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grassclipon What New York Can Learn from Barcelona’s ‘Superblocks’

I'm actually in Barcelona at the moment, and it's definitely been easy to walk around, but that could also be because the touristy areas near the ocean are very dense, and day to day living north or west of that hub might be different. Besides the giant blocks for walking (I'm not sure I've found a "superblock", but the blocks I've walked on are huge), there are an incredible amount of mopeds. That seems to be a default way of getting around town for locals. That's a big difference than bikers who have to worry about bikes getting stolen, mopeds are probably going to be safe where you leave them, and people here are able to leave them pretty much everywhere. Movement in the city seems very easy for sure.

Side note, anyone here work at or know about Pier 01 down near the water? I just walked by there and was wondering what kind of companies were located there.

grassclipon The Power of Names

Interesting about the north and south discrepancies where they say that property is more valuable on the north side of town. I was just thinking about this in terms of how cities are laid out. The two cities I know are Milwaukee and Chicago and it is pretty obvious that the north sides of each of them are way more affluant than the south. Any other examples of this or am I off base?

grassclipon New York Underground

Link about architecture here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Root#Root_architecture

Most interesting thing in my opinion is how roots serve the part of the tree that they're on. If left roots die, left side of tree may die too.

grassclipon Was Godaddy Caught Registering Domains Names After Availability Lookup?

Very appropriate in this situation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridges_Law_of_Headlines

grassclipon Use YUI instead of a whole mess of JavaSCript

Assuming you already know jQuery (since most everyone who works with js does), what benefit is there to learning YUI over the jQuery based frameworks? It seems like you would have to learn something new and complex anyway.

grassclipon Apple gives itself passing EPEAT grade for Retina MacBook Pro

What a joke. If EPEAT doesn't overturn this rating, all credibility should be out the window. It seems like Apple is trying to strong-arm them into changing the requirements so the laptop complies.

> Apple declined to comment specifically on how it believes the Retina MacBook Pro meets the EPEAT criteria, but referred us to SVP Mansfield's letter from Friday, which noted that the company in looking forward to "working with EPEAT as their rating system and the underlying IEEE 1680.1 standard evolve."

grassclipon Hacker Opens High Security Handcuffs With 3D-Printed And Laser-Cut Keys

Depending on the situation, I might be ok with fingerprint access (such as high secure areas and such). The problem is for normal everyday use, I wouldn't be able to tell where the data is going. Either the manufacturers themselves or governments or hackers could be storing the data about who enters which door and when which would be another attack on my personal privacy that I don't want to give up.

grassclipon Betaworks has acquired the core assets of Digg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digg#Digg_v4

I believe there were "sponsored" posts as well.

grassclipon The Most Common Mistakes People Make On Their Resumes For Tech Companies

I really like the last point about leaving out cool stuff because its not resume material. When learning about resumes in school, it seemed like the teachers would always try to have me recreate the "standard" resume basically from a template because it was the "right way to do it". In reality, a resume is just a way for the company to get to know you and your abilities/accomplishments and as long as the resume is clean and understandable, you should feel free to anything that could help your case.

grassclipon Census Bureau's American FactFinder software cost taxpayers $33.3 million

If your a government employee and something goes wrong you just claim that you didn't have enough money or resources to do the job. At least that's what everyone seems to do and they get away with it.

grassclipon Has insect detective Timothy Paine uncovered a case of biological sabotage?

This may now apply now though. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_Law_of_Headlines

grassclipon Lazy people innovate

Laziness definitely drives people to innovation, but being bored with what's currently being done is another indicator of an innovator. I would almost say even more so because laziness implies no wanting to do something.

grassclipon Apple's Minimum Viable Product

I feel like the 'get something out there' philosophy is so important. When you do, you can use the feedback to revise future plans and features you were planning on implementing, as well as having the ability to pivot with minimum wasted time. Also its not fun to build an elaborate architecture and to have it fail (violating the principle of failing early and often).

grassclipon What Darwin's Theory of Evolution Reveals About Artificial Intelligence

Very interesting. Neat look into how humans are just made up of layers that perform a certain task. The layers themselves don't know the overall structure or results of their actions, but their combination creates the human. The parallel between humans and computers in this regard has been widely noted, but I hadn't made the connection between the evolution of humans that led to a more complex and thinking organism and possibly using this method to foster artificial intelligence.

grassclipon Why do you think people are poor?

I feel that the desire for an education is intrinsic. If you want to learn, you will (as evidenced by the study gms was talking about). Simply having access to all those goodies won't lead to motivation. Unmotivated students in that cushy environment would just lead to them being happier and more content, not make them work harder.

grassclipon FunnyJunk lawyer to subpoena Twitter, Ars Technica

"It might not have seemed very dehumanizing when Walt Disney made Japanese people look silly with buck teeth and big glasses who could not pronounce their 'R's or their 'L's," he said. "But it was dehumanizing, and the purpose was to direct evil intentions against them, which ultimately resulted in the only nuclear holocaust that ever occurred in the history of humanity. I don't think Truman would have ever done that if we hadn't so dehumanized the enemy. When you dehumanize someone, that is the first step to inciting people."

Ha. He claims that Disney was the reason the U.S. dropped the nuclear bombs. Interesting analogy.