In small doses, you can get things done quickly like this. However, it builds up over time into a ball of spaghetti, so yeah, maybe after the 5th or 6th blob of inline SQL, you might think about using an abstraction while you still can. I've worked (and work) on old projects with hundreds of SQL queries spread throughout the code, it _is_ spaghetti code and there are better ways to do it.
I'm not a Wordpress fan, but for better or worse, there are Wordpress plugins that do many, many things. For certain sets of needs, you can just grap WP and several plugins, throw them together with a half decent theme and you're done. I don't advocate that, because I enjoy craftsmanship and elegant solutions, but some businesses can be built in weeks, not months, using WP at very low cost--maybe the cost of the theme--if you're smart enough to put the pieces together yourself (you are).
My first thought when I read the poll was, "What about everything between the US and South America?". I think the way these polls are written tells more about the person writing the poll than anything else. I can't imagine the usefulness of splitting the US into NYC/SF and everything else. Likewise with splitting the UK and the rest of Europe.
Agreed, the condescension is nauseating. It's extremely rude to tell someone who writes software as a day job and who is so enthusiastic about it that he is not a real programmer. Sure, he's closer to the beginning than the end of his journey as a programmer, but so what? He jumped in head-first, and just wanted to share that joy. I have to take a break from HN. Sometimes this community is a real downer.
Someone who calls themselves an Apple developer and who doesn't work for Apple needs to consider expanding their horizons. Mobile developer? That's a little better. Or just, developer. It's a great time to be a developer.
"At-will" means that either both the employer and employee can break it off at any time. It's the maximum freedom for everyone involved. No company is compelled to hire anyone, why should they be compelled to continue employing someone indefinitely?
I don't see keyboard navigation as being standard, and what seems to be standard isn't very good. Perhaps browsers should have an option to limit JavaScript's ability to override keystrokes used in navigation. I use Pentadactyl, a vi-like keyboard navigation plugin for Firefox, which doesn't seem to be plagued by this problem. I learned about it here on HN.
An article describing rest should link to rfc2616 which actually has quite a bit to say about using HTTP and REST (without ever using that term). http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2616
I have pet projects. I also have a life. I have a job that involves putting my knowledge/skill/passion to work to a degree. Even if my employer would allow me to write each project in whatever programming language I was obsessed with that week, I wouldn't, because I don't want to maintain all my whims. Personal projects can be thrown away easily or restarted. All that work can be done without _any_ business concerns. That's just not reasonable for a paying job.
I have a lot of passion for programming and I hack it quite well in a professional environment, thank you very much. My passion requires that I fiddle about with personal projects so I can test out new languages, frameworks, styles, libraries, paradigms, etc. without any business concerns in the least. If there is a place where I could get paid well to just hack on whatever the hell seems fun at the moment, I'd definitely make a concerted effort to work there--I don't think it exists.
Yes, it's a journalistic cliche. I would hazard to say that the average adult is also more likely to be playing video games or cruising Facebook than pursuing scientific research.
I've often entertained the idea of creating a piece of software to tend to certain things after my passing, beyond just sending out a batch of emails. It could reply to emails with canned responses for certain people, even a little AI to respond to questions. Sounds pretty narcissistic now that I think about it. Who really wants to be pestered with emails from dead people?
Flash has been rendering badly for me on Ubuntu 64 bit since Firefox 4. It's annoying enough that I just use Chrome. Firefox 5 has the same problem, unfortunately.
OK, _why is amazing, but the Poignant Guide is really not the best place to learn Ruby. It may be for some, but I have to be honest, it diverges so much into madness and a pointless, meandering storyline for so long that I couldn't bring myself to finish it. I've spoken to others with the same experience. Maybe the first few chapters are worth reading, if only to get references like "chunky bacon". I suggest the pick-axe book for some good Ruby learning.
Yes, patents infringe on people's rights, to foster innovation. Getting to patent something isn't a right, it's a privilege. As you've illustrated, all patents are inherently undesirable--at least for certain parties. And I agree. They should be abolished.
Markets for targeted SaaS solutions exists. Nobody is going to develop these for free and the businesses who need them are more than willing to pay (the value gained is much, much higher than the subscription fee). There are enough different businesses with the same need, that economically combined (through fees) they can support a team that develops the necessary software. These businesses are not going to collaborate with their competitors to develop the same software in a million years, but through SaaS providers, they basically do. Most of the people I know who work in software are basically involved in this at some level. It's not going away, and in many cases, it is really the only reasonable model.
I here a lot of talk about linode, but they are hardly the only competitor. I'm a very happy customer of ARP Networks http://www.arpnetworks.com/vps . They support FreeBSD and OpenBSD in addition to Linux and have competitive pricing. I run 4 low traffic sites (2 rails, 1 sinatra, 1 django) on a $10 VPS without issue (using nginx, thin and tornado).
"Specifically, he found that men who reported more than 23 hours a week of sedentary activity had a 64 percent greater risk of dying from heart disease than those who reported less than 11 hours a week of sedentary activity. And many of these men routinely exercised."
Well, is he controlling for those who exercise or not? If not, then what is the point?
A lot of broad conclusions are made in this article without citing specific sources of research or evidence. Mostly, it's just anecdotal evidence (fictionalized at that) and obscure references to plotting curves (I assume on a graph, though we don't get to see it).
Some folks are just healthier. It's a single data point. Who knows if it has anything to do with his diet? Staying fit and avoiding tobacco are proven to extend life. His specific dietary restrictions? Meh, who knows?
Maybe, maybe not. Either the jsnes site has been boldly ignoring takedown notices for some time now, or Nintendo doesn't really care that much: http://benfirshman.com/projects/jsnes/