood as warning mechanisms and thinks that, just as understanding chronic pain means first understanding normal pain, so understanding clinical depression means understanding mild depression.

In other words, yes, people with clinical depression find that it gets in the way of their daily life. His hypothesis is about why normal, healthy people suffer from low mood / mild depression from time-to-time, and what evolutionary advantage that might give us.

darshanon Why free software shouldn't depend on Mono or C#

According to the Wikipedia page on DotGNU [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DotGNU ], Mono doesn't just aim to by compliant with the Common Language Specification, but to maintain compatibility with .NET releases as they come out. DotGNU, on the other hand, is only concerned with implementing the standard. So, at least in theory, Mono could get into trouble where DotGNU wouldn't.

Still, this isn't making a lot of sense. My understanding is that Microsoft has been very helpful to the Mono project. But what really gets me is "it's a really good thing to have free implementations of C# but a really bad thing to use them..."

darshanon Why cheap airlines are so cheap

From the footer: Data based on information by ELFAA "Variations in Airport Charges", Jan Skeels - Secretary General, Aviation Industry Group - 2nd Annual Managing Airline Operating Costs Conference, Dublin 7 December 2005

Also see http://bib.irb.hr/datoteka/260325.ICTS_06_vidovic.pdf , which uses the same source (among others) and goes into greater detail than the image.

Also note that "Cheaper airports / landing fees" was calculated in the image to amount to 6% of the savings of LFAs. Only covering certain high traffic routes is a good point, and doesn't seem to be mentioned.

darshanon Why are There 60 Minutes in an Hour?

With 12 phalanges on each hand that can be marked by the thumb of the same hand, there are 12 possibilities on each hand, or 12 * 12 = 144 possible combinations of marked phalanges with two hands.

The article made it clear, both through the text and the picture, that only one hand used the phalanx counting method, while the other hand simply used digits as we do today. Thus, with 12 phalanges to choose from on one hand and 5 digits to choose from on the other, we have 12 * 5 = 60 combinations.

darshanon Erik Naggum, R.I.P.

That's what archive.org does for us.

http://web.archive.org/web/20080201134026/http://naggum.no/

darshanon [dead]

Oh, my. While I assume this is just meant to be a funny little quip, it's too offensive to just let slide.

First of all, you compare dating women to fishing, as if women where objects to be acquired. This might be forgivable if there were any merit to the statement, but there is not.

Women, as self-aware agents, are quite capable of giving very good advice about dating women, both from self-reflection (knowing what they do and do not like, etc.) and from talking with other women about dating. Not to mention that some women date other women.

I'm not trying to pick on you; I just found this statement to be in poor enough taste that I couldn't in good conscience fail to say something.

darshanon Lead Thinking - Incorporating a LLC

It certainly sounds like that's the case, based on this sentence from the article:

I recommend getting a firm to do it for you, especially if it’s your first time, or you’re outside the US.

darshanon Busting IE8’s Mythbusting

Complaint #1: its is a possessive; it's is a contraction for it is. (The author kept using its as if it meant it is.)

Complaint #2: The author kept using the form:

The Lie: <a summary of the author's opinion> The Truth: <an explanation of the author's opinion>

That's messed up. The "lie" should be what he thinks Microsoft got wrong.

Complaint #3: The whole thing is just his opinions. It would be nice to link to some actual benchmark results, for example, rather than just countering Microsoft's "IE8 is the fastest" with "No it's not!"

Not worth reading.

darshanon Apple’s WWDC-Closing ‘Fuck You’ to iPhone Developers

Yeah, lack of options is currently a problem — but not for much longer: there are around 20 new Android phones expected by the end of the year. < http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/05/28/google-expects-18-20-an... >

I'm guessing at least half will be available in the U.S. I'd also wager that, if not by the end of the year, then at least by next summer, all major carriers in the States will have multiple Android phones to choose from. So things are moving in the right direction; when you're ready for your next phone, I think you'll be very pleased with your options.

darshanon Apple’s WWDC-Closing ‘Fuck You’ to iPhone Developers

It would seem to me there's a huge opportunity here for someone else to come in and blow the doors off of them, in terms of developer friendliness, openness, support, price, etc... but in searching for a new phone I didn't see anyone clearly better.

Have you not heard of Android? Developer friendliness? Check. Openness? Check. Support? Check. Price? Check.

Google is spectacular in all of these regards. Android is open source, and Google is throwing serious weight into making things extremely easy for developers. It's not without its problems, but I give it an 'A' in every area you brought up.