edj

I agree that would certainly be nonsense.

But any technology project most definitely can implement the ideological beliefs of its creators, if it's designed to do so and succeeds in achieving that design objective.

For example, the World Wide Web was developed to facilitate sharing, exchange and collaboration.[1]. You might say Tim Berners-Lee did have certain belief system and that he did implement those in his design.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_World_Wide_Web#...

Huh? My perception of the Facebook iOS (iPad) app is that it is badly, badly broken.

It opens links within the app and there is no way to override this behavior.

This means I can't browse Facebook-sourced sites alongside everything else I'm browsing or bookmark those sites in Pinboard. I can't even copy & paste the URL from the Facebook app into mobile Safari.

I uninstalled the Facebook app within minutes of downloading it. The web interface just works better.

I made a little video[1] explaining how to install MS Office Mac 2011 onto a MacBook Air -- for my own use, in case I ever needed to do it again -- and it's received over 36,000 views.

LOTS of people have trouble with this. The Microsofts and Adobes in the industry don't appear to realize the difficulty their customers face.

1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nz3hloQl_qs

I agree that the Windows App Store examples are way more egregious, but some of the apps in the Google store are nearly as bad. Top right among the Facebook examples is especially deceptive.

https://play.google.com/store/search?q=facebook&c=apps

And it's easy for people to tell - crucially, in a half-hour TV show - that a star chef is doing amazing things with food.

Programming is just the opposite: inaccessible to non-programmers, very specialized, very technical, abstract.

I counted a mere 99 words (not including navigation) and every one of them tells. Concise and casual is a powerful combination.

I especially like the slogan/pitch:

Send Big Files Really Securely tells me exactly what the product does and makes me think it'll be easy and fun to use.

Huh, that's interesting. Did you discover that with internal analytics or a survey, or an outside source?

If it's something internal, you could blog about your discovery. It would make an interesting read for us music nerds.

Making genres more specific and granular just makes categorization more confusing and contentious. But use of multiple tags to categorize a song could allow different people to simultaneously apply the labels they prefer.

Or perhaps a better solution would be "x sounds like y, z, etc."

I reread it a year or two back, and it's standing the test of time very well, in spite of the fact that Red Mars was first published almost 21 years ago and the story begins in the 2020s.

Hate to be pedantic, but electric cars have been around for over 100 years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_car#1890s_to_1910s:_E...

This reminds me of a quote attributed to Joseph Stalin, "Quantity has a quality all its own."

The collection of data is not new. However, the extraordinary amount of data now collected, and the ease with which those data can be cross-referenced or otherwise mined, create a phenomenon that seems qualitatively new.

[1]: http://cvdazzle.com/

It explores that word through the lens of jurisprudence, which I think is a fascinating and unusual approach to taboo. It's exceptionally well-written and manages to be witty, absurdist, informative, and thought-provoking in equal measure.

At issue are the 4th Amendmnent, self-censorship, sexual harassment, education, and broadcasting.

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=896790

That said, I will miss imperial units if they go. There's a natural poetry to them that metric lacks. Imperial units seem to embody and communicate their own history - history of path-dependence and weird math, to be sure - while metric units seem too perfectly consistent, and therefore somehow sterile.

A great way to do this is 1-on-1 tutoring. As an adult, I learn faster under tutoring than in any other context.

Part of the reason is that a (competent) tutor can keep me right at the edge of my ability during a session, which is where learning is fastest.

Another reason is that fear of embarrassment motivates me to do my homework.

You could apply this to programming by defining a specific thing you want to make (e.g. roll your own blogging cms in Rails), then hire a programmer to coach you an hour or two per week and assign homework. You'd learn quickly and build your app at the same time.

That's an extremely bold statement. Do you have any evidence to back it up?

Counterexamples are numerous: Carnegie libraries [1], needle exchanges[2], the Gates Foundation [3].... the list is long.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnegie_library

[2]: http://www.avert.org/needle-exchange.htm

[3]: http://www.gatesfoundation.org/Pages/home.aspx

I think they're more alike than different. They have in common the act of giving for the benefit of others. From the Oxford English Dictionary:

Charity. a) Beneficence; liberality to or provision for those in need or distress; alms-giving. b) Money, a gift, or other assistance to relieve need or distress. c) A trust, foundation, organization, etc., for the benefit of those in need or distress; such trusts, etc. viewed collectively.

Philanthropy. Love of human kind; the disposition or effort to promote the happiness and well-being of one's fellow people; practical benevolence.

The difference between the Gates Foundation and other charities is not that it does "philanthropy" rather than "charity"; it's that it operates on a much larger scale and with a greater emphasis on measurement and accountability than do most other charities.

Posture. Back straight; elbows bent 90 degrees (no less); monitor at eye level so neck is straight.

Physical therapy. Deep-tissue massage; fascia massage with tennis or golf ball; theraputty [1]; hand exercise balls [2]; and stretching.

Standing desk. Went with the DIY model, though I hear the motorized ones are choice. I switched to standing because of general health concerns with sitting, not because of RSI. However it has had tangential benefits there in that it seems easier to get the right height so my elbows are bent 90 degrees.

Chair. I still sit some of the time I'm working. The greatest chair I've ever sat on is the Swopper [3].

Keyboard. I use the DAS Keyboard [4]. It's clicky, but not ergonomic. I find the clickyness helps me use a lighter touch and still type fast.

Mouse. I use the Logitech Trackman Wheel [5]. It's long since discontinued. I bought a new-in-box specimen on ebay to replace my old one when it became unreliable.

[1]: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_0_6?url=search-alias%...

[2]: http://www.amazon.com/Isokinetics-Inc-Hand-Exercise-Squeeze/...

[3]: http://www.swopper.com/www.swopper.com/index.html

[4]: http://www.daskeyboard.com/

[5]: http://reviews.logitech.com/7061/166/logitech-trackman-wheel...

A single renegade engineer? A handful? Or A team having some fun with the approval of their managers and everything?

Is there an internal policy about easter eggs? If so, what is it?

Huh? Since when are businesses like billiard balls, just sitting there, inert, awaiting some external stimuli to push them into action.

A business is an association of individual people. If people have agency, then businesses must have agency, as well.

And in any case, as the saying goes, it takes two to tango.

Likewise, most people across the world seem to use "American" and "U.S. citizen" interchangeably, even though Canada and Brazil, for example, are in the Americas, making Canadians and Brazilians American, as well.

Why would you ignore that this is a map? That's the point - the data is now conveniently visualized as a map...

Someone's permit could be for business, which means the handgun,if they even have one, may not even be at the house.

True. And your argument would be further strengthened if you pointed out that some of these are 5-year permits and some are lifetime permits. So, many of these individuals may have sold their guns, died, moved out of state, etc.

Or worse, it's conceal and carry

CCW permits are very, very difficult to get in New York.

I know burglars may be low lifes, but they're also kind of lazy. The time it would take to thoroughly research a gun burglary could be sent going to another state and buying legal guns by the bundle.

I have no idea how likely it is that criminals would use this data, only that it's now much more convenient for them to do so.

Obviously non-felons have a much easier time getting guns. People who steal guns or buy illegal guns usually aren't allowed to buy them, most likely because they are already felons.

Now that they have a convenient list, they can stake out these locations, wait for the residents to leave, and break in to begin their search for guns they know will be inside.

Starting in the 1970s the West deinstitutionalized[1]. But at least in the US we never sufficiently funded community care, which was supposed to replace mental institutions. So the severely mentally ill end up living on the street (where they're often the victims of violence[2]) or in jails and prisons (which if you squint sort of resemble mental institutions, though without the emphasis on medical care).

Whatever we as a society try next, we need to recognize that with our current medical knowledge there are no cures for mental illnesses, only management. So our approaches need to be both humane and long-term. Returning full-circle to institutionalization in jails and prisons utterly fails those tests, offering brutal conditions, short-term containment, and usually insufficient medical care. We can do better.

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deinstitutionalisation

[2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prognosis_of_schizophrenia#Viol...

If a reduction in globalization is the worst case scenario the authors envision in the next 20 years, I think they may be lacking somewhat in imagination.