peterb

To export to LaTeX, see: http://orgmode.org/org.html#LaTeX-and-PDF-export

Amen.

I agree, but take it one step further: it is unethical NOT to walk away.

The whole point of the clause is to ensure everyone is taking equal risk in evaluating the property: the bank and the owner. It is bad for banks to make loans without suitable collateral. It is bad for you to take loans you can't afford.

In an overheated housing market, the house is NOT good collateral. The banks made a well-researched business decision to give you the mortgage with the house as collateral. They made a mistake (as did you) and everyone loses. The bank gets killed on the mortgage and you get killed on your original equity, interest and credit rating.

It would be unethical not to walk away as this would encourage everyone to repeat the bad behavior.

An interesting article. Unfortunately the results are biased unless they are double blind tests.

Not with Chrome on OSX. Browser hangs & dies.

Exactly. Many (most?) geeks use an adblocker.

I felt the same way until I watched many of the presentations. TED has some very deep thinkers. I don't find deep, complex subjects "liberal" or "bland". Just my opinion.

I like to buy local simply because I like Dwight (my Angus beef farmer), Steve (my lamb guy) and the chicken lady down the street (I forget her name). Seriously, these are interesting people who work hard at their craft and have to perform some serious "hacks" to get their work done (how do you keep coyotes out of the hen house?). I like them, I like them in the neighborhood, and they inspire me for my own work. I'm willing to pay more for that ... but in reality only the chickens are more expensive. Everything else is cheaper ... but you can't just go to Dwight at 6:30pm nad pick up a steak for dinner. You have to plan around the slaughter and freeze stuff.

I am the father of a Type 1 who is 8 years old. The problem is the same with any of the diabetes tools: you have to manually enter the numbers. Until you can get around this fundamental problem, you will have difficulty getting people to use the app. A mobile app helps, but it really needs to be automated. Also, many people will not share sensitive health information with a random website.

Keep an eye on what Google Health and Microsoft's Health Vault are doing. Good luck.

I respectfully disagree. I thought it was melodramatic, not funny and missed the mark for the vast majority of the audience watching.

I respectfully disagree. It is not a knee jerk reaction. The writing is on the wall for many single use 'gadgets': gps, point & shoot cameras, calculators, etc. It is not google per ce, but powerful pocket computers (iPhone, Android, etc.) that is driving the change. There will always be a need for niche single use gadgets, but for the mass market the multi-purpose pocket computer will dominate.

It is deja vu all over again.

Right. You can also look at it as a type of hack ... an emotional hack, if you will. It tends to work well with men. It is similar to the cliche teachers use: "you will never amount to anything". The idea is you will get so angry, you will self-motivate just to prove them wrong. The army also uses these tricks in boot camp.

A good leader will figure out a priori which techniques work with which people and apply them appropriately.

My experience with "stud technologists" is that they never call themselves "stud", "rockstar", "ninja", etc. The truly outstanding developers I have worked with were humble and a little on the shy, geeky side. Some may even have had Asperger's, which made socializing difficult.

Agreed. Microsoft has released best of breed products. But Microsoft's product decisions are largely driven by "PMs", whereas open source is driven by technical merit and Apple is driven by industrial design. Microsoft occupies this weird middle ground, call it "pragmatism" (or even MBA-driven design :-).

This middle ground results in weak consumer products like Vista and Microsoft Mobile. They aren't bad products, but lack the polish an industrial design-driven process could have produced. They also lack the technical depth that open source is producing. As a result Microsoft is getting squeezed from both ends.

Joel's products are similar: a good middle ground. Neither awe-inspiring (technical) or fun to use (design).

... and this explains, in detail, why Microsoft products are so much more difficult to use compared to Apple (designed by industrial designers) and less functional than FOSS (designed by programmers and domain experts). They are designed by committee and program managers who are smart, but fresh out of school with no real world experience.

Quality is quality, no matter how many people work at the company. Often it is preferable to do business with a one man shop versus Megacorp, because the guy/girl you are dealing with will do what it takes to keep your business.

The MPAA & RIAA are all about distribution. They want to maintain a lock on content so they (the distributors) make money, not the artists.

Not necessarily a bad assumption. However I think the word "materialistic" is being thrown around without considering its deeper meaning. Women must provide for their offspring, the survival of our genes depend upon it. This concept of "providing for their offspring" has historically meant choosing men who can help with this difficult task.

Materialism is a perfectly reasonable evolutionary outcome. It is nothing to be ashamed of or scoffed at. It has serious implications at the evolutionary level. If you have children you have to provide for them so they don't die.

One more data point. I switched and found it very painful to internalize keyboard commands while still having to do Windows work (i.e. switching back & forth). Once I went "mac-only", it got much easier, but now I suck at using Windows again.

Was it worth it? No. You can be fully productive in which ever platform you choose: Windows, Mac, or Linux. Each platform is fully mature. Productivity comes from your commitment to learning your tools and practicing.

There is an advantage to Linux as it allows you to truly learn (freedom). But you do loose time tweaking and yak shaving.

i think you missed the subtlety of travisjeffery's post. the montessori method of teaching is all about "Let your kids do what they want to do.". most young children have a natural "i'm full" signal that prevents obesity (any parent knows this). most kids are naturally curious. many of our greatest historical thinkers did not attend school and had lots of "do what you want" time. the "let kids do what they want" works surprisingly well when they have opportunities to explore and good role models.

my only other addition to the travisjefferies post is "and allow children to fail". too often we don't allow children to learn from their failures. this is part of being a "self starter". you don't fear failure because it has happened so many times though personal experimentation that you have an intrinsic understanding that "it's no big deal, i'll eventually figure it out".

A bike shed (any colour will do) on greener grass...

That was the point. You have to build up the small muscles that support your spine. Until that has happened, your lower back will hurt ... but that is a good sign. Once the muscles have developed, you can sit for hours and your posture is dramatically improved. That is what happened for me.

But now I'm thinking standing or walking is the way to go. There is deep evidence that walking while working improves performance ... and is more fun.

What has changed? In Woz's day, there were very few great programming jobs. HP & Bell Labs were two well known companies that had them. Giving one up was a big risk, if you loved programming. Today there are thousands of companies to chose from or you can easily roll your own.

Most programmers who are not ambitious tend to become dead wood soon enough. I've known lots of them. Top programmers, who still enjoy programming have a tendency to move on. At least that has been my personal observation.

There are always exceptions to the rule, we are talking in huge sweeping generalities here. YMMV.

You are in mourning. Emotionally it is similar to experiencing a death or divorce. Give yourself a little time to mourn in whatever way is good for you: have a good cry, get really drunk, beat the shit out of a wall, whatever. Failure sucks, now get over it. Your company's failure was not your failure. Learn from it, you are not invincible, now move on.

To use the old cliche: what doesn't kill us makes us stronger.

you format at the office through the api. this lowers the barrier to acquiring translators in faraway places. smart.