PieSquared

I realize it's basic research (and as such am all for it), but it would be interesting to know whether any practical uses are even planned or theorised.

It seems to me he's justified in not wanting to waste his time writing patches that wouldn't be accepted anyways.

Either way, I'd like to hear other solutions. I'm not content wasting my life away with busywork assigned in school, and I do not like the fact that mild academic dishonesty is necessary to combat that, so I would gladly listen to other suggestions.

By the way, 'mild' is mild. I'm not talking about stealing code or copying projects or anything. I'm talking about (every so often) asking a friend for answers to questions on near-worthless homework assignments.

As a side note, I'm not exactly sure why I'm being downvoted. Is there a more reasonable way to discuss this?

Do you have a better solution? The system cannot be fixed to a complete extent quickly. My solution is to avoid busywork classes and get high grades in the busywork classes so I can just skip assignments instead as often as possible.

Do you have a better one?

It doesn't matter how much value I place on an assignment? Yes, to me, it does!

I do not understand who decides what 'matters' in this case. I see it as such: To me, a value-less assignment which takes up a disproportionate amount of time is wrong; thus, make it take less time. If it gives me no value in return, and I'm not hurting anything by cutting corners, then I most certainly will cut corners. Is there a better solution?

It's a trade-off. Cut corners, learn more on your own because you have time. Don't cut corners and be honest, learn less.

It's dishonest, yes, but when you're in a situation where your two choices are spending time learning something on your own versus not copying a busywork homework assignment from a friend... the first stops seeming so unethical.

In those cases, I would not feel guilty in the least, and do not think I would be cheating myself either.

As one on a lesser news site might say, pics or it didn't happen.

Or, paraphrased the HN way: Cite sources, please.

You don't need to be hostile here.

If only, if only. Very little schools teach us how to deal with the latent abilities of our mind.

School hours are long, and it doesn't leave that much time, it's true. I compensate by going to sleep around 2:30 regularly, sometimes later, and catching up on sleep on the bus or through smaller naps during the day (and no, not during class :P).

I used to be pretty annoyed about school in general, but once I realised how much free time I really have, it's amazing how much I started getting done in that same time.

(As for the actually interesting or difficult classes, which sometimes do exist, you can do the same thing; for instance, in the first few months of my calculus class, I bought a textbook and finished learning the material until the end of the year. Now that class is just as relaxing and as much of a breeze as any other.)

Then I look at the article and see:

O3D is an open-source web API for creating rich, interactive 3D applications in the browser.

Perfect! Someone big finally taking initiative and creating a plugin which might actually eventually have a large userbase.

"The upcoming version Ubuntu Linux distribution which is due out on April 33rd. You shouldn’t wait to get the latest version, maybe your friends waiting. Why don’t you download the released candidate of Ubuntu 9.04 for your operating system. On that version, their is no major bugs found and even no changes will be made within a week and few days are left. You can install that operating system by showing your OS to your friends."

Perhaps just liking to the Ubuntu site would make more sense, as stated by wvl.

(I wasn't saying that you shouldn't lie through inaction; I was just saying that inaction can be a form of lying.)

Face Observation Opera Language, eh?

d(users)/dt would be the rate of change of users. That can only be negative if the amount of users decreases, ie through bannings.

You're thinking of the second derivative, d^2(users)/dt^2, which is the rate of change of the rate of increase of users. If that is negative, it means that the growth has slowed down, as in your example with February and March.

(Your use of effect is off; 'to effect' means something more like 'to cause', the verb you're looking for is 'to affect', I think.)

I've used both, though seem to be a bit quicker in Vi - try evim (easy vim) if you're not comfortable with jumping right in.

Congrats on making a great site and good luck.