ejp

Could you elaborate on the github permissions required if I sign in via that method? Write access to all public repos is what I'm interested in particularly.

This looks really slick!

How well does it work with some kind of lock-screen security? The UX for that is always a hassle, and I'd love to find someone who is doing it well.

I've been quite happy with one of these: http://www.amazon.com/s/?ie=UTF8&keywords=modtable

Somewhat expensive, but costs less than a geekdesk/etc.

Evernote is perfect for using as a commonplace book [1] for exactly this purpose. The only drawback is that it's hard to view in a chronological order, which is a key part of the commonplacing idea. Seems like a blog platform on top of it could solve this right away.

Now I just need to get around to reading those books I want to excerpt from...

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

You might want to include searches for 'hg revision' etc - mercurial suffers from having its command-line invocation different from its name.

Does Thomas Paine himself not qualify as a 'founding father'? "Without the pen of the author of Common Sense, the sword of Washington would have been raised in vain.” --John Adams [1]

Whenever I see arguments rooted in the founder's intent, I always wonder exactly which founding fathers the arguer will choose.

In truth the people who might qualify as 'founding fathers' had a wide variety of political opinions. Perhaps the only unifying trait was that they were able to compromise to get things done.

I'm hoping your comment was purposeful hyperbole...

[1]: http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/10/16/061016crbo_books (via Wikipedia)

Thanks! I guess I was thinking of the Android permissions, which are separate for read/write IIRC.

Does anyone know why the app needs permission to manage Google Contacts? The rest of the permissions make sense, I just don't get this one.

It is definitely still a problem. If we discard the programming-centric judgement metric, we are left with essentially no common ground on which to form opinions, so that's clearly a non-starter as well.

I don't have an answer for all of this, on either side. It seems to be rift-causing issue from both directions. I think that rift is something of a false dichotomy, which is my main problem with this issue. The people in this debate are all actually on the same side - they care enough to debate it. What they care about may differ, but that hardly seems to matter in my eyes, as long as they do care.

(I dislike all the downvotes you've received out of disagreement - it was a thought-provoking comment that has continued the discussion. I upvoted, for what it's worth. Playing devil's advocate seems to have gotten you singed a bit. :) )

I'm sure his children don't see his worth as a father improved by the time he spends coding open source instead of interacting with them. A similar thing can be said for every other non-programmer he interacts with. Perhaps he won't leave the programming legacy that you or he would like, but that doesn't discount the value of the other legacies he may create in the meantime.

(Apologies if my gender bias above is incorrect.)

I think that the 501 argument at its core is that we shouldn't judge a programmer's personal value solely by their programming. Programming is the one thing that everyone in this argument has in common, so it's easy to turn it into the only metric by which we judge people. Any other metric might not apply to all of us, so it would be of limited use.

I think 501 developers are tired of being scorned or feeling guilty for not dedicating themselves to programming all the time when other segments of their life need attention too. But let's face it - if they weren't passionate about programming, they would hardly take the time out to make the argument.

I'm not sure the (productivity/inch of screen) metric is something we want to optimize. If you reduce your screen size by 50% (24" to 12") and only lose 40% of your productivity, it's not really a win to me. Granted I use 2x24" monitors in portrait orientation and still maximize everything, so I may be an outlier here.

The side effects of screen size reduction are really what provides a benefit for creative work: control your work environment, ruthlessly cull distractions, minimize useless meetings and interactions. It's a classic recipe for achieving flow, and you don't have to reduce your screen real estate if you don't want to.

Agreed, I think this shows where government spending is a primary economic force more than anything else. New Mexico for instance is full of federally-funded labs and nuclear facilities, and has a low population - so per capita government spending looks huge. The tradeoff here is that other, more populous states don't have WIPP in their backyard. Not to mention all the useful environmental factors NM offers (like White Sands).

With so many other factors affecting where overall government spending goes, it would be a mistake to link this to politics at all.