steerpike

I guess the first step is probably to try and articulate a few appropriate 'spheres' for people to register an interest in and then try and figure out what opposing sphere would consist of.

I'm also a jquery advocate, but you can get a fairly useful indication of how different frameworks are set up here: http://mankz.com/code/GlobalCheck.htm

Plus, 5 is a little lo when you also take into account screen readers and other user agents.

Or all of the above?

For god's sake, what is this site and why the hell does it get articles posted to HN so often? Technology isn't interesting unless you're interested in technology - trying to stir up interest in the industry by constantly waffling on about the peripheral bullshit that is part of any business as if it's some kind of unique experience for the 'tech sphere' is just utter bullshit.

It's embarassing to our industry that development is turning into a geek verion of E! or some bullshit.

Clearly expecting my boss to fold and berate his staff she was shocked into silence by my boss turning to her and saying:

"Ma'am, please don't ask me to choose between my staff and my customers, because you just wont win."

Needless to say, every single one of his staff was massively dedicated to him and did our utmost to reflect it in our work.

Plus I've discovered some seriously awesome sites through them that otherwise would have passed me by.

"I only submitted it to the hackernews aggregator totally by accident, I swear."

Look, I'm sure you were just having your fun and all that but frankly I found your childishness in treating people who are just trying to do a job utterly repellent. The kind of fun you're talking about is the same kind of fun kids get frying ants with a magnifying glass - smallminded, petty and vindicative without anything redeeming to show for it.

EDIT: p.s. You're an even bigger liar than I originally intimated because if this was not originally supposed to be made public you wouldn't bloody well have submitted it to: Digg: http://digg.com/users/sxates Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/user/sxates/ and whatever else social sites you're on.

Utter bullshit.

You gave them a childish, nonsensical brief and utterly wasted the opportunity presented to show clients clear, definitive examples why this process is so much weaker than working with a proper designer.

All they've done is make themselves and supposedly ‘professional’ designers look like dicks, while utterly failing to illustrate to any non-design readers why they shouldn’t go with the $50 logo people.

Top work.

Hold your hands behind your back as you face the audience just before you start.

Clench your hands into fists as tight as you can while also clenching up your butt.

Hold that pose and your breath for a few seconds and then relax and breath out.

Anyone facing you will not be able to tell what you're doing if you just clench your stress in your fists and your butt until you release it.

That's her final sentence, I don't know what the take away from that is if it isn't 'People should give money to artists out of the generosity of their heart.'

Your solution on the other hand seems to be that art is outdated and artists should give it up if they aren't making money from it? Art = Buggy whips in your argument apparently? Not sure what motor cars are supposed to equate to but I'm sure most 'artists' would be willing to move towards making them if you could explain to us what they are in your analogy.

Everybody makes career and life choices, everybody gets to live with the consequences. This is true, except that in the case of artists it's incredibly difficult to assume personal responsibility for their own success. Let's say some struggling writer's day job is a programmer (a not uncommon situation). If this person dedicates a good amount of time towards programming, enjoys it and sticks with it, honing their craft day by day then it's a pretty sure thing that those choices will pay off in the form of a decent job and comfortable salary.

There is nothing he can do to guarantee that his writing will pay off no matter what career and life choices he makes.

Now here's my main point: there is no fundamental difference between the process required to become a good programmer and the process required to become a good writer. The personal choices, decisions and personal(* ) rewards required to stick with and become capable at both are almost identical.

Why on earth is this woman trying to maintain that 'Art' is some esoteric special case that should be treated any differently from so many other identical processes?

(* ) By 'personal rewards' I mean that the level of self worth and enjoyment for engaging in any classically 'artistic' process is often exactly the same as that enjoyed by scientists thinking about new theories, architects thinking about beautiful design, programmers having a eureka moment with code or any number of similar experiences across any number of professions.

EDIT: I'll also just take a second to respond to this part of your comment: Just like if someone wanted to work 2 or 3 days a week to spend more time with their kids, or take 6 month holidays every year to wander in the Andes.

The comparison between taking a holiday or spending time with the kids and engaging in some artistic process - as if 'doing art' is the same as taking a holiday is exactly what I think this woman is promoting and it's exactly what I think is so moronic about the article. Being good at anything artistic is f'ing hard work. Full stop.

I'm sorry but the section you quoted is utterly fatuous, without any kind of figures to back it up. I could quite as easily say that the vast number of painters, poets, authors, actors, musicians and sculptors that I personally know would be estatic to be earning $75,000 a year (or equivalent depending on location). Especially since most of them are currently struggling on a minicule percentage of that amount year after year after year without any certainty that they will eventually be able to use the skills they've honed to pay their way in society.

As far as I can tell her entire argument seems to boil down to 'Art is special and people should give money to artists because it's special'. I'm not entirely sure how that can be taken as any kind of argument.

Art of any kind is a skill, it takes years of hard work and dedication to hone that skill. Her intimation that 'Art' is the domain of the muse and inspiration utterly ignores the enormous amounts of effort every single artist commits to honing their craft.

This kind of idiotic talk just makes me so damn furious. Segregating artists as some kind of 'special needs cases' that should rely on the goodwill of others in order to do normal things like want to raise a family or buy a house or pay for dinner out is a disgusting suggestion, not worthy of consideration.

From their descriptions of a troll's comments, they make it seem like trolls are easy to spot and moderate when real trolls are often anything but.

The main focus of a troll is an attempt to game other human beings. That doesn't have anything to do with swearing or abusive language and it sure as hell isn't easy to spot.

Frankly, from the techniques described in the article, I think the only one that has a hope in hell of working against real trolls is the slashdot one. All the others are just casting a net over foul language and blatant stupidity.

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