maurycy

I agree. However, I find this approach very rare. The current trend it that every erudite should read Hemingway, Nabokov, Catch 22, and many other books. I think it is worth time for some people, but not for the whole society.

My approach, shortly speaking, was that I've found most of the stuff not challenging at all. So, I raised the bar, reading literature critique. Then, I realized it is pure bullshit, and jumped into sociology, then into philosophy, then into philosophy of mathematics and it turned out that pure textbooks are much more interesting after all.

Shortly, I agree it depends on the goal. Keep in mind, though, that people's goals vary a lot. And that's my point rephrased otherwise: if you are not interested in reading something, give up. Unfortunately, the current trend is to read books, and if you find nothing in them, the problem is in you. I try to fight with this symbolic violence, whenever possible.

@klipt, I don't want to create so many responses so I will give you the feedback here.

Yes, I read all the books you've mentioned, except Pratchett, which bores me to hell. I've found Goedel's proof itself more enjoyable to understand than the books about it. The commentaries, in this particular case, seemed mostly unnecessary. (I don't like this fetish of Goedel's work that extrapolates its misunderstanding to all other ares; eg, Putnam)

Unfortunately, no. I'm a programmer and sometimes a manager, not a designer. I don't know their pains too deeply. I merely keep seeing that the period between their "aha!" moment and the final implementation is definitely too long.

If I'd have to give any hints, I'd stick with what I wrote above, expanding it a bit.

Photoshop is a handy tool but it tends to attract people who are not web designers (there was a thread few days ago that you should hire a web designer for web design; a logo designer for logo etc.); also, it requires some experience with XHTML/CSS to get the fonts right, or realize that grid matters.

On the other hand, current CSS frameworks are rather painful to work with. I saw Blueprint hijacked million times, and the whole reloading concept is a big headache for non tech savvy folks. (unfortunately, the same applies to Compass)

Out of curiosity, are there any Wikipedia forks?

*BSD guys had a lot of similar arguments and they ended up with many flavors of BSD (OpenBSD, NetBSD, FreeBSD, DragonFlyBSD etc.)

Thank you. I appreciate your honesty.

I lke mnmalism.

I find it surprising, too.

In my experience, designers are slower than programmers. It depends on the product but usually it takes some time to tweak all Internet Explorer issues.

To hijack the thread a bit: designer's tools are horrible. Photoshop misleads you, and designs done from PSD are easy to be poorly implemented. On the other hand, CSS/XHTML slows your creativity down.

I find this is an enormous opportunity for profit.

You're the essence of the problem, messieur.

What's so pessimistic about it? Whatever floats your boat, pal. If books enrich you, keep reading. Do not force everyone else to do so, though. Might be that there are other sources of enlightenment. Nature, nice chicks, long discussions, Italian restaurants etc. It's pure symbolic violence what you do right now, pal.

Easy test, though.

Speak to a random literature folk, who graduated five years ago, or so. By average, he is completely clueless. You recognize he is smart, uses much complicated buzzwords than you've ever heard of, but chances are, you do not expect him to change the world, nor get laid.

It should be obvious what's my point. If you're smart, books might help you. If you're average, books won't change it significantly and sometimes might make things much more worse, clouding your mind or hiding your ignorance behind overly complicated concepts. Accidentally, most of the world is not that smart, and it's perfectly OK.

That's why I say that books are overrated, and we should ask yourself a question whether we really get so much from them as we think we do. Chances are that some people will keep reading but others would be more happy dancing, drawing or being next Sasha Grey or Stoya, without this guilt they don't read enough books.

By the way, I don't say that there is "nothing" in books. Nothing can be something, too. However, the knowledge about Humbert Humbert and a little girl he loved, is, for me, nothing significant.

Bla, bla, bla.

The most important question is, I think, why force yourself to read more books?

I grew up in a family where everyone reads a lot of books. No one forced me to read books but I spent most of my childhood reading something, being completely convinced that it is good for me.

I used to read everything. From silly to hardcore stuff, like philosophy, sociology and literature critique. From novels to strictly technical books about management.

I was able to fluently speak about postmodernism, and I was a complete imbecile.

It took me few years to realize that I actually learned nothing from books. My world expanded enormously just within few years because of few random discussions, people I met and admire, as well as Internet, and silly blogs.

If you say that books help you to focus, I'd recommend taking some hardcore courses of typography. Writing down the whole alphabet takes much more patience than reading almost any book.

I agree that you should read books, if you enjoy them. However, please stop treating books as something more special than watching a movie, taking a walk or other pleasures of life.

That's why I literally love capitalism.

The market does not give a heck about your little silly titles. You might be a God of the Universe, but if you cannot bring a profit, you're out.

From what I understand, it is buying a site, w/ potential, yet poor execution, and selling it for profit.

To be honest, I even don't know my remote passwords. They're completely random. I just use SSH keys.

1Password and encrypted text files serve well as a backup.

It depends on the perspective.

I tend to think a lot about a "huge startup soon" but not as a prize, but as a completely different set of challenges that needs to be kept in mind right now.

For instance, what I need to improve in order to become a CEO of a mid-sized company? What are my personality traits that limit company's growth?

Another example: the first employees you hire set the DNA of the company. If you hire them as an independent self-motivated agents, it is completely different story than passive helpers.

Also, it is important to reframe your venture into something bigger to avoid the trap of an eternal "side project", which you do not treat too seriously.

Chopin is the best French composer.

Depressing.

I'd be even more drastic.

I'm a huge fan of objectives, key results.

There's a decent description of this approach from Pincus himself:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/31/business/31corner.html?pag...

Next step: Ubuntu on microwave.

It's free. ;-)

I always find it insulting when someone assumes that developers are motivated only by technical challenges, and if there's no carrot and stick, they tend to focus on the most hardcore, yet unimportant, stuff.

Developers are not stupid. On the contrary, they are extremely smart and if they act stupid, usually it means that the management is poor. We don't live in 70s anymore. A developer does not imply unshaved MIT hacker.

My bet is that the source of this assumption is lack of business objectives' sharing. The engineering department is separated from clients and hardly anyone, except the project managers, know what are the client's problems, or goals of the project.

The another problem with the hour is that -- I don't know how about other people -- but I'm the most productive in the early morning, or very late night. My mind is completely focused on work then.

If there's a meeting, or whatever, it means that my output will be seriously hurt. That's another problem with such methodologies' descriptions: it is very tempting to response me that I don't fit to the team or I should try to change my habits, even if, in the right environment, I'm always the most productive team member.

I think that it all depends on the PM. If your PM understands that it is OK to do nothing sometimes, it is completely different story than PM who expects some work every day.

It nails down my problem with most of the methodologies: they all do depend on people involved, yet there is very little talk about the right attitudes.

(FYI, according to Harvard Business Review and similar publications, the direct management is one of the main reasons why people decide to leave)

(BTW, why you downvoted him?)

I'd say that there's no difference between the legal concept and the regular one.

I don't know how in the US, but in Europe it is illegal to write publicly "Joe Average, a murderer", if the person had no trial, yet. Regardless of the widely available proofs.

After the fact - once the jury decided you are innocent - it is extremely hard to get your good name back.

Were they lawbreakers if there was no trial? I'd say that you're innocent unless proven guilty.

Michael, thanks! Awesome work.

If I might suggest one improvement: I'd change @title with content_for. A class attribute needlessly messes View and Controller.

attr_accessible, messieur

The problem is that no one has any direct control over the system.

It is like any other big company. The call centre people are never responsible for the mess the company made to you. However, if you do not want to devote significant resources, you are pretty much screwed up and yell at the call centre people.

The difference is that, in the most cases, you can just forget about the corporation and live your life. There is no opt-out from the IRS, though.

The article says that if you're incorporated, and the only person hired, it changes nothing.

AFAIK, no Musk on board.

Fuc^W

My deepest condolences to their families.

I'm suspicious it is somehow related to the oil overlords. Big money, big risks.

It made me wonder what are else things we leak, using Twitter.

Makes me think whether using Twitter is worth it.