soyelmango

Thanks for the link to Peter Norvig's spell checker - interesting reading there.

...and how hard it would be for voice recognition systems too.

And there's still space for 'thorough' and 'trough' in that story...

Hmmm, there is potential here for multi-lingual homophonic exercises...

I've heard Slough is tough enough to go through even without snow :P

What does it mean? Three sad tigers...

Hmmm, hows about seats with built in parachutes? Kinda like ejector seats, but without the ejector.

If the plane disintegrates, the parachute deploys at a certain altitude. That would be a good reason to keep your seatbelt on through the flight. There'd be issues with oxygen and pressure at height... but it's a start.

It costs - The parachutes cost. The fuel to carry a plane load of parachutes for all the passengers costs. If airlines pass on the cost, I doubt passengers are willing to pay extra, even if it might save their lives.

Image - there are only so many precautions and safety demos before passengers think "Hell, this is just too risky"

When something goes wrong on the plane, it's probably too catastrophic to get your parachute on and wait by the door.

If there comes a point when passengers need to 'chute out, there's going to be a stampede.

Issues of liability when landing passengers break limbs, dent the roof of your car, drown in the ocean under their parachutes.

Any more reasons anyone?

I've been to clubs where there's a big push to pay membership, buy tshirts/sashes ("We don't do coloured belts here", though seniority was signified by tshirt/sash colour...). In some cases, it was clearly commercial - I've heard of another club in London having direct debit (not sure what you call that outside UK) for membership fees, regular gradings for batches of students, and the franchising of teaching to senior instructors at best, or to senior students at worst.

In other cases, clothing was available, less to make money, but so that they could wear something they'd be proud of. I'm proud to say I've never had a teacher in silk pyjamas though!

Here, http://internalstyle.com/index.php?option=com_content&vi... , the sifu writes of a further distinction between student and disciple.

I couldn't get the tune playing at BBC's site. Here is the theme tune on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7AkcneXhik

My algorithm would say:

- reject generic shapes and cliches seen ad nauseum in 99d contests: Astralify, black21, #64, KamNy

- promote designs that attempt to communicate transformation: #73, wenk, #31, #28, #25, #15

- promote designs that will print well on a budget (intricate designs and colours/gradients can print well, if you'll pay the premium for good print services): #11, #32, #66

Yes, some of these considerations will clash unfortunately, but it might help eliminate/promote from your shortlist.

I also asked friends/family for opinions with the logo for my to-be-announced project, and it really helped to uncover interpretations and connotations I'd not considered alone.

Good luck, and please let us know which you choose as your winner.

Ah, very inspiring, and reminds me of the quote by John Waters: "Without obsession, life is nothing."

You don't say where your passports are from, but if you're in Europe, there's London.

There are many startup and entrepreneur events on meetup.com, such as minibar, london bloggers.

Also, in terms of a geographical 'valley', there's Silicon Roundabout ( http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=silicon+roundabout&... )

Ah, relatively low costs - that could be the kicker. London is an expensive place to live. That said, one can still live frugally by cooking for yourself rather than eating out, and the GBP has fallen in value so it's become a cheaper place for those dropping foreign currency.

Finally, GOOD LUCK in your venture - keep us posted on your unnamed product, and where you're heading, in whatever sense of the word :)

I recommend out-law radio ( http://www.out-law.com/page-7212 ), a weekly podcast by a law firm covering technology/law matters

EDIT: Oh, there's also A History of the World in 100 Objects ( http://www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld/ ) - which does what it says, based on 100 objects from the British Museum.

My initial thought was that this idea sucks - would you want to be remembered as the couple who sent out facebook invitations because you were too broke/tight to do this properly, this once-in-a-lifetime event?

But then, could your suggestion be cast as a couple making a statement to reduce paper usage? And if enough couples do this, what kind of dent could it make on aggregate?

Pros:

- electronic invitations mean no paper, no postage.

Cons:

- chances are, people will print out the invitation and directions.

I've used yourfonts before at work to generate fonts from handwriting. It's easy to use and about $10 - though bear in mind that it renders as individual letters, so the observant guests will twig that you've cut a corner on thank you notes!

http://www.yourfonts.com/fontgenerator/896673.html

(Disclosure: that's an affiliate link. If you want to get there without the affiliate link, here it is: http://www.yourfonts.com/ )

...And there's the IDF's terrifying customized Caterpillar:

http://sites.google.com/site/mathknight6/home/idf-d9

It sounds like a trolling headline - he himself acknowledges the value of what he has learnt.

Some suggested in his comments that he should join a firm so that knowledge and experience could be shared towards finding the algorithm[s]. His reply to Henrik, "I’ve been wary about taking jobs at firms like that because of IP concerns. I always believe I am on the cusp of something great, and wouldn’t want to share my algorithms", is a factor in his progress, or lack of.

By working alone, he's more likely to earn 100% of nothing, when he could collaborate and earn a small % of a very large number.

That said, if he finds the algorith alone, then big congratulations and respect are in order for sticking to his convictions.

ha, genius sound editing at 1:22!

It sounds like you're saying that these millionaires who became millionaires through inheritance, hard work, and chance can't write a post like Jason's because of how they got there.

The reason they couldn't have made a post like Jason's might well be for many reasons, maybe they...

- don't want to share their experience and knowledge widely and freely

- think they're too busy to do the above

- hadn't considered blogging it

- are not as eloquent in distilling and expressing it.

I think there would be interesting and valuable lessons to learn from any of the millionaire types you mention - even from those who've done it only once, and from those who've failed trying.

This will be invaluable for any scientist to prove that earth minutes and tube minutes are different.

I skimmed some of the articles and found it disappointing that some people feel so strongly against sports.

As a child, I also didn't like sports - mainly because I was asthmatic, unable to (or so I thought), and therefore apathetic to it.

As a teenager, as my asthma receded, I came to enjoy sports. Now, practising martial arts, I really see the value in always pushing and analysing oneself, and likewise, pushing others, competing, and analysing them to see how I can overcome them. Meanwhile, I hope and expect they are doing the same.

Experiences like those that the gay high school football player suffered ( http://www.sportssuck.org/gayfootball.htm ) do make me understand how some people can come to dislike sports though... however, it's not the sport to blame here, but a cruel culture of intolerance.

Missed it and the original "Middle ground" post the first time round in 2007, so thanks for this.

Those chopsticks and communal sauces do get 'dirty', but hey, a few germs keep your immune system on its toes! There may well be an aspect of group bonding there in saliva-exchange.

If you have to cut food, that's someone else's failing before it gets to the table - tough cheap meat, cut too big, or cooked badly. But yes, I've often had to cut meat with a blunt china spoon too!

Yes, the spoon - glad to hear you're one of the few non-Chinese (I presume, from your name) who uses it. Always amusing to watch people eating rice 2 grains at a time with chopsticks...

(I submitted this link, and I should add that I'm not the author.)

I think the commenters who write about distinguishing learning vocab from digging deeper into understanding etymology ( eg skermes, http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1439131 ) have hit the nail on the head (translate that one!). At that point, learning vocab, whatever the language, becomes more fun for me.

Back to the cooking thing though...

I'm surprised that most comments I see so far are about the language, because what drew me to the article in the first place is the author's connection between the Chinese language and Chinese cooking with non-specialised tools, and how that contrasts with western cooking.

I think both Chinese and 'western' cooking tools have specialized, though interestingly in opposite directions. The Chinese specialization towards one wok, one cleaver, one chopping board (prep hygiene, anyone?), chopsticks (and food cut and cooked to size) and green tea minimizes the toolset.

The 'Western' way specializes in a different way: specialize the tool to what's being cooked and eaten - a fish pan, a medium sized knife to prep, a fish knife to eat, and white rather than red wine.

I'm not saying one is better than the other - I'll happily eat both Chinese or western food (or any other) if you're cooking for me! ... I'm just interested in studying the differences and similarities.

Disclosure: I'm Chinese.

Great opportunistic timing for whoever did this.

As coderdude says, why do you ask?

If I could upvote this 100x, I would! I've just spent an age trying to find the name of that font to post here - kept on thinking it was Eurostile too (which others here appear to dislike too...).

Handel Gothic, the choice of backstreet internet cafes around the world.

Nothing's wrong with Chicago, and what you write reinforces the point that often fonts are built for specific requirements, and then used by others in aesthetically inappropriate situations.

Just as Comic Sans was made for screen use by MS Bob, Chicago was made for use on a 1-bit screen - but then both were used in print, and they both suck in print, and even more so at sizes larger than on-screen.

(By the way, that's interesting about the designed-in ditherability of Chicago - thanks for that.)

There's a lot of hate for Comic Sans, and it's not the fault of the font itself, but the fault of those who use it, and possibly because it's in MS Windows.

If life was fair, people would also be laying into the Chicago font ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_%28typeface%29 ) that ships with Macs, and that can still be seen on designs produced by crappy agencies. However, Apple-bashing is less cool than MS-bashing!

It's not the font, but what it was designed for (fun, on-screen - see http://www.connare.com/whycomic.htm ) and how it's been used (on signage, in print).

There's also the element of wanting to appear a font snob by picking the easy target of Comic Sans... As Connare himself said "If you love it, you don’t know much about typography and if you hate it you really don’t know much about typography either and you should get another hobby." ( http://www.manic.com.sg/blog/archives/000118.php )