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> 3) Movies: you should watch them with subtitles in the spoken language.

I can't believe I never thought to do this. Great idea, thanks!

Reminds me of a real-life version of something from Pynchon's Bleeding Edge -- inching toward parody, but still believable. (In this case, unlike in the novel, because it's actually true...)

ktfon OS X Command Line Utilities

Also works great in XFCE, in my experience.

ktfon The Absurdity of LinkedIn

I don't even have a LinkedIn account, I've never had an account, and I still receive their emails. It's mystifying...

ktfon Ask HN: What happens to older developers?

What kind of "technical minutiae" do you put in your Anki deck? I use Anki for Japanese study, but I've been thinking about doing more with it. Wasn't quite sure how to make useful tech flashcards... outside of memorizing as many powers of 2 as I could :)

ktfon Debian 7.4 Released

This is awesome, thanks! I've always assumed that PPAs were Ubuntu-only magic for some reason.

ktfon Code is not Literature

Some literature really does need to be "decoded" in a similar way, however. (Speaking as someone who recently finished Ulysses...)

ktfon Fix Ubuntu

Alternative method: click the big on/off switch for online search results.

Don't get me wrong -- I'm not defending Ubuntu. I think it's gross that they include this at all, and extra-gross that it's on by default. But let's not get too carried away with the hyperbole and conspiracy theories.

Just read the source! Or if you don't trust the source, just examine your network traffic. Pretty easy to verify whether the button does what it claims...

EDIT/PSA: Don't copy/paste things from a website directly into your terminal. See http://thejh.net/misc/website-terminal-copy-paste, for example.

ktfon Fix Ubuntu

Did you read the linked article? It doesn't matter what it looks like you're copying/pasting, or how it's explained in the site you're copying/pasting it from.

ktfon Debugging In Vim

Yeah, I guess I should have qualified the above by saying that I've only used it with PHP/xdebug (so far).

Still, if you're trapped in the DBGP world for whatever reason, vdebug is miles better than any competition that I've found.

ktfon Ask HN: Examples of good writing in computer science?

Didn't even have to think about this one: Eloquent Javascript, by Marijn Haverbeke. He's an amazing writer and a brilliant all-around guy. Technically it's geared toward new programmers, but it's worth a read at pretty much any level.

You can find it free online here: https://eloquentjavascript.net/ or buy a print version here: http://nostarch.com/ejs.

(Full disclosure: I'm listed as the editor on the print version, though in this case my job basically consisted of nodding as chapters came in and saying, "Yup, that's a damn good book.")

ktfon Debugging In Vim

I highly recommend vdebug (https://github.com/joonty/vdebug) if you're looking for a great Vim interface to DBGP debuggers (for PHP, Python, Ruby, Perl, Node, etc.). Really nice, especially compared to the countless half-broken and out-of-date Vim/DBGP plugins that are scattered around vim.org and github.

ktfon The Visual Patterns of Audio Frequencies Seen through Vibrating Sand

There's a really fun exhibit at the Exploratorium in SF that demonstrates this. Not quite so fancy, but if you can shove some kids out of the way it's still pretty cool to play with!

ktfon A new Gmail inbox

So I have to manually fix gmail's incorrect assumptions about how I want my mail to be filtered rather than manually put my own correct filters in place?

Doesn't seem right for me, but I guess I can see the draw for folks who don't want to deal with setting this stuff up themselves. (Which is probably most folks.)

ktfon The Unexotic Underclass

This has been true since the beginning of film's history, with rare exceptions. Spectacle sells, even going back to the point when the technology of film itself was the spectacle. (See for example the always-thrilling L'Arrivée d'un Train Ã la Ciotat: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dgLEDdFddk)

If you want "film as art," it's generally best to avoid studio mega-corps designed to make cash.

ktfon A new Gmail inbox

Is this different than folders? Or labels? Is the primary benefit here that these categories are more prominent in the UI?

ktfon The Art of Finding Anyone’s Email Addresses

I've had great luck with this, actually. At the very least there's a chance you'll find some dummy address that forwards to a real address, and get a response that way.

ktfon I'm writing a book on Flask, the Python web framework

Just don't give up if you don't hit your date! I edited technical books for four years and never once had an author actually hit their target date.

But do set a new target date if you miss your original one. Having a big red circle on the calendar can be an amazing motivator, even if there's no consequences for missing it.

Good luck!

ktfon Tesla Smashes Earnings And Revenue Expectations

Great explanation, thank you!

ktfon Nerds, we need to have a talk (2011)

It's interesting to me that the Hacker School "rules" post, that essentially boiled down to the same thing (Don't Be a Jerk), is filled with positive comments:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5639430

While this one is full of people attacking the guy, basically proving his point.

ktfon Fix random few-second freezes in Mountain Lion

I'm seeing the same thing. This is my first real Mac experience, got it from/for work, wasn't sure if something like this was "normal". (I'm a long-time Linux user, so I'm used to putting up with a lot of bullshit from my desktop.)

I've found a handful of forum posts and support requests, but no solution other than "it's probably a hardware defect and you should return it".

ktfon Thesis Hatement

After receiving my BS in computer science I went on to get my MA in film studies. I considered going for the PhD, but decided I didn't really care for the taste of academia I had gotten. (To me, it basically seemed like politics, but without the money.)

When interviewing for engineering positions afterward, my interviewers would often try to put some spin on my MA, like:

"Well, I'll bet an intensive two-year study of film made you a better developer."

To which I'd reply, "No. No it didn't. It was fun though, and I learned a lot. I'd do it again in a heartbeat."

Not everything is about software, and not everything has to be. I didn't spend those years studying film as some oblique exercise in... well, in anything. And the value I gained from the experience can't be measured in dollars. (As cheesy as that sounds...)

ktfon Times Haikus

Eh, I think the only somewhat-hard requirement is seventeen syllables, and even that is often waved in favor of aesthetics. Plus they really tend to work better in Japanese anyway.

Somewhat on-topic: Jack Kerouac made attempts to "Americanize" the haiku form a bit, which I always thought were pretty neat. I think they're collected in a book called (something like) Book of Haiku.

I still like your idea though :)

ktfon Times Haikus

Awesome! Similar in spirit to (though far cooler than) a simple project I threw together to learn/play with Ruby:

http://haikubot.herokuapp.com/

Not sure my single Heroku dyno with stand up to any kind of HN-hammering, so click with caution :)

(Or see https://github.com/keithfancher/HaikuBot)

ktfon [dead]

I can't tell if this comment is serious or not, which makes me want to upvote it even more!

ktfon Just Use Sublime Text

I think his point is that you start out using it that way. Training wheels, sort of, which eventually will come off.

ktfon How to Live on Twenty-Four Hours a Day (1910)

I liked this a lot, though I disagree with his position on fiction (i.e. "if it's difficult it's not worth reading"). I get his point though.

And speaking of difficult literature, many points in this little book reminded me of David Foster Wallace's awesome commencement speech from some years back, which you can listen to (un-idly!) in two parts, here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vET9cvlGJQw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEjVnB7AeBQ

ktfon Stop Whining About Google Reader

Seriously, guys. Your favorite RSS reader has been deprecated. Not only is this not the end of the world, it is something that one-million-percent does not matter. Let it go!

Worst case scenario: you try a different RSS reader, and it works okay. You are in no danger of missing that all-important news article or blog post that all your friends are reading.

I take it back. Worst case scenario: RSS itself implodes, is obliterated from the face of the earth, and now you have to visit news websites and (manually!) click the refresh button to ensure that you're not missing that life-or-death article or blog post.

Wait, hang on -- I take it back. Here's the really-truly worst case scenario: instead of sitting impatiently with your lips wrapped around the proverbial firehose, desperately afraid that your content-thirst can never be sated without Google's help, you go out and actually create some content of your own.

(Or just buy a fucking newspaper. Jeez.)

ktfon Contest: recreate Mondrian painting in code, win exposition in museum

More-or-less off-topic, but if you live in SF you should check out the house near Ocean Beach that's painted like a Mondrian:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/carlbeanlarson/6184099446/

I forget the exact cross street -- somewhere between Judah and Taravel, overlooking the beach. A good excuse for a walk on the beach, if nothing else!

ktfon Editorial: "How piracy changed my life"

Downloading a pirated version of Visual Studio 6 over a 56k modem definitely changed my life in high school, and allowed me to write code I wouldn't have otherwise been able to. (I still have those discs, mostly for nostalgia's sake.)

Of course what changed my life even more was subsequently downloading Slackware Linux (on that same 56k connection!) and realizing that I didn't need to pirate an expensive IDE to write code...