Swift is a great joy for iOS development, where compatibility with Objective C makes things smooth, and operation queues are good enough for concurrency. Xcode is a big productivity booster. Good to break Swift's own backward compatibility with new releases to keep innovation, while providing a quick fix tool. Hope it will become a great server language too.
Bill Gates writes very well in English. It's evidence that he wrote excellent software decades ago. It's interesting that writing software seems to make more money than dealing with English documents as ordinary office workers. However, as one moves up and becomes a successful businessman, he reads and writes in English primarily, and makes much more money than those who write software.
China's social network is WeChat. I suspect it's too late for Facebook to enter. With censored contents, what's Facebook's attraction to ordinary Chinese people? Without censorship, it would be a huge attraction.
The comparison should be updated to Swift 3. Swift syntax is more intuitive and readable than Scala. A common mistake in language design is to depart from C syntax, without substantial gain. For example, replacing {}, &&, || with other things. Swift strikes a great balance between intuition and innovation.
Software have a poor image due to lack of perfectionists in the software industry. Buggy software are happily released. Correct software are very hard to build. I wonder how many have ever existed.
Users and Facebook use each other voluntarily, for their own gain. It's a normal business that anyone can choose to use or not. Both terms users and useds are ok to describe the 2 aspects of the business, and for arguing which aspect weighs more. Users use Facebook first, so overall users is the more proper term.
Great data visualization for learning a little more American history. Seems one more piece of evidence that the mainstream American culture is set by the British and German, or the original English and German speakers, and luckily so. Think about the rigorous constitution, logical reasoning, rule of law, and the founding fathers, etc. (from someone without British or German root, otherwise the "political correctness" would kick in).
I concluded that the all time no. 1 master Go Seigen's secret is 1. learn from all masters; 2. keep inventing/innovating. Most experts do 1 well, and are pretty much stuck there. Few are good at 2. I doubt if computers can invent/innovate.
UX is more than UI. Apple's UI design is still the best, but the judgment on consumer needs and product integration is gone with Steve Jobs. A brash and creative genius like Jobs has no chance climbing the corporate ladder. Has to start his own company. My guess is Apple will continue to be financially successful, but the best days are over.
Ancient China had tons of courtesy in social interactions, and used to consider other countries uncivilized. The lack of courtesy in Mainland China is due to the communist revolution, which promoted tough fighting mentality to break social hierarchy and order, and threw away traditional values. It's an aggressive way of promoting equality. The revolution is over since Chairman Mao left. Now that the Communist Party is the governing party, the emphasis is hierarchy and order, or in a better sounding word -- stability, so that they can stay in power forever. They try to bring back traditional values, but the revolutionary damages are hard to overcome.
If Napoleon was good at judging people, they are driven by 2 things only: greed and fear. The most successful people career wise have to be greed-driven, confident, and mentally strong. The meanest ones are typically fear-driven, insecure and mentally weak. My life lesson is to stay away from those driven too much by fear, who are usually losers in Darwin's game in the long term.
It may be a cultural difference of system programmers (including Go designers and developers) and (consumer) application programmers (e.g., as in the Apple camp). System programmers regard themselves higher, prefer terse symbol names, specs, docs, mathematical expressions, and formal methods, don't seem fans of Objective C or Java style readability and verbosity. But then again, it's open source software -- No one owes anyone anything.
This could be the reason why iPhone 6 has not been approved in China. With heavy smuggling they will get plenty. A lot of arguments assume the (American) government is decent, but iPhone is a global device. Let's hope Apple products have the same security all over the world.
Email is not a person's unique ID, although sometimes it's used to serve that purpose. The ID layer of internet is not established yet. I'm not sure if it's possible in a decentralized system. Centralized management may be necessary.
Most green cards today are family-based instead of employment or skill based. Family is a golden word in America, according to the Godfather: "But don't ever take sides with anyone against the Family again." In addition, there are many diversity (lottery), refugee, and asylum green cards.
It's funny while America is hated, and some other countries are touted to have better systems and will soon take over America's leadership, tons of people are voting for America with their feet, and crying for green cards.
If it's in a court, I would ask for proof that the animal took the photo. Could have been savvy marketing. No one is trustworthy when fighting in a court.
If the story is verified, I sympathize with the photographer. Accidents are part of the venture.