kinleyd

I'm a long time virtualbox user but had never played with headless vms and never realized how easy that is with vagrant. Additionally, using vagrant to get a coreos vm running, with docker all set up, was pretty cool. So far I'm finding the payload of the vms rather heavy (with the os overhead), but I haven't really got down to setting up individual docker app containers. I'm looking forward to that, and even more to what could lie ahead for this space: vagrant, coreos, docker, chef/puppet all look to making a very promising convergence.

The article is spot on in many respects, except for the reference to finding only one applicant to Brown that he really enthused over. That is his experience, but in mine I can assure you that there were a heck of a lot of students most top universities in the US would compete over. In my time the principal and other staff were far more liberal - there seems to have been a sad regression judging from the position of the present principal.

Yes going beyond the everyday meaning of the words we use, I agree with you fully. I'm just a beginner on the path, full of the fabrications and paradoxes we all live with, and I'm really looking forward to having them all blown away, or more likely - dissolved - as I dive deeper into it. Ah, aspiration!

As you have correctly stated, Buddhism is not about escaping from life but meeting it head on. I don't think I've said anything that would suggest I'm for escaping.

Is anyone saying "stop being such a crybaby" is the solution for all problems? No way. And certainly not the Buddhist way.

Returning to your points on PTSD, schizophrenia, BPD and ADDHD, I can state quite positively that I've read no Buddhist texts so far that discuss these disorders, let alone prescribe Buddhism as the cure. So again, we are more in agreement than not, unless of course you believe that all fear, discouragement and depression amount to PTSD, schizophrenia, BPD and ADDHD (in which case I would have to level the round trip fallacy charge at you!).

However, personally I believe modern medicine is far from understanding properly any of these disorders, and the treatment for them - mainly drugs - is an unhappy one even if that's all we have.

At the same time I also believe that there is a tendency to find the quick fix (what better than a drug) or a solution outside of ourselves (psychotherapy). Not every condition requires this sort of intervention, but there is a very strong trend and tendency to provide it and that's a pity.

That's an awesome story. I'm only scratching at the surface, and something tells me that it's going to take a lot longer than that, if ever, for me.

but then again, practicing for 5, 10, 20+ years and awakening is also not guaranteed.

For most of us, for sure. However, on the positive side, even many lifetimes of trying is but a mere tick on the clock of samsara. :)

My view of Buddhism is heavily Mahayana and Vajrayana based, and I know little of Hinayana and the other 'vehicles'. In this context, emphasis is placed on one's teacher mainly because it is believed that it is very, very easy to understand things completely wrongly and to go off on a tangent that is harmful to oneself and others. The teacher is thus your guide, while the work of attaining enlightenment is still very much your own.

This of course is not to say that Buddhahood isn't possible without a teacher; it's just that it is rather more unlikely and difficult.

IMHO, the Buddhist recommendation to exercise this type of necessary skepticism is to try it out, to experience it. If your experience confirms what the received wisdom is said to be, you are probably on the right track. Of course, there are lots of other basics, including the most basic of all - get a good teacher. Needless to say, the meaning of "good" in this respect always requires a modicum of circumspection. :)

Yup, there's lots of stuff like those you mentioned to divert your attention. The idea is to give you a reason to get started. In this case I'd say something like Nike's Just Do It as mentioned in some of the other threads is a tad overconfident. The Buddhist way would more likely be Life is Short. Just Get Started.

However, as an old fogie, I recall a craze back in the 70s and 80s called 5BX, which stood for 5 basic exercises, created by Swedish aircrew iirc. The reason I recalled it is the mention of rapid-style jumping jacks and push ups in the 7-minute workout. 5BX had increasingly quickened routines for jumping jacks (from a crouching position), sit-ups and push-ups (with claps thrown in as you completed each push-up).

All of this worked very well in terms of actually toning your body, getting a good daily cardio workout, and a sense of fitness... until it did irreparable back and other damage to quite a few people. So just be careful, especially if the high intensity and the 7 minute time limit drives you to a regimen that gets anywhere close to a 5BX style work out in terms of quick, jerky movements.

Personally, I've reverted to playing basketball like I did in my college days, with high intensity worked into it with repeated lay up, jump shot routines, etc. It's working great for cardio and overall body toning. I would like to do weights as well, as there is a body of evidence pointing to its value, but basketball is plenty far for me at this stage.

I think there is some fuzzy logic going on here: If the majority are 1/10 developers (as the op asserts) and thus form the baseline x, aren't the 1/1 developers by definition 10x developers?

I really liked the article, as I'm almost exactly like the way the op described himself. Hot proof: my tax returns were due 15 days ago and here I am, eagerly discussing the issue of procrastination. Much of the last two weeks was also spent watching the second leg of the Champions League football matches (ah, Barca, you recovered magnificently from a two goal deficit - well done!).

It's a really big problem.

There was another article recently on HN which I really liked [1]. I tried it. Yelling "You're an ANIMAL! You're an ANIMAL!" at myself as I perused my tax documentation. It hasn't worked yet and I've now scheduled another session. For Monday.

[1] http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20130313143038-54...

However, Datomic puts together a whole host of other concepts - data immutability and all its resulting benefits; separation of query, storage, write, coordination (with carefully considered trade-offs); Datalog-based querying in place of SQL; in-app access to data with a great solution for the string concatenation hell that we've all gone through trying to juggle our SQL, and the list goes on.

I don't think any of these individually make Datomic special, but collectively? IMHO, outstanding!

Edit: For those interested, we have a new Datomic Community on G+ where we have collected a number of links to Datomic resources and videos: https://plus.google.com/communities/109115177403359845949

All you have to do is download a little script called lein. You run it to get a skeleton project set up. Add whatever libraries/dependencies you need for the project, including the Clojure version, in the project.clj script. Then start the repl using lein ($ lein repl), and Bob's your Uncle - leiningen manages everything after that. No complicated tool chain set up, not even any need to rely on the package installers on your OS (and the usually outdated versions they provide).

I couldn't help you with an article that tells all, but that was a really compelling story for me.

With the arrival of technomancy at heroku, they also provide a full-stack Clojure platform for your Clojure web applications, with a free version for those interested in experimenting.

[1] http://www.heroku.com/