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glynjackson

159 karma · joined September 21, 2013

UK Freelance Python/Django Developer with a passion for what I do.

www.glynjackson.org

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glynjackson··on Why Must You Pay Sales People Commissions?
> "An engineers actions are so far removed from revenue that they can't make a claim so directly"

This statement is simply not true in my experience as an engineer in the tech industry for over 15 years. Sell a bad product 'once', and the sales person 'ability' to sell it again will decrease. Sales people ultimately sell a project and its features, interpreted by engineers. You must incentivise an engineer to be creative, write better features and good code or you run the risk of having something that destroys a sales person reputation along with the companies revenue!

glynjackson··on You can train your body into thinking it’s had medicine
There are many, many ways to test! A control group, quasi-experiment evaluation etc. "Correlation does not imply causation". All she has is a hypothesis, a theory based on observational research, while this is ok, the article tries to pass this off as 'fact'.

I'm not staying I disagree with her 'hypothesis' but, people should require evidence before accepting it as fact. Maybe if she have quoted studies, instead she used well know experiments to justify the hypothesis. When the one experiments she did quote by Sergey Metalnikov even concludes...

"The difficulty for the investigator lies not so much in inducing such responses, but in employing the proper controls, both immunological and psychological, in order to demonstrate that these responses exist and to explore the underlying mechanisms." - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK3908/

I guess a book entitled "What I think" would not sell as well.

glynjackson··on You can train your body into thinking it’s had medicine
Quote: "By the end of the year, she had received just six doses of the drug instead of the usual twelve. Marette responded just as her doctors would have hoped from the full drug amount."

I'm sorry, at this point I stopped reading. The Doctors don't know how she would have responded to the full drug, because it didn't happen! The word 'hoped' is not testable! Where was the control (Quasi-experiment)? There is just not way to tell if she would have responded better, for all we know she was 50% better than she could have been if she'd taken the full 12 doses. Or maybe 6 doses was just the right amount for her.

I do believe that the brain is a powerful tool and have read research that shows we can change things like body heat, pain and more with mind, but this story did not have anything that evaluated the impact and cannot be used as evidence of such!

glynjackson··on This 3-Minute Exercise Will Actually Fix Your Posture
The second he made-up a statistic quote: 9 out of 10 computer problems are fixed by turning it off and on again (I love IT crowd), I stopped listening!
glynjackson··on Oculus Rift Pre-Orders to Open on January 6
I'm more looking forward to seeing the Sony VR. It's rumoured to be around the $250-$350 price mark. Sony have a history of getting traction despite not having the best spec/product, for example, remember HD DVD vs Blu Ray?
glynjackson··on Scout Launches New Relic Alternative
Do you have timeframes on other languages and how you are giving priority?
glynjackson··on Ask HN: IDE Right Screen == Better Problem Solving Skills?
I believe there is more at play here. I hope someone more qualified would research this, very interesting.
glynjackson··on Ask HN: IDE Right Screen == Better Problem Solving Skills?
Wow, this is really interesting stuff. One could read from this that to be more creative, say, for designers they should focus on the left screen.
glynjackson··on A curl cheat sheet
Found httpie sometime back. I still use curl but 80% of the time I use httpie now.
glynjackson··on Modus Operandi: Poses as an investor to be wined and dined, then disappears
I really feel sorry for the guy, but even just a few simple due diligence checks would have shown the company has no money even the accounts are overdue: http://companycheck.co.uk/company/07335249/WORLD-GLANCE-LIMI... http://wck2.companieshouse.gov.uk//compdetails On top of that the website screams fake. A limited company should always show company number and have contact details.
glynjackson··on Gevent now supports Python 3
Thanks so much for this. I've been using gevent 1.1a2 to support Python 3.4. Does this mean we are out of Alpha? __init__.py shows 1.1a3 tho!
glynjackson··on Why Can’t We Fall Asleep?
Is there any evidence that dark colour schemes when coding help sleep pattens? I ask because after using the default theme of sublimetext for 6 months then going back to white background for a few days made it difficult to sleep at night. Anyone else found this?
glynjackson··on Why Can’t We Fall Asleep?
I often work late or watch movies on my laptop in bed. About 6 months ago I read about how screens/backlight have a negative effect on sleep pattens. I found an app called Flux (https://justgetflux.com/). A simple idea that makes a computer's display adapt to the time of day. I still have problem sleeping but, not as much as I use to!
glynjackson··on Help, I’m Trapped in Facebook’s Absurd Pseudonym Purgatory
Instead of Facebook owing your photos and ID, they now own your phone numbers and your friends phone numbers! Not the best swap. WhatsApp Terms: "In order to prevent and reduce unsolicited spam messages, as well as to improve your in-app experience, WhatsApp uses the phone numbers from your phone's address book." "WhatsApp looks at the phone numbers in your address book, then checks to see which of those numbers are verified in WhatsApp." http://www.whatsapp.com/faq/en/general/20971813
glynjackson··on Watching and Re-Watching “The Mother of All Demos”
He shows a chorded keyboard for shorthand typing, how did that not catch on! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chorded_keyboard

Strange feeling watching the first computer mouse demo, first TODO list tutorial, code folding, auto numbering etc. According to Wikipedia he never received any royalties for his mouse invention.

glynjackson··on Turbocharged Raspberry Pi 2 unleashed
Really? Build a button yourself to overlock! The Pi is about giving you the tools, now, go forth and build.
glynjackson··on LSD: The Geek's Wonder Drug? (2006)
I agree, my few experiences don't prove anything. He mixed LSD, cannabis and alcohol on that night. I also agree, I knew very little about his mental health before that day. His section (involuntary confinement to a mental institution) was not taken lightly. What I do know is Doctors said the drugs (cannabis and LSD) had triggered an underlining mental illness. He developed severe paranoid personality disorder (PPD).

The other point you made is incredibly important, taking such drugs does not guaranteed you will become more creative. It is important you research, why you want to take it and your current/past health problems.

After a lot of research I have personally have taken nootropics on and off for many years. As a programmer I often work long hours, I need to function and problem solve. I found them to aid in learning and memory. Nasty ADHD drugs give me side effects and are just legalised amphetamines. Nootropics like Aniracetam seem to have the same effect with little to no side effects (for me).

glynjackson··on LSD: The Geek's Wonder Drug? (2006)
My theory is that there is NO direct correlation between drugs like cannabis or LSD and creativity.

I know some talented people, experiences when I was young was watching friends "stoned"/"high" but talking utter crap! The next day after the trip (without fail) these already smart people "think" they have said or done something profound, but they never did!

Days later, their own creative genius is pushed on a search to find out what they said or did that was so profound/creative. Sometimes they do something amazing, but most of the time they don't!

When I was 20 at university (I'm in my 30s now) a friend of mine took cannabis and LSD for the first time. It was not something I did, not because of any moral high ground, but because it also kinda scared me. During the nightout he started to act really strange, bad trip everyone assumed. That weekend (the day after) his mum called asking us all what he had taken, he had been sectioned under the mental health act. It turned out his family had a history of mental health problems. He was sectioned for almost 2 years and never finished Uni.

glynjackson··on Why might a C++ programmer say “I could never write Python”?
I know I will get some backlash for saying this, but there is a lot to be said for a good IDE. - PyCharm (a Python IDE) would detect the example given. The word "elephant" would be grey (parameter not used) and the live Python interpreter would underline "elephnt" (Unknown reference) upon pressing return.

He does state "by default" this would not be detected, which is true. Yes, the compiler isn't always on your back, but Jenkins is ;)

What the title should say is "Why might a C++ programmer find Python tedious"- Answer, because he/she has to write tests.

glynjackson··on Amazon’s New Cloud Prices Show That Google Is Now a Threat
My decision on which provider to use is based on trust. How can any developer trust that Google won't pull the rug out from under them. This can happen with AWS too but Google has a history of doing this. No matter how cheap I'll stick with AWS and the safer bet for my business, thanks!
glynjackson··on Tornado Without a GIL on PyPy STM
Rubbish! It is called an open standard for a reason. http://www.toptal.com/python/why-are-there-so-many-pythons
glynjackson··on [dead]
Having read some of the research the whole theory is based around a shawl found around the fourth victim belonging to Aaron Kosminski.

Now It could well be him but this "evidence" does not prove this. All it does prove is that the shawl belonged to Aaron (DNA from semen). Aaron Kosminski who by the way had a history with prostitutes. At best this merely confirms that he was acquainted with Eddowes, a prostitute.

glynjackson··on JSON Web Tokens
I have used itsdangerous a lot with DRF and it works really well, good call.
glynjackson··on A visual guide to selling Software as a Service
wow, glad you make sense of that!
glynjackson··on A visual guide to selling Software as a Service
Cool, thats just what I was after.
glynjackson··on A visual guide to selling Software as a Service
I clicked on the linked out of curiosity. I must say, I am glad I did. By far the best presentation I have seen on this subject. It is a bit pro slack, but I can forgive that for the content.

On slide 25, could anyone give context? Are they saying that they engage 60% of their users, of this they get 2% paying? That even seems a little high to me.

glynjackson··on YouTab: Automatically get chords for music
Wow, this is an amazing piece of work.

I tried a few songs. It was not clear you could make the screen larger but once I did I just loved the way it counts the beats.

The second song I tried did not work. It stated the song could not be analysed because it was not public, although it was in the search results.

The last song: https://www.youtab.me/search/arctic-monkeys-mar it did not do so well on, but I guess this is where the community comes in.

glynjackson··on Google tips off cops after spotting child abuse images in email
When you use Google (Gmail) you signup to their terms of service. It states that incoming and outgoing emails are analysed by automated software. The article makes it seems like staff at Google are reading peoples emails or spying on its customers. They don't!
glynjackson··on Django 1.7 release candidate 2
Me too. I'm so happy that South is now baked into the 1.7 release.
glynjackson··on Awesome Django – A curated list of awesome Django apps and projects
Have you not looked at django-notifications? (https://github.com/django-notifications/django-notifications)
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