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rogerbraunon How I explained MapReduce to my Wife?

I think so, too, but it does not matter. The function you use on the elements in your list when doing a map can be anything, so it may even be something like counting up.

rogerbraunon Apple deals massive patent blow to HTC, Android in serious trouble

Probably because there is a rather obvious negative interpretation: People think they have a real chance to become a millionaire, while in reality, they will probably always be comparatively poor. So they always make decisions based on this imaginary future as a rich person, even if it is much more likely that they will not be better off in the future.

rogerbraunon “Let's settle this in a Ruby programming contest”

No, but you can still use 10x10 chunks where possible and use chunks as close to 10x10 as possible for the rest.

rogerbraunon Ten apps is all I need

But it's the same for non-mobile platforms. I only use 10 applications on my computer, too, and I try to avoid platforms that don't have these. Of course, one might argue that everyone needs the same apps on a smartphone (telephony, messaging, notes...) but why not use a regular phone, then?

rogerbraunon DuckDuckGo: Escape your search engine filter bubble

This is exactly why I stopped using DDG as my main search engine. My workflow was often like this:

- Search for term on DDG - Look at results, find nothing - Try to find better term - Give up and use original term in Google - Find result

I tried to use DDG exclusively two time (once 8 months ago, once ~4 months ago), but the result was the same. I don't know how much personalization affects this, but Google just gives me the best results.

rogerbraunon The Linux desktop experience is killing Linux on the desktop

I thought the same about the rudeness. I don't know why "try another distro" should not be acceptable when you are a kernel developer. The OS is more than just the kernel.

rogerbraunon Apple’s Magnum Opus

No, but saying "hey, your girlfriend does this, my girlfriend does this, too! It's probably because they are both women!" is insulting if there is no reason whatsoever to believe that there really is something genetic behind the behaviour. I have seen the reverse of this too, when a friend visited and told me that I had a big LCD, just like her boyfriend, and that it was typical for males to buy large screens for their computers.

rogerbraunon Apple’s Magnum Opus

Please don't say things like this. Why should it be a "gender thing"? This only alienates people. "You don't close your windows? Like a girl?"

rogerbraunon [dead]

The story on the page you link to does not even add up. The title says that he sold his kidney for an iPad2, but later it says "he returned home with a laptop and an iPhone". So what did he buy?

rogerbraunon Orson Scott Card's Amazon Review of Ender's Game

He does not want to give you advice on which sexual partner to pick. He thinks that it should be forbidden by law to be homosexual. There is nothing about this in "Ender's Game", to get back to the topic. So, while I think it is right to criticize Card for his views on sexuality, I don't think it should color one's reading of the book too much.

rogerbraunon Does Depression Help Us Think Better?

It's hard to believe that whoever wrote that headline actually has experience with severe depression. I have lived together with two people suffering from this, and they can absolutely not think better because of their illness. Maybe people think that "depression" means being sad, but it's much more a feeling of anxiety and desperation. Depressed people usually don't see a way out of it and will not think rationally about their problems.

Also, please don't spread misinformation like "depression resolves spontaneously". It is true that it gets better and worse over time, but not treating a depression is extremely dangerous, as patients tend to see suicide as a good solution to everyone problems. The idea there is that they make live troublesome for everyone, and as they themselves stop caring for their own live at some point, suicide looks like way out.

rogerbraunon Mongrel2 and Tir Now On Github

There is a plugin for Mercurial that makes it possible to use git repositories: http://hg-git.github.com/

rogerbraunon First 100% Crowdsourced Book (80 authors)

http://www.amazon.com/Aftershocks-Stories-Japan-Earthquake-e...

This was a bit earlier.

rogerbraunon Lucene's FuzzyQuery is 100 times faster in 4.0

They understood it enough to:

  - implement it, although it is extremely complicated
  - test it
  - fix a bug in the algorithm
  - use it to make part of their software 100x faster

rogerbraunon Lucene's FuzzyQuery is 100 times faster in 4.0

It seems they did some comprehensive testing to make sure there are no bugs. What else should they do?