kendalk

Photoshop "killer"?

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Interesting article. Thank you for the link.

Julia is a young language, so I'm not surprised about the lack of libraries. I am wondering about the future... is it, as a language, capable of these things?

I understand that Julia is fast and designed for computation. Does it have other uses such as web, network building or games? If you aren't a scientist is there a reason to get excited about Julia?

Quark: "Let me tell you something about Hew-mons, Nephew. They’re a wonderful, friendly people, as long as their bellies are full and their holosuites are working. But take away their creature comforts, deprive them of food, sleep, sonic showers, put their lives in jeopardy over an extended period of time and those same friendly, intelligent, wonderful people... will become as nasty and as violent as the most bloodthirsty Klingon. You don’t believe me? Look at those faces. Look in their eyes." -- Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: The Siege of AR-558 (#7.8) (1998)

"Can you teach someone to be an entrepreneur?"

Can a government? No.

Can an impersonal bureaucracy? No.

Can a major corporation? No.

Can a committee? No.

Can you? Yes.

People can do wonderful things. Inspire others. Open eyes. Light fires. Imagine. Dream. Leave them alone and they can do great things.

In defense of the PHP devs here, I think calling PHP "server herpes" was sort of asking for it.

Apple has increased the number of MBAs since Jobs passed. See: http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2012/05/24/apple-tim-cook-ceo/

This may indicate a corporate shift from a visionary outlook to a managing perspective. Someone on the inside would have better insight, but as an outsider I have to wonder.

My guess is that Valve is being watched by every other game maker. I wonder what is being said behind closed doors in meetings with a lot of suits. If Valve is successful, I don't think they will be alone for long.

I dated a woman who was born blind. She could listen to JAWS speak text faster than I can read.

If you really want to know how your website "looks" to a blind person, ask one. Every state has an association for the blind. I am sure they would be happy to arrange a time to sit down with you. Expect some honest feedback.

I have read that having a company daycare makes attaining insurance difficult. You are bringing on a large liability by having children on the property, and insurance rates will reflect that. The concept sounds nice but there are significant financial risks.

Thank you for that link. Can't get one now, but I can dream! :)

Sleeping on the job is, too. :)

I know the feeling. My management is also so inefficient it is maddening. But you can console yourself with the thought that at least you're paid. It isn't under your control what the higher-ups do so don't sweat it.

Be the best in your group as much as possible. If worse comes to worse, at least they will keep you if there are layoffs down the road, or your resume will look better to someone else sometime down the road. You did the work they paid for so if they want to trash it... can't cure stupid.

Unfortunately for me, I work for myself. My management is my own addled brain! I was up all last night working. Two hours sleep today.

I don't believe my group will ever release a product. (sigh) :-)

Obligatory xkcd: "Lisp Cycles"

http://xkcd.com/297/

"These are your father's parentheses..."

Agreed. I know of a forum that has barely changed its design since 1997-1999. It loads fast and has many members. The focus is on content over appearance.

These javascript-heavy UIs feel heavy, almost syrupy, by comparison.

From Github: "The system programming language is Ink, a new Lisp dialect which combines the elegance of Scheme and powerfulness of Common Lisp."

And no link! It's like eating chocolate in front of a child and not giving him any. Me want.

Come to think of it, train track sensors would be a pretty good idea for a startup.

There could be an app that will message the phone if the user is in the area of an intersection where a train is approaching.

I don't know what safety measures are used, if any.

It can take a train moving at 50 mph up to a mile to stop after the engineer pulls the emergency brake. If someone can see the train coming it can't stop before it hits. The nightmare of every train engineer is seeing a car or a person on the tracks and knowing there is nothing he can do.

Thanks! I'll give the contrib modules and TODO types a look.

For a man to risk his life -- and to lose his life -- for another, perhaps even a stranger, is something else.

I once was caught in the path of an oncoming train. I was on a school bus when the driver attempted to cross the tracks before the train. The bus stalled mid-way. My seat on the bus was directly over the tracks.

The train came around a bend and all the kids panicked. Half went to the front door, jamming it, and the other half went to the back door, jamming it. I was trapped. All I could do was watch the train coming and pray.

The engine suddenly started back up and the bus started to move as the train was getting closer. The train missed us by a couple of feet.

I know what this man saw coming toward him. You don't ever want to see one of those things coming at you!

To control that fear as you're trying to help another... this man was a hero.

Emacs Org-mode.

I have a massive to-do list that is 8,917 lines long. It includes everything I need to do, remember, or think about. But it isn't unmanageable at all -- it is a .org file with code folding. The visible lines take up only two screens on my monitor.

Every project or business idea is in (parens) like Lisp. This keep my projects visibly separate from daily to-dos. I color-code the ()'ed projects by type by adding each one to my .emacs file like this:

(font-lock-add-keywords nil '(("(publish)" 0 font-lock-warning-face t)))

This lets me choose a color for each project. (I have yet to figure out how to assign custom faces. Still working on that.) My to-do list is a blaze of blue, green, pink, and red for the urgent items.

I format the top row of tasks like this:

* _1_ this is a task

* _2_ another task

* ___ yet another

* ___ lorem ipsum is boring to read

* ___ another task

* ......................

* (project)

* (business-alpha)

* (business-beta)

* (publish)

* (startups)

* (reading-list)

* (HN-reading-list)

* ......................

* ___ periods make a good visual divider for the list

* ___ another task

Projects are in (parens) and individual tasks have a ___ in front. Optionally I can rank the tasks with a 1, 2, 3 or 4 following the I-II-III-IV ranking model of Stephen Covey.

I highly recommend org-mode. I feel organized and on top of things even with so many things going on.

Edit: Edited to correct newlines.

Oh, they are enlightened! They know they can learn Lisp in Heaven. :)

As for Python...

I have been reading good things about Chicken Scheme, which compiles to C. I am debating between Go and Chicken for a SaaS startup. Go seems to be the future favorite language for server development, but I read pg's essay "Beating the Averages" and am attracted to Lisp. (And I love Emacs!) Does anyone with experience in these languages have any thoughts?

Interesting! Can I suggest some other kinds of videos to offer? You have Creative Commercial, Tutorial, Music video, Crowd funding, Testimonial and Micro Ads. You could also have:

* Retail commercial -- for larger retailers

* Local Shop -- for local brick & mortar shops

* Product ad -- product ad by a manufacturer

* B2B -- videos aimed at corporate and business buyers

* Investors -- a video aimed at wooing investors

Excellent idea! I hope you see a lot of success.

I can really use this... thank you!

From the github: "kokoi watches for changes on the markup files (Markdown, Textile, reStructuredText...) in the directory kokoi is started, and if they change, automatically reprocesses and previews them directly in the browser. You will work on your files without having to leave your favorite text editor!"

Take a feature request? Could you add Emacs Org-mode as a format? Org-mode is a markup format similar to Markdown. Emacs, with org-mode, is a powerful authoring tool and outliner. It is a popular markup format with Emacs users.

Pandoc is able to output .org files but I am not certain if it can read org-mode as an input.

> I definitely want to keep it as local as possible and even have a few community members signed up.

You might gain some local sponsors by offering to put their company logo on your website. See the bottom of the page of http://clojure-conj.org for the Clojure Conj conference. There are "Platinum," "Gold," and "Supporting" sponsors listed.

Put a Sponsors page on your website and make it easy for businesses to sign up. You could even have a donate button.

In addition to having a prize for a CS major and a non-CS major, you could have one that is specifically for a new beginner to programming. Some students have been hacking since they were in junior high but have a different major. I started with a Commodore VIC-20 and BASIC but I wasn't a CS major in college.

I have been wanting to set up a similar program at another university. With 300+ students you have something good going. Your idea of organizing trips to hackathons is marvelous.

What language are you hoping to get them started on? Python? Scheme? I have been wanting to start with Scheme... but that is because I read PG's essay and got bitten by the bug.

Keeping the lecture time down to 45 minutes sounds wise. Students are already swamped with class hours so keeping the weekend time burden down is probably the right move.

Perhaps you could set up teams that could compete with each other through a series of programming challenges? You could find a local business who would sponsor a prize, or a restaurant that would offer a dinner for the winning team.

Be sure to post updates on your group's website. Other people, like myself, are wanting to do the same thing at other schools and would be encouraged to hear about your progress. Your website could also link to the students' work on Github once they are ready to step into their first real projects.

Your program sounds exciting! Keep us up to date.