lucifer

The problem is that we are given a single qualifier that is then conflated to represent a variety of reactions.

Even just one additional qualifier would go a long way to disambiguate the community opinion.

" If someone makes factual errors in their post downvoting is a perfectly valid signal, for instance."

Reply with the facts as you understand them.

"I wonder who Seneca thought was carefully arranging the universe so that everyone would had enough time if only they had used it properly."

The Stoic thought process would simply reject the exceptionalism of Man and the maxim naturally follows without recourse to a higher entity.

After all, we do observe that all other life forms seem to have just enough time to do their thing. And when we speak of "properly" (or "wisely"), naturally it is only meaningful given that we have the ability to make choices. (c.f. "to thine own self be true")

Sex Pistols rebuttal: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yhlx0-LLDE0

But where is the innovation that would justify a patent lock-in [npi]? Is it still (really?) "non-obvious" that GUI elements may mimic physical devices? What is so innovative about a virtual toggle switch?

"I wonder how much the ability to persevere in the face of difficulty is affected by a persons genes?"

That's character, and based on lingual evidence alone (which I'll take to be a summation of collective knowledge) "the development of character" is very much an individual endeavor.

"I agree when he says that trying to model your problem in a specification then write the software is doomed for failure."

Is that a reasonable generalization?

Here is a case where divergence between the model and "reality" would be catastrophic: http://www.fastcompany.com/node/28121/print

I'm also interested in exactly how one would apply an iterative cycle of implement->test->formalize to this category of software? (Ooops. There goes the rocket! Back to the keyboard!)

That's a fair point. But I just somehow don't see Steve Jobs sending that email. (He would have Woz hack the school PBX and have fun with the Professor. ;) So, yes, if you are a genius with a devilish charm, and have the stuff to back it up, go ahead and break the rules. Hell, even Jobs had to learn a few painful lessons about people, business, and politics the hard way:

http://prateekthapar.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/6.j...

"You are an anonymous student who is now regretting the send button on his laptop. It’s with this context I hope you register pause…REAL pause xxxx and take to heart what I am about to tell you [...]"

To me that's the subtext of this object lesson by the ex-"Muffketeer". Let me paraphrase: "I didn't know you before, and the event was forgetful. Not any more. That was stupid, and you need to learn so you won't make that mistake again."

"xxxx, get your shit together.

Getting a good job, working long hours, keeping your skills relevant, navigating the politics of an organization, finding a live/work balance…these are all really hard, xxxx. In contrast, respecting institutions, having manners, demonstrating a level of humility…these are all (relatively) easy. Get the easy stuff right xxxx. In and of themselves they will not make you successful. However, not possessing them will hold you back and you will not achieve your potential which, by virtue of you being admitted to Stern, you must have in spades. It’s not too late xxxx…"

Now that is an honest to goodness teacher. xxxx is quite fortunate. She/he may or not may recognize this now, but that letter was such a huge favor.

That is an isometric projection.

http://www.ubiubi.mobi/

Exactly: win win for all (except Big Brother).

How about this as an alternative:

Modify the plugin to route the GETs for the ad content through an anonymizer server.

No, this is precisely how we can force them to rethink their approach. I don't want Google to know my every move on the net. Its that simple. Beyond that, I couldn't care less if someone wants to stick useless bits on their content to make money; I generally ignore it.

There is a very nice implementation of a concurrent skiplist map in Java collections: http://java.sun.com/javase/6/docs/api/java/util/concurrent/C...

"Try to reframe it as nerds vs the world or even better, nerds vs the normals and then maybe we can talk."

'I suggest' you consider Geek vs Nerd (or even more generally avant-garde vs outlier) to recognize that the antagonism is internal.

http://viewfromthecenter.com/files/images/uroboros-color.jpg

That's not the winning attitude.

We shouldn't have to beg to have our rights (back). Just remember how you got those rights in the first place.

Its basically a weasel strategy to keep "civil rights" on the books, yet practically emasculating those same rights in the courts. Welcome to global fascism.

(Remember fascism means the union of the corporate and the state. Egomaniacs in funny uniforms and goose stepping is optional.)

[grammar]

You make an excellent point, but just curious if you are this concerned when "unnamed sources" are the basis for hysterical headlines that inevitably end in some far flung land getting bombed and invaded.

> you can rise above this challenge too, and become wise as well as gifted

That's the essence of what ESR was saying.

"It's about challenging yourself. Becoming better. Training. When you can do stuff good, then you have to find stuff you can't do as well that is even harder."

Good read and solid advice.

But the title raised the expectation that the article would delve into how the thought process (and potential lower social/emotional intelligence) of high IQ individuals can be a detriment to starting and developing a business.

Google is a pretty young company:

can you cite a consistent pattern in their past that would argue they would never do so?

(I can cite this: http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-03-03/google-wants-u-s...)

How about this?

http://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sec...

Why is Google applying for patents? For fun?

HTC was already mentioned in the article: they are young and do not have the patent portfolio to play with the big boys.

No, he's saying that Jobs has a fiduciary obligation to protect the interests of Apple, and that given the reality of tech business, he must play the patent game.

Every other tech company does it; why hold Apple to an exceptional standard?

The OP is not making an ethical or moral critique.

As regards to Apple, he's merely saying "in the long-term" it is bad business as Apple will experience a brain drain, and, there is an implicit shaming aspect (remember those blue boxes Steve? ;) by pointing out past actions of Steve Jobs himself.

"SVN vs Git"

An excellent comparative case in point that in my opinion actually undercuts what you are asserting.

You do not lose features and functionality in that transition (where as noSQL is by design reductive), and further, Git is a replacement for SVN and not a complementary tool.

"the use of a proxy object to communicate between threads"

WTF. How the hell do they get away with establishing non-obviousness for these things? (Wouldn't that cover OTP, Go channels, Java Channels, etc.?)

I have no beef with Apple per se (thus would have you wish that for all companies) but clearly software patent system is fundamentally flawed.

I think the problem is that in a startup, the leads are typical code slingers who are very good with programming, competent with SQL, and manage basic DBA (hand held by documentation).

Even if they are that rare startup that has heavy weights on both sides of the data/process divide, the second issue is that intelligent schema design (imo) does not fit the agile model quite that well.

Its really more of a economic issue than a technological one: it is quite possible that the poorly designed and implemented SQL - see above - solution can not scale. Obviously the problem is not SQL or RDBMs. But when you have a very smart, but young and not yet seasoned, tech team who hasn't seen it all, do you think they will blame themselves or lament that "SQL can't scale"?

"[SQL deal for when] "Data consistency and reliability is a primary concern"."

I'm curious: lets say you have a tweeter scale app that must satisfy the consistency and reliability as a primary requirement. Is there really a NoSQL solution that can take you there without (effectively) raising the costs to the point that a scalable (money not an object) SQL solution would provide? (Kinda like how the difficult to extract North Sea oil became economically viable once oil prices crashed through a certain ceiling?)

Lets wait a few years until all the bells and whistles are bolted (in ad hoc, product specific manner (until someone invents ... a formal query language ;) in layers and tiers that take a NoSQL data store to a full blown database which requires management.

(Didn't we go through this with the XML hype? Wasn't it the "simple" golden nail? Have you checked out the "Simple" landscape of SOAP and W[TF]S-*?)

We're not living in past; its more like back to the future. (Just wait for it, and "No-NoSql" ..)

"I have thrown my life into Divvyshot for the last year. I've personally invested close to $100,000 into the company. I would probably give anything I have to see it succeed. Other than a happy and fulfilling relationship with my girlfriend, there's nothing I want more."

Sounds like a big deal to me. Not good when good men like Sam have to deal with men of dubious morals and ethics and for the kicker we get to hear that the issue is that our sense [of] humor is lacking.

Peace and love.

And I guess the business lesson here is to learn to spot dissonance in your business strategy.

Sun engaged the consumer market with propaganda. That was the extent of their engagement. (Remember all those Sun ads during the dotcom bubble?)

But in reality, Sun was in reality only engaging geeks. Sun has never failed as a company catering to geeks.

Somebody in that company should have noted that their desire (Sun for the masses) and their actions (Sun for techies) were not congruent.

Proof is in the fact that in the case where the general public has little input - the backend -- Sun was (and remains) spectacularly successful. The mistakes made here are far less specific to Sun, and very much related to the dissonance between being in business to make money and being enlightened hippies who are making substantial contributions to the industry, for free.