222 karma · joined September 9, 2011
I'm not quite a hacker, more of a programming nerd. Actually, I'm a technical writer who "translates" text from "programmer language" to "plain english", if you know what I mean. Hit me up at eslachance@gmail.com !
These batteries and controllers need to find another place. On the roof of the car, perhaps, unless you're an outdoor sports person and need racks for bikes or a kayak?
"Fake" meat tastes and looks like the real thing, but it has none of its downsides (look up "Forks over Knives" for some decent documentary on that. take with a grain of salt).
This has been getting better with time, but unfortunately a lot of fake vegetarian and vegan meats tend to be unhealthy. In order to get some decent taste and texture, some odd ingredients are often used. Vegan does not equal healthy in all cases. This one sounds pretty good, hope they find their way to Canada and branch out to different meats, too!
Previous Discussion: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4235443
You seem to have a lot of aggressiveness towards "geeks", and it seems that either you misunderstood the point of RPi, or you're purposefully ignoring it... From the point of view of an amateur programmer:
1. I think the fact that the website went down and the two distributors were completely overwhelmed initially is a good indicator of the popularity of the board, not indicative of amateurism. And in terms of looks, it's no uglier than any board in any electronics device out there. It's not like it has lamps!
2. Nostalgia, I believe, is a positive effect on the older generation which will realize they can use it to engage the younger generation (their kids, mainly). Also, while looking back on old hardware and software and being nostalgic of the days is not productive, doing so as a side effect of "oh my god, this is cool and reminds me of X so much, I loved that old thing!" brings value to things like the RPi. But in reality, the REAL goal of the Pi is to help learning in third-world countries. "buy-one-donate-one" will come later once they've worked out the kinks, and I'll be using this program on each purchase, because I care about this sort of thing.
3. You didn't put a number 3. Amateurism, you said? Oh wait, you fixed your formatting. Just goes to say, people can resolve minor issues when they happen! But to answer this point, "Tinkering" is exactly what we need. It's the approach that works for a lot of people. IMHO, places like KhanAcademy.com work because it's "tinkering" with subjects using exercises and videos.
4. There has to be a balance of "new" influx in both hardware and software. What would happen if the only PC you had was a 286 and no one was interested in making anything faster, better or smaller? You'd be no better than if everyone made hardware and there were no programmers. In reality, the more people use technology, the more we'll have of both hardware and software. You won't be running out of either anytime soon.
5. I believe what the foundation is expecting is that people will crowdsource the heck out of this. I'm expecting that by the time I get my hands on a Pi, there will be plenty of tutorials out there to get me started, and it's fine that they're all over the Internet. That's what Google and DuckDuckGo are for.
6. I'll re-echo my point 2, as I said the "older" generation will get the "younger" one interested... Plus, those teenagers who are in families that don't necessarily have the money for larger hardware will be very happy to have a cheap $35 computer to work with that can be plugged into the family TV at night. I grew up in a poor family, I would have been much better off if the Pi had been available back then.
7. "Looks crap not cool" is a matter of opinion (as well as bad grammar). This thing is meant to be put where you need it the most, not sit on a desk like a piece of art. I'm going to be gluing it to the back of an LCD monitor rescued from a dead iMac, along with a control board purchased on eBay, as a digital frame... And probably get another, hidden in my car's dash, projecting data as a HUD on my windshield. I don't care what it looks like, I just care that it's cheap and replaceable.
Sorry for the wall of text, but my two cents almost always turn into two dollars :P
No wait, scratch that, just looked up the word "commissioned"... So if they release it in 1914, they'll have hit the nail straight on. Good on them!
Because let's face it, a lot of people that stay away from Macintosh do so because of the price of the hardware...
Edit: Well that settles it for me, then. Thanks for the replies :)
As for trying it myself, I guess it's simply because whenever I get into such a situation, I lose my nerve, butterflies invade my stomach, and I can't think straight. Just calling Visa to try to report it gave me the same kind of jitters, I really hate it.
I will, however, report the information I have in my possession to my local police department. That way perhaps I'll lead them to something, if I'm lucky. Nervous or not, I can try to do my part.
The title is incorrect. He threatened to sue but didn't actually do it. Which I'm all for.
(/Edit)
I received, just yesterday, a call from a company claiming they could reduce my credit card interest rate to "up to 0%", but it was obviously a scam as he said he worked both for Visa and Mastercard, claiming it was "the same company and they both use the same Reduce Interest Rate department". I unfortunately lost my nerve a little and called him out, after which he became much more familiar, aggressive and even insulting. Don't have anything beyond a phone number and a name (which is probably fake). Wish I could find the nerve to do this myself.
Also, the page doesn't say when the courier arrived at the location, so while we know he accepted the delivery 50 minutes ago, I can't tell whether the food has been ordered 10, 20 or 45 minutes ago. (I do see "pick up in 0 minutes" though, but it doesn't mean anything at this point).
This seems like exactly the sort of thing George Spencer is talking about - doing courier right. Kudos to you guys, I hope you'll be able to expand internationally to your neighbors up north and across the pond once you've conquered the US.
I personally know a couple of heavy coffee drinkers, some of them should be retired but still work blue collar jobs (one is a roofer, another is a general contractor). I doubt they would agree with you on this one :)
Pick a project in an area that you don’t have much background knowledge or experience in or one that requires a different stack of technologies from what you are familiar with. Use a different kind of database (eg: try a project using a graph database like Neo4j) or a different library/framework or even better, use a completely different language. It will not only make you a better engineer, it might just help you understand and improve your core work in different and better ways.
I think this is a lesson that is critical when trying to get better at anything, programming or otherwise. While researching an alternative to the documentation authoring tool we were using at work, I stumbled upon their training videos, and I have to admit, there were a lot of eye openers on how we could change the way we use the current software. This happens simply because different people have different methodologies, so following tutorials for one language, software, tool, can lead to realizations that apply to all of them in varying degrees.
On top of this, I find it very irritating when reading a paginated news article that split to a new page right smack in the middle of a sentence. And it's happened more often than I'd care to remember.
Of course, that's still very far off!
But you're right, "That is the nerdiest thing I have ever heard in my life" would probably have been better. And yet, still not constructive in any way. At least this little altercation is constructive, at least for my attitude!
My sincerest apologies to whomever this offended, it was absolutely not my intention!
If all your IE visitors are seeing is a landing page and a message saying "sorry, we're too lazy to support for your browser", then of course they'll turn around and never come back. If they were to let IE users through, that number would most likely jump up - significantly.
I know a couple of hardcore IT guys and programmers that are really happy with IE9, and hate Firefox and Chrome with a passion. It happens!
Oh, and I didn't keep it, can't even remember why (probably because it was just another boring linux distro with nothing particular to offer)
And then, there's the Software & Games issues... but that's a story for another day.