I agree with you on the popehat coverage. It was simultaneously horrifying, entertaining and thrilling. I don't regret for a moment the hours I spent reading the reports.
The different segments mentioned in the article reminded me a LOT of what the Cozzano's campaign managers in Neal Stephenson's Interface [1] did when segmenting the population to target the campaign messages.
As a consumer, it's a bit terrifying how little control I have over this data. It sounds like they have deeply personal details on people who have absolutely no idea what has been collected and sold to marketers.
The article and discussion here left me wondering what will happen when some of the public pension funds inevitably start to default on their obligations? Based on the amount many states need to invest every year, an amount which they don't have and can't reasonably get via taxes/fees, I think it's only a question of if, not when.
Thank for yet another gem of an article. As a mostly backend developer, I depend a lot on these types of posts to help me keep up with the current front-end best practices. Anything that is on igvita.com I pretty much absorb without questioning due to the consistently high quality (and correctness!) of the posts.
Pretty much every Pg related post on depesz.com is a gold mine. You should read them all, especially where he explains upcoming features in new Pg releases. I've learned a ton simply be browsing through his site, which is very readable with great examples to put the concepts into practice.
If this is true, then why do so many other countries around the world have both actual competition AND much more compelling products than the US? These other ISPs are also commercial entities and yet they aren't filing for bankruptcy left, right and center so clearly it's commercially possible.
As a family we've been taking a week and learning a little bit about composers. This week was Bach, so the timing on this post was perfect. I've watched two videos so far and was completely blown away! Beautiful music, fantastic camera work and stunning performances by the musicians. This site is going to occupy a Chrome tab for a very long time.
I really can't decide if the music, the organ or the performance was more impressive! As the final notes faded away, I realised I had been crying for most of the piece. It was truly beautiful in every aspect.
The funny thing is I had to blackhole 8.8.8.8 on my home router earlier this week because of a change in the Netflix app on the Roku. Why won't people just take my money?
"You have to be both. Then you can surround yourself with smart people, secure in the knowledge you can control your own art and your own career--because if you don't, someone else definitely will."
I'm not much of an entrepreneur these days, but I know that the best way to succeed in life is to control your own destiny.
The second time I saw him in Dublin, I remember walking out of the venue with this big goofy grin on my face and my ears ringing like never before. I walked down the street to a convenience store to grab a Coke, but when the cashier spoke to me it was quieter than a whisper. It took about 24 hours for the ringing to finally stop, but I would do that night over again without a second thought.
Watching Satch play live (and up close!) you see the passion in his face and his playing. This is a man that LOVES what he does - and he does it very well! If only we could all be that lucky.
Ahhh, "Summer Song", I remember you well! Many a day were spent driving in my Mustang with the windows down blasting this song. I've now been lucky enough to hear Satch play twice. He puts on an awesome show - highly recommended!
The last time I did a wire transfer in the US (admittedly a couple years ago now) it was anything but instant. IIRC there was a lot of manual work that had to be done behind the scenes to complete the transaction. And you have to do into a branch to do it as well - no internet banking!
Thanks for the link. I didn't know about Formula E! I watched a video linked off the front page and while I missed the roar of a petrol engine, but it had it's own neat sound.
This is the hallmark of Postgres. Either they do it right or they don't do it at all. For a long time, this worked against them in benchmarks because doing it right meant that mysql was faster (due to cutting corners). It pleases me to no end to see the progress the 9.x series has been making regards to performance, ease of replication setup and marketing.
Wow, you're absolutely correct. I read REAMDE about 2 months ago so the plot is still pretty fresh in my mind. It's a great, so consider this a recommendation.
I'm starting the work for my PR in Australia. We love it here, plus the paths are short and straightforward: 2 years as 457 => PR through employer sponsorship, 1-2(?) years as PR => citizenship.
The solution is downloaded playlists. It's annoying because you can't download an album, but have to make a playlist instead. It does work great though.
I live in Australia too and signed up for Netflix a few months ago. It's a bit of a hassle to signup and requires the use of a paid service to handle the DNS/location checks, but it does work very well.
I completely agree with you on Spotify, though it is annoying to see that the complete catalog isn't available to an Australian account. I've considered starting over with a US-based account using gift cards, but haven't tried it yet.
Interesting to note: I read earlier today (sorry, can't recall where) that one of the federal agencies was upset that Comcast hadn't lived up to their agreement to market this program to the people it was supposed to help. Interesting timing between the two stories...
Another happy MapQuest user here as well. We saved tens of thousands a year by switching from Google Maps to OSM/MapQuest. Leaflet [1] is also a big feather in the cap - easy API, actively maintained, and it easily integrates with any number of tile providers with no provider-specific code.
I can now admit that I feel the same way, but it doesn't stop me reading this type of article. It's fascinating in a "this is really cool, but am I smart enough to understand it?" kind of way.
The other thing that I wondered about was: did the performance improvements come from the huge number of cores in GPUs, the increased memory bandwidth, or something else inherent in GPU computing?
Plex is so awesome, I can't properly describe it. I've subscribed to the PlexPass simply to show my appreciation to the developers. For me, it's Plex + a Roku 3 though.
I'm also with TPG and can't fathom having a cap, much less the typically tiny ones offered. Recently I noticed that Optus is now offering an unlimited account for a reasonable price. I've heard anecdotally from people working there that it would be cheaper for Optus to do away with the caps because of the internal overhead that tracking and accounting requires.
In Australia, a pack of smokes costs something like $20. No idea where the tax revenue goes, but the cost alone seems like it would be a great disincentive to smoke.