olleicua

I feel like the main issue with this article was a failure to adequately define "computer" and "information processing". There were some good points. In particular the fact that a given experience will likely cause completely different changes in the brains of any two individuals is poignant in the face of Kurzweil's claims. If the claim of the article was "Kurzweil is way to optimistic" then it would have been much better. Instead it works from an entirely too specific and poorly defined understanding of what a computer is to argue a point that is fairly difficult to defend.

THIS

Fantastic article

This is completely unreasonable. The NSA doing this in secret is one thing but now they aren't even trying to hide it.

What does lavabit actually do?

Since you are making this claim, I'll assume you've read the entire codebase of iOS. Is there anything stopping Apple from sending out an update that uploads the fingerprint?? Is there anything stopping the NSA from requiring Apple to do this?? It's not paranoia anymore.

Yeah and Jobs wasn't exactly the innovator everyone wants to make of him anyway. Ritchie anyone?

The outrage is because objectivism is a fantasy that rich people use to convince them selves they are better than others. Just because I am fortunate enough to be a software developer doesn't mean I think that's fair.

Why is an article that basically says "I'm a randian objectivist and I think capitalism is just great at the top of Hacker News. So you're an naive idiot who thinks Steve Jobs was a great innovator and probably has never heard of Dennis Ritchie. Why do I care?

Does anybody know what grievance is being aired here?

I really like this idea but I'm not clear on how this would fit into the current UI. Reddit does threads a little better I feel.

This is a philosophical stance that goes beyond the article's point. We have very good models for most of technology but we don't know enough about how Lithium batteries fit into those models. It's kind of tangential though. The point of the article seems to be that we ought to pay more attention to tangible things that we don't understand (like how to design more efficient batteries that would improve people's lives in real ways) then on pointless interpretations of string theory. I tend to think there is value in keeping in mind that we can't actually be certain of things because the alternatives seems quite pompous to me.

I don't know if you are more closely acquainted with the OP than I but I wouldn't assume that he isn't actually doing anything good in the world. If nothing else he's trying to encourage others to do something good and from the looks of things, you're right, he has gotten a complaint. I really hope he doesn't use it as an excuse to give up and never accomplish anything like the complainer seems to have.

What is the point? You don't like this company's business model so don't buy from them. Either you're right and nobody will buy from them and they'll fade into obscurity or you're wrong and some customers do like this model. Are you upset that VCs are being stupid? I hate to break it to you but the world is full of stupid people and some of them are VCs. This isn't news. #downvote

How is that a fairly strong statement? Here's a much stronger one: PHP is terrible at being a general purpose language. General purpose language doesn't mean you can do things that aren't web dev in it. General purpose means that it is designed to be useful in any application. You know like Ruby, Python, or Perl. General purpose doesn't mean that those things are possible (because I agree that they are possible in PHP); it means that it is a good tool for any job. PHP isn't just an inferior tool for non web dev projects though, it's also barely better if at all for web dev. LEARN RUBY!

I think this may be too optimistic. It seems to me that PHP's lack of vision has already made it a horrifically bad language. The problem is not that it tries to do OO while also not really trying to do OO (don't get me wrong though, that is a problem). The problem is that it tries to do OO like Java. Get with the times and learn Ruby already.

All the more reason to back Ubuntu on phones.

I cannot wait for this!

Except if Ferraris were also really slow in addition to having bad gas mileage.

I think this quote sums it up: "Do not tell me that “good developers can write good code in any language”, or bad developers blah blah. That doesn’t mean anything. A good carpenter can drive in a nail with either a rock or a hammer, but how many carpenters do you see bashing stuff with rocks? Part of what makes a good developer is the ability to choose the tools that work best."

Ruby and Python are increasingly invalidating this argument. Python has some of the best diverse library support of any modern non-Java language. And for web stuff (which is basically all PHP does anyway) ruby is basically there. Yes we don't have an out of the box CMS aimed at the WP market yet but that just means someone needs to make it. I've worked with WP a lot and I understand why people do that and I don't disrespect them. I've also spent time staring at its guts and man they are gnarly. However if you're talking about designing new software (which is the situation you are in if you are talking about software design patterns like singleton) then choosing PHP because you are comfortable with it is a cop-out.

I completely agree. Why has nobody made a WP replacement in rails yet?

The problems of PHP have been well documented here: http://me.veekun.com/blog/2012/04/09/php-a-fractal-of-bad-de... I think its relevant that PHP does object and classes in terrible backwards ways and, among other things, a singleton will necessarily be rather ugly in this context. Learning about singletons won't help anyone get a better understanding of other tools that exist. Learn Ruby or Python if you want to do web programming.

I had precisely the same reaction. I'm used to seeing singletons in the context of Java. The reasons to want a singleton pattern seems obvious to me but I would only describe it the way its classically described if I was using a crappy language like Java. In Ruby or Python you just call it class that never needs to be instantiated (and it looks way cleaner). Then I see we're talking about PHP and my reaction is if your doing something complex enough to need a singleton then why aren't you using a real language?

Ok, I've read it now and maybe this isn't so bad but I do think walk-throughs have their place. In general I think UI design needs to be more thoroughly explored as a field.

I haven't read this article but I find the title highly objectionable. There is a recent distressing trend in UI design that providing the user with options always makes the UI harder to use. This means taking control away from users and giving it to best case devs who may not have thought of everything worst case suits with corporate agendas etc. Computers are supposed to make peoples lives easier not pidgeon-hole them into cookie-cutter lives. Sure the ideal UI doesn't require instructions but UI design is hard and I'm tired of seeing shortcuts. If you need instructions once in a while that's fine. People take college courses in how to use excel. They can read a five paragraph description of your UI. And if it tells them about features that they were hoping to see that you didn't omit to dumb down your UI for them then they might even like it better.

Consumers are so stupid. Do you really have such little sense of self worth that you'll let yourself be scammed like that?

Seems like cool software (if you're not cool enough to use emacs org-mode). I can see how this would help a novice programmer get to the next level but I keep these things in my head at this point. Once you learn enough about the API of a given technology, looking it up the old fashioned way takes about 10 seconds anyway and more importantly I don't need to take time away from programming to build the mind-map. The claim: "if you're already a 10x developer it will basically turn you into a god" seems pretty unreasonable to me.

I think the first sign that App Store wasn't trustworthy was Apple leaving gcc out of the free version of XCode. I never trusted App Store. I think without Steve Jobs Apple has lost it's ability to pretend it's a decent company. Why doesn't someone do what RedHat did except for for consumers.

Really though Apple and Microsoft need to both just accept that they lost the browser war and ship with Chrome or Firefox.