ConradHex

I find that Joel's essays are always a lot of fun to read. But complaints about his writing, not so much.

I still can't figure out why people had C++. None of the arguments seem all that convincing to me.

It has a significant niche, and fills it well, as far as I'm concerned. When I think of languages I hate, I think of Forth or BASIC, not C++.

This part seemed particularly inaccurate: "Gates demonstrated that the old-school model of an Ivy-league degree, or a pedigreed family, isn't a requirement for career success." He came from a wealthy and prominent family.

However, I think the point is correct, even if Bill Gates isn't the one who proved it. I'm always encouraged when I find out that the founder and owner of a successful company came from a modest background.

From the headline I was thinking, "there goes techcrunch being sensationalist again".

But no, they're pretty much dead on here.

But no single one could have a higher probability of occurring than all the rest combined with itself. That's the point.

I'm noticing some snarky comments, which seems to be a theme now when people post their creations. I don't think HN is the best place for those. Valid, constructive criticism seems a lot more appropriate here.

Wait, who's saying to get your money now, as fast as you can, on whatever terms you can? Maybe I'm cynical, but why do I have the feeling it's a VC?

I hate to say it, but this sort of reminds me of the comments here when someone proudly posts their brand new website.

I guess one difference is most people pay for water by the gallon, but internet is usually unlimited for a fixed fee.

>Why try to mimic the thing that bookstores are already good at (physical presence, browsing books)?

I think you just answered your own question.

The car analogy isn't so great. Bandwidth is cheap and getting cheaper all the time. It's entirely possible to have a profitable website if even 1% of the visitors are paying customers.

Isn't virtualization way slower, though?

Are you being facetious?

I think most people agree that people who kill someone ought to get locked up, even if it isn't convenient.

It is, but it might be a little misleading. The "terabyte" picture of the giant ship, for example: many new computers come with half that much space on their hard drive already.

In my experience, most people ages 18 to 25 are entitled whiners. (I know I sure was.)

It's ok, you grow out of it.

If you watch part 2, the (ex?) cop points out that police specifically are allowed to lie during interrogations.

I think the best thing to do would be to just calmly, firmly and repeatedly ask for a lawyer.

I'm not convinced that "how to kill your wife and not get caught" is really hacker news, though...

This article actually looks like a pretty good example of a PR hit. The article says that the Guardian says that LG and Samsung are "interested" in the technology. Click through to the Guardian, and it's the company themselves that claims LG and Samsung are interested.

I'm not implying that this is bad or anything, just interesting. The technology sounds cool, FWIW.

The problem I see is this: when people disobey this rule, lately they don't get modded down. The rudeness level seems to be rising significantly.

How do you mod a comment down, anyway?

This is exactly why I don't put curse words in code, even in comments. This stuff really does happen, and the results can be awkward. It just isn't worth it.

Whenever I worry about working at a startup during an economic downturn, I remember reading about HP, which was founded during the depression.

The first job I had after college, I remember playing around with my company's online commerce software. I found out I could enter a negative number of items to purchase and my total cost would be negative. Or, I could buy 1.537 dresses.

Amazingly, no one else knew this. (That probably should have been a big red flag for me.)

Personally, I'm glad this was posted separately. It was much more informative and better written than the first article, and I would not have been likely to see it if it was added now as a comment in the first post.

One thing the article doesn't mention is that community colleges offer English and Math classes that are basically below 101 level, for people who aren't ready for the "entry-level" stuff yet. It sounds like a lot of people in his class would be candidates for that.

One side effect is that no one has any incentive to let their coworkers take credit for anything. Instead, the incentive is to make your coworkers look bad whenever possible. They become your competition.

I totally agree. I wish there was a way to designate an article as "off-topic".

First, convert your locations and zip codes to latitude and longitude. Then use something like this: http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~cvm/latlon_formula.html

The google maps API also has pretty good geocoding, for free. You can give it a location, and it will tell you not just lat/lng, but also how specific that location is. (Is it a zip code? A city name? An intersection? A precise address?)

In most software, the UI is what you use primarily to interact with the software. In games, what's called the "UI" is usually what you use for tasks like saving and loading games, and setting options. It's also frequently given to a junior programmer to implement.

I'm a professional game developer, and I think the article makes some really good points.

The passwords aren't stored in plaintext, they said.