pius

Don't worry, it will. ;)

The feeling is mutual. I don't agree, however, that Palin's been smeared worse than, say, Barack Obama. From using the dog-whistle politics of racial and religious innuendo to smearing Obama by lying about the nature of his anti-predator legislation in Illinois to connecting him to terror attacks that happened in the 60's, the same good ol' boys club that smeared McCain in 2000 is running his campaign now, using every dirty trick in the book, and acting shocked, shocked that people have the audacity to scrutinize Sarah Palin's record.

The fact is, they're using the sort of up-is-down doublespeak I haven't seen in a First World country outside of 1984. The GOP represents change, but they've been running the country for 8 years. The governor who requested and received more earmarks per capita than any other governor is now an anti-pork reformer. The Obama tax plan will hurt middle class pocketbooks, but his plan cuts taxes more than McCain's does.

This isn't to say that Obama's campaign is perfect, not by a long shot. But even if you prefer McCain's policy positions to Obama's, I don't see how you can deny McCain's running a dirtier campaign. It's not just lying; it's divisive, petty politics. If you disagree with their agenda, you're anti-American. If you criticize Sarah Palin's record, you're a sexist. Never mind that she is on record criticizing Hillary Clinton's accusations of sexism as whining. It's the highest -- or, better, lowest -- form of political cynicism.

The fact is, Sarah Palin deserves scrutiny, just like any other relative unknown selected to be on the presidential ticket of a major national political party. I mean, before a few months ago she didn't know what the VP even did. That's not a smear, that's directly from this interview with her: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4gkPXSDtGQ Watch it, it's scary.

Sure, you can argue that the average American doesn't know what the VP does. Sure, just like Sarah Palin, the average American hasn't been out of the country much. The problem is, I don't want the average American to be the VP. I want someone who's solidly grounded in the issues that the president will deal with, someone who can be trusted to represent the best of our country, not the mediocre. If she's a serious candidate, her ticket ought to let her get vetted like one.

That's all I'm going to say in the thread. I'm trying not to fully engage in this discussion much because once I start, it'll be difficult to stop. It's off-topic for Hacker News anyway. :)

Please provide ... the name of a good civil defense attorney. Public accusations of the criminality of the unconvicted are legally actionable.

... is ill-informed, melodramatic, and weakens what's otherwise a strong post, albeit one whose sentiment I disagree with.

Sarah Palin's a public figure and, unless the person you're responding to is an officer of the court or a news agency of some kind, I don't think he's going to need a "civil defense" attorney for stating his opinion.

Elegance begets elegance. For me, it's a lot easier to write good code when my surroundings are to my liking. It's the same reason why I set the desktop as I like it, wear comfortable headphones, and keep my system well organized and "clean."

Given that I typically spend at least 10 hours a day on my computer and use it to make my living, I consider it worth a few extra hundred dollars amortized over the life of the machine to make my life that much more pleasant.

I've never understood why some people are so puzzled or, worse, offended by that idea.

Agreed, but the article does take pains to cover this very thing. They mentioned that there were something like 11 other photos snapped of the man as he fell and, by sheer chance, the photographer caught this angle in one of the frames. In the other frames, the guy didn't look majestic . . . he looked like a guy falling 100 stories.

http://www.media.mit.edu/wearables/

http://gettingreal.37signals.com/ch02_Build_Less.php

:P

>2. Try out some TDD - Test Drive Development (TDD) makes for better code.

No. Define your target. Code to it. Deploy. Then test.

You're both right. One of the points of tools like RSpec is to make the "define your target" step and the "test" step so close as to be indistinguishable, thus killing two birds with one and a quarter stones.

>5. Investigate Continuous Integration - ...makes automating your tests to run at checkin next to trivial.

Making checkin trivial is not a goal while coding. Getting something done IS. Anything that is not coding is not helping you make progress while coding.

It seems like you're just disagreeing to disagree on this one. All the guy is saying is to consider having your tests run on a remote server every time you check in so that you don't break the build. This is hardly radical advice.

>6. Know your code - It is one thing to write your code, but it is another greater thing to know your code. Four automated tools...

"Know your code" & "automated tools" are mutually exclusive. See my response to #7 below.

>7. Automate your deployments - Automation is your best friend.

Wrong. This is EXACTLY to opposite of #6, "Know Your Code". Automation takes you out of the very trenches you have to be in to get to know your code in the first place. The dirtier I get, the better I know my code.

How does automating deployment drudgery like checking out code and SSHing into the production box stop you from knowing your code? As a matter of fact, formalizing this process in a central location probably means you'll know your process better than the development lead who has an intern run deployment off a 12 step list scrawled on a Post-It note stuck to a monitor somewhere.

More importantly, if you're using deployment as a learning exercise, you're doing it wrong.

That's an incredibly weak response. Someone asks you about the privacy you provide and you say it's illegal for other people to misuse the information. That's like me asking a company what they're going to do with and how they're going to protect my social security number and the company rep pausing and saying "Um, yeah . . . don't worry, identity fraud is illegal." Not the most confidence inspiring thing I've ever heard.

I spent several years in the privacy sector and take it from me that protecting this kind of information is hard enough when the organization actually has a commitment to meeting industry standard privacy best practices and laws, let alone at a company that apparently ignores them. (Please correct me if your company actually does comply with HIPAA or any other federal privacy laws -- I'm just going by you responding to a question about your privacy compliance by rattling off a reference to some newly-passed law that is non-binding on your company.)

Relying on GINA here is completely irresponsible. If you're serious about handling sensitive health information, you ought to comply with HIPAA and have that compliance routinely audited. Period.

Otherwise no one should trust your company or, in my opinion, take it seriously at all.

I think you'd be surprised.

Well, I love it. Sure, the "rock star" thing is a little edgy and not to everyone's taste, but with the comments here, you'd think the design were truly bad. It's not.

It's worthwhile to distinguish between designs that are not to your aesthetic and designs that are poorly executed.