idea

PG, where can i exchange my karma points for real karma?

"Karma" is just an integer in a database. I can't image many people here really caring about that.

That's right. I have Alt+Space mapped to Launchy so i didn't test that.

I'm not afraid to say that i'm using Windows XP. :-)

But i don't see how this behaviour is related to a single click patent. Btw. it doesn't work with Firefox.

Neither do i. And i'm not arguing that FreeBSD should adopt git or another dvcs. But the time to learn them is imo not an argument against them.

I'm not convinced about the perceived difficulty to learn git et al. You and the other FreeBSD developers are OS hackers. You're telling me it's hard for them to learn a dvcs in a few days? Look at all the Rails developers and users. They seem to have few problems switching to git.

Many languages focus more and more on multi-core and distributed programming. Mainstream language like Java and C# will get more tools and libraries, but other languages will likely be better. One thing i like about startups is that you can freely pick technologies that are better or faster in solving a problem. You don't have to cope with the conservatism problem.

Personally i think that languages like Scala, F# and Erlang will be good to learn, depending on what platform you prefer. And Clojure also seems very cool. I know it's blasphemy around here, but Clojure is the only Lisp like language that i would like to learn.

I'm a small investor and i get free real time streaming data for Euronext Amsterdam, Brussels and Paris from my broker. It also shows the outstanding orders in the order book. It's fun to watch but if you observe closely it is very obvious that trading (instead of investing) is a game for the big boys who use intricate financial models and a massive amount of computing power. It's like competing directly with Google.

> I feel sorry for the animals.

I have that with any zoo. They may be treated well, but wild animals shouldn't be locked up for entertainment and profit.

I've read about similar services here in Europe before. But how they intend to implement it is interesting.

I suppose you're right. Hopefully he will explain it more in a future blog post.

> So type inference. You can do type inference. Except that it's lame, because it doesn't handle weird dynamic features like upconverting integers to Doubles when they overflow.

Pretty weak argument against type inference. Yegge has used OCaml so i expected better arguments.

And JavaScript 2 is getting type annotations, so the trend is more likely in the other direction to improve performance.

> When I tested the service I had something very similar to the “Aha!” feeling that ran through me the first time I ever used Google. In short, it is an evolutionary, and possibly revolutionary, step forward in search

Google's search engine wasn't revolutionary either. It was only moderately better than AltaVista and others. Most of all the visual design was cleaner. Google's main accomplishment was imo the introduction of AdSense.

Is it really necessary to create a thread for something trivial like this? Couldn't you just mail PG?

> I wouldn't be surprised if Google is working on its own competitor to Flash/Silverlight.

Microsoft has big problems getting Silverlight off the ground, although it is imo technically superior to Flash. I don't think it would be easier for Google to launch a competing platform. I personally think that they will bet on HTML5 through their partnership with Mozilla.

About a year ago i looked at the WordPress code. My PHP knowledge is limited, but it was easy to see that the code was not very good. Perhaps it has improved, but i personally wouldn't use it, especially on a server that runs important services.

Namecheap has recently become an ICANN accredited registar.

Even the openness is not what i was expecting last year. So what if it runs on Linux? You're stuck with whatever the Android SDK supports and you have to use Java.

Perhaps you'd like Microsoft's PowerShell if you have to use Windows. Microsoft is slowly realizing that many people like to use command line tools, especially for managing servers.

What in a Unix environment makes you more productive? The GUI of OSX is quite different from Gnome or KDE. Is it the command line with tools like grep?

[Rhino book] > When null is used in a Boolean context, it converts to false. When used in a numeric context, it converts to 0. And when used in a string context, it converts to "null".

I have recently tried the two OpenSolaris Indiana previews and for comparison Solaris 10 to see what Solaris is like. The Indiana project is a step in the right direction. But it seems to me that the complete lack of open development is a major problem of OpenSolaris. The individual Sun developers try hard to make Solaris more open, but Sun as a whole still wants control and keeps making unilateral decisions.

Then there are the old school Solaris admins that resist all substantial change of their favorite OS, even when it could bring in more users. Together with disgruntled community members because of Sun's actions the vibe of the community is not positive. I feel sorry for the Sun developers because they want to succeed and are technically very competent.

I had never heard about TipJoy and hacker news is YC central so there is still much work to be done for both companies before one can be called a leader.

I've learned Haskell by reading online tutorials and articles, but a new book (Real World Haskell) will be published and will likely be a good introduction to Haskell.

And the language for DTrace scripts is also called D.

Want to try my Exorcist script version 6.66 that turns a FreeBSD system into a Solaris system?

Facebook is overvalued. But the numbers 1 and 2 in a market are much more valuable than the rest. If you buy number 1 you are the market leader and if you buy the runner up you can fight for market share or buy some smaller players later on. The number 3 is only interesting if the company can quickly gain a lot of market share. Often those companies are sold off again if that does not happen.

Interesting story, but it also reads as a 4 pages long advertisement. I wonder if that's because Apple paid them, or if they are simply affected by the Apple hype in the US.

There's a new Haskell book coming written by well known people in the Haskell community: Real World Haskell (http://www.realworldhaskell.org/). I would advice to read a few tutorials on the net first to get a feeling of the language. Download GHC and experiment with GHCi. When you hit a roadblock (which definitely will come because functional programming is different) leave it for some time and do other programming and perhaps think about how you would do it in a functional language. Just take small steps.

Yesterday when i wanted to download something from microsoft.com i got a popup asking if i wanted to beta test the download with Silverlight. Of course i clicked it away. Downloading is a task of the browser. If the functionality is poor, fix the browser. Microsoft is not alone in this. Adobe, Sun and other companies also try to push useless download managers.