rmanocha

I keep hearing people to build a niche skill. I'm a Python/Django/AppEngine developer - is this "niche" enough?? :)

To be fair, there are a few options out there (see http://www.pluggd.in/review-of-payment-gateways-in-india-297...) but from the quick research I did, they have really high transaction rates (upwards of 6%).

If no better options exist, this might be an opportunity for an entrepreneur, though figuring out and complying around the laws might take some doing.

Anybody here know good payment gateways for us folks outside the US?? (specifically India, in my case)

UT Austin

Can someone explain why Protocol Buffers (http://code.google.com/apis/protocolbuffers/) is not being used more widely?? It it 'cause of the limited language support (Java/C++/Python only) or some other reason??

Learning Clojure (by reading Programming Clojure) - oh and trying to setup VimClojure and failing miserably (file detection is working, but everything else including syntax highlighting & indentation isn't).

Never used it, but there seems to be a module for doing so - http://wiki.nginx.org/Nginx3rdPartyModules#HTTP_Redis_Module

Reading through these commends, it seems like us people in Malaysia have it better than you guys in the US. I've been a bit disappointed with all the attention paid to Ice Skating/Dancing etc. but for the most part, they've (ESPN) shown a good mix of the events going on in Vancouver.

It's hard for me to understand why people still use MySpace. I've never had an account there, but from all the user profile pages (not sure if that's what they're called) I've visited, none have been easy on the eye. Facebook seems to be the much better option to me. The Facebook fan pages can be used by most bands to build their brand and market themselves (I've only ever seen Bands using MySpace - nobody I know uses it) - maybe they should create some way for people to migrate their MySpace accounts to Facebook - that'll probably speed up MySpace's demise.

Reminds me of "The Last Lecture" by Randy Pausch. That was one of the most inspiring talks I've ever heard. Check it out if you haven't yet - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo

Anybody hiring in India/South East Asia??

On a separate note - maybe we should start a thread for startups outside the US looking for devs.

Another point I would add to this list is to not be afraid of reading the Django Source code. While the docs cover a lot, you can find a lot of hidden gems simply going through the source code - it is highly readable and most stuff is where you would expect it to be.

Of-course, be careful while doing so though 'cause the stuff that isn't documented can change at anytime, and may break your code.

Another screen cap - http://imgur.com/H9jxU.png.

This is what I see on the url - http://imgur.com/H9jxU.png

Django & jQuery - These two tools have made web development fun for me, again.

Clojure/Lisp - I've had a Lisp like language on my languages-to-learn to-do list for long

Redis - Looks like an excellent NoSQL DB to begin learning this new concept with.

I don't know about highly skilled americans, but Europe's immigration policies seem to be no better for highly skilled asians.

P.S. - I'm an Indian.

I think Robin_message does a good job refuting your comments there.

Let me just add, that whatever else the lower classes in India might lack compared to the lower classes in China, the one thing they don't lack, is the voice (and opportunity) to descent. I experienced this first hand during my recent trip to India where a highway I was traveling on was blocked by about 50 subsistence farmers protesting the lack of water in their fields. Whether these kinds of protests are constructive or not, I do not imagine any subsistence farmers in China have the opportunity to block a heavily used highway for a whole day without facing severe punishments.

"There are two ways to progress : by letting everyone say everything they want, which has so far led to huge wars and a LOT of failed states"

I don't agree with almost anything you said here, but the above statement can easily be contradicted by taking India's experiences since Independence into account.

I think this will be the case with most people - they can't jump until the likes of Django/SA/scipy etc. move over to support Python 3.

I'd thought about doing the calorie stats/recommendations bit too - similar to what was in the spreadsheet. However, decided against it since I wasn't using that part of the spreadsheet, and 'cause I didn't want this work taking over too much time. If people are really interested in it though, I can take some time and add those features in too.

Thanks for the feedback.

As the homepage says, it's a clone of Jeremy Zawodny's Excel Spreadsheet (http://jeremy.zawodny.com/blog/archives/006851.html) I've been using to help me lose weight.

I built it mostly to learn App Engine and how to use a non relational Database (though I didn't end up doing any hardcore DB stuff).

Bajar de Peso, according to Google Translate, means "Lost Weight". The source code for the site is available at http://github.com/rmanocha/bajar-de-peso

I've been using Google's Visualization API's for my latest work and I've been really happy with it. The API is in JS but I believe there are hooks for Python and other languages too.

http://code.google.com/apis/visualization/

> edit: personally, i feel less hungry after exercising, and more in control of what i eat.

Same here - the days I workout/play a sport, I end up eating less (this might also be 'cause I end up drinking a lot more water). On the days I don't do either, I find myself constantly hungry and snacking at regular intervals - plays havoc with my calorie monitors :(.

> Over the next 20 years, one side effect of this sort of bill might be to slow that innovation down.

There was an article in The Economist recently (unable to find the link - read a hard copy) which dispelled this myth. Research was done in some European countries (including the UK) which showed that introducing the NHS has not slowed down innovation. They also suggested some incentive plans to make sure innovation did not take a hit.

In either case, I think it's a long stretch to say that this bill, among other things, will lead to a reduced drug innovation. The money in the Drug business in the US and around the world will ensure that does not happen.

Couldn't agree more. I tried losing weight without keeping track of my daily weight, and got nowhere. Then I happened upon Jeremy Zawodny's spreadsheet (http://jeremy.zawodny.com/blog/archives/006851.html).

Maintaining a daily record of my calorie intake as well as my weight has really helped me keep my eating in check. It has also helped me get motivated to keep going to the gym - everytime I see that graph flat lining, I kick it up a notch.

Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie Ulysses - James Joyce (keep going back to it - to understand it better)

Agreed - reading through the landing page and the overview page didn't help me - I'm still unsure what this service is all about...

Set a recurring alarm on my phone, snooze it a couple of times, head to the restroom, freshen up a bit and go play squash for an hour. Come back, take a shower, have breakfast and then get to work.

I think the point Carl Banks was trying to make is that Lisp programmers don't trust standard functions - not that there aren't standard functions to do the job.

I agree. While building the initial product takes time in and of itself, adding features to any project takes an even greater effort IMO.

You have to think about things such as adding a new feature which works well with the rest of the site, add the new code without making a mess, change the existing implementation of a feature 'cause you realize your first implementation was not the best way to do it, or that it does not work so well with the new feature etc.

All this time and effort should be counted in - putting out an initial release is good, but you still have a lot of work left to do.