joshlegs

Really, this is an age-old problem. Journalists have had to deal with this for years. The general consensus was that if it's true, tough crap. The difference between journalism and google is that anybody can google someone. Journalists generally had to spend a lot of time digging up someone's past. The "problem" is just how efficient Google (and other web crawlers) have been at aggregating data. And I'm kind of on the fence about that

You know, you could have just gone the extra step and simplified to 2/3. Then you'd have had a lock on that age-old aphorism

Move over Lockheed and Boeing. There's a new guy in town.

>I originally wrote "friend-finder". We're not that either.

So then, HN as date-finder is probably also out huh?

> As soon as you bring on other people to help, it's hard to call it "stupid"

only if they have egos you have to worry about offending. egos can be a really horrid thing.

was totally expecting an awesome video. maybe someone can edit the title to reflect the problems with it?

in any case, it's still a cool video

holy crap this is awesome. i remember when i was a reporter and i had writers block, i'd go walking around the block a bit. I'd always come back with an idea of where I wanted to take the story next. It's nice to see my 'home remedy' validated.

Well, you really have a pretty good grasp on the state of journalism affairs. In the five years I spent reporting, I saw newsrooms decline substantially at all the papers I worked at (and was the victim of one layoff).

You're absolutely right in saying that there is just too much demand on journalists now. People really don't know what they actually do. Everything from aggregating (by HAND, nonetheless) public information that isn't available easily online to investigative reporting to daily "fill-the-paper" stories (you know, the stupid stuff that nobody really cares to read anyway). Most of my time was spent writing the boring shit until the exciting stuff came along. And frankly, you can't spend all your time writing the exciting stuff because you still have to have a local product, not to mention the massive amount of time it takes just to do a single investigative report. Investigative articles are really what I consider the heart of journalism as the fourth estate, and is what sells the papers. But you can't have five days of nothing and a day of explosive articles. Or hell, maybe you can, who knows.

In any case, just wanted to pipe in with some props on realizing that journalists are way too overburdened to be effective any more.

I dont understand why you're being downvoted for quoting from the chick's twitter where she accuses all men of one of the most heinous crimes one can commit. She doesnt sound like a champion of gender equality to me, based on this absurd tweet.

maybe it's satire. i'll try to give her the benefit of the doubt.

as a former journalist, I have to disagree that editing is unproductive time. Saying exactly what you mean to say is extremely valuable, well-invested time. "I would have written you a shorter letter, but I didn't have the time."

Concise emails really ease the workload by reducing inefficiencies.

I wonder what the next stage of this will be. Will programmeers of the future marvel that we even had to use keyboards at some point?

> The way it's presented in this post is none of those, and seems more to me to be an attempt to make me feel silly for spending my money on "things I won't remember"

I didn't get that at all out of it, and not sure why you did. I read it as "I get this question a lot, and I'm just ready to vent a little. So this is why I don't drink." Don't read into something that's not there! :) I feel like a lot of the people who don't like this article have read it as a criticism of their decision to drink, which it doesn't seem at all to be.

I just still dont know. my girlfriend likes to have a few drinks when we go out. I'll drink with her so she doesnt feel awkward being the only one drinking. but a few things just to rebut your points.

#3 -- i hate beer, so the only real way i'll drink is if it's a cocktail. these typically range from $8-$12. I hate paying that much for a drink, so even 1 is expensive.

#4 -- i totally start slurring after 2 drinks. this is highly subjective

#5 -- maybe i can grant you that, in that it's not about drinking in moderation.

#7 -- i'm 50/50 on this. Beer is notorious for putting pounds on a person. It also does kill your liver. However, there are definitely other benefits associated with, say, a glass of wine with dinner. So I could kind of go either way on this

#8 -- i feel bad even after 2 or 3 drinks. For me, it primarily manifests itself in an awful night of sleep. But again, this is something that's very subjective, and it's not like he's putting a blanket criticism on drinking because it makes everyone feel bad the day after.

#9 -- i probably am with you on that too. because it turns other people into monsters if they drink too much doesnt mean the author shouldnt drink. but i can also understand his reasoning in that he wants to stay away from it because he doesnt want to allow himself the opportunity to turn into a monster, based on his observational evidence of how it affects others.

so if you look at the points that way, most of them still turn out to be reflections on how alcohol affects him personally, with those 2.5 exceptions.

It's all where you place your value at. Is that so hard to get? I like pens (yeah they're expensive pens). And folks like me obviously find value in things other than alcohol. Nobody's trying to say that drinking is worthless: it's just worthless to US. If you get enjoyment out of it, more power to you. I'm not sure why there's so much controversy about not liking the act of drinking :S :S

This feels like a very "European" comment.

Really the only thing you could nitpick is in points 7 and 9, because that's where he makes generalizations about alcohol's effects on others. Near as I can tell, the rest of the list is primarily about how it affects him as an individual. As far as alcohol being a depressant, that's pretty well established by now. I'm just not sure what exactly screams "American" about this article to you. It seems you're generalizing a lot of things about Americans just as you claim he's generalizing a lot of things about alcohol. Just not really sure what point you're getting at.

I'm really with the author here. I don't drink much, and people usually ask me why when I'm out. I just don't find it all that enjoyable most of the time, to be honest.

also, there's this: >There is a longer list of things I'd rather spend $100 on

I just want to take a moment to suggest this as an alternative. http://www.amazon.com/Parker-Sonnet-Original-Matte-Fountain/...

but they're not bird-like at all :S

I died with hope!!

Also, I noticed that something compounded to solve if you had more of them, notably stress. When you only had 1, it was instantaneous to solve. If you had more than one, the percent counter took time

yep. no inverted pyramid here. it's straight up buried lead.

i kept skimming just to get to the moral of the story. it was good writing to be sure, but i feel like it could have given a little more tidbits to the reader

cool. your original comment just came off very insulting and not terribly insightful/valuable. glad you gave him some pointers elsewhere

really wishing i had downvote powers right about now. since i dont, let me just pipe in with a comment about how arrogant this comment is. good software developers arent born, they're trained. you really should be constructive in your criticism.

this is really cool. thanks for putting this up! design is hard :'(

news flash: 80% off work environments are hostile.

Followup: that statistic is 75% made-up.

yeah, it seems the movies veered off a good bit, based on the wikis i read ;)

interesting. I think that's the basic business model my boss has. it seems to be working now, but i'm always curious as to what other models are out there

Wow. I am overly happy that you guys have figured out a way to give commenting feedback. i had an account way back when shadowbanned for i never knew what reason. Still dont. I feel like if this system had have been implemented back then I would have had a better idea of what was wrong that I said.

Also, I'm pretty sure you've found the secrets to good Internet moderatorship. So many forums went offcourse from ban-happy moderators that didnt want to actually take the time to moderate the community, instead just banhammering people. Kudos to you guys

I know one of the main developers on Flask. He's an exceptional fellow and extremely talented. I havent used the framework before but I hear it's highly recommendable in general.

nightwatch was a terrific movie, btw.

just curious, but what kind of business model did you end up going with?

This is a ridiculously low number. I'd say you really need to double it or so. Good luck! Looks like you've got some pretty cool past projects under your belt.

re: toothbrushes. Mythbusters did a pretty convincing job debunking this.

as far as carpeting, sure it holds junk more than hardwood or tile, etc. But nobody's saying these folks should shag out their floors.

3-d printed outhouse. boom, problem solved