I suggested[0] the same thing a few months ago with a visual example of what I had in mind. Here it is again as a reminder: https://i.imgur.com/ZNQTn7q.png (I still think it's a great idea!).
I agree with you somewhat that using curse words in book titles can be amateurish, like clickbait in the physical world.
PS the reason you're being downvoted is most likely because you prefaced your comment with "I know my karma is going to get nuked, but...". That's very Redditesque and is usually not tolerated.
A simple solution is to not leave this book out for your 9-year-old (or realize your 9-year-old really isn't interested). You can't seriously expect them to release a PG alternative.
Really? I don't find it that shocking at all that most people might type at a tenth of the speed a programmer can type. I'm sure a chef could express the same awe at my inefficiency when making Kraft Dinner.
I was a college student during this time. I feel like people my age all ended up proficient at typing because of instant messenging (not just the "computer guys"). It was my preferred mode of communication of in high school (especially since this was pre-smartphone). I'm definitely surprised that they found typing speeds that slow.
> I feel like people my age all ended up proficient at typing because of instant messenging (not just the "computer guys").
Same here. I drastically improved my typing speed thanks to internet chat rooms. My parents first got home internet when I was in high school in the late 90s, and my typing speed went from ~28wpm (thanks to a 6-week 9th grade typing class) to 60+ wpm in a week, after spending only an hour or so online each day. I had to type at least that fast to keep up with the conversation, so my brain was forced to acclimate.
Realistically I don't think programmers type prose all that much more frequently than college students. Programming tends to involve lots of symbols, and most of the typing is in small edits rather than paragraphs. College students write long essays and term papers, whereas I rarely write anything longer than an in-depth comment on Hacker News. I agree that it makes sense that programmers type faster due to the general correlation with technology usage, but I'm still quite surprised by the magnitude of the difference.
Yeah, I think people tend to make assumptions about the competence of others with regards to the tools that they personally are so adept at using that the action has become mostly subconscious.
I do it myself all of the time. It seems to be the result of the way our minds make associations, and an inability to properly 'empathize' with others, that is, to view the action from their perspective of being relatively unpracticed at it. This is where, in fact, I think a large part of 'imposter syndrome' stems from.
I personally have difficulty viewing the ability to launch/maintain web applications, provision a server for deployment, write SQL queries, etc, etc, etc... as anything particularly 'novel' or requiring ability; and indeed, in the context of this web-site, it isn't.
In the real world though, there's a dearth of 'incompetence', but unless you actively interact with a menagerie/distributed-sampling of society, it is very easy to convince yourself that the average person is as competent/intelligent as the people you surround yourself with on a daily basis. The fact that the internet allows everyone in your field to collaborate only serves to exacerbate the situation.
These are not "most people", these are college students. If you can't write an essay at a reasonable pace (and don't have an excuse like studying pure math -- by your own admission computer science is out) -- it would appear basic education has failed. Not that that's much of a surprise -- the only reason I'm not hobbled by poor, self-taught, typing is that I was offered touch typing (on a typewriter, mind) in junior high school.
I suppose it's testament that for all the fun of being an autodidact, there are some skills that really do benefit from tutoring (I'd argue most skills do, but the challenge is to find a good tutor...).
Obviously the most important is how well one writes, not the speed.
But 12 wpm is basically a real handicap -- it is below reasonable speed. Consider that a short essay is maybe 10 pages, and needs a minimum of three drafts... that's 25 pages or so. 8-12 hours of just typing for 10 pages?
Darkcoin is closed source[0] and the creators[1] of Darkcoin show no history of working with cryptography, peer-to-peer, or any form of anonymity/security in general. One of the two founders does however have an interest in "financial markets and economics" and nearly all tweets on the official Darkcoin Twitter account[2] are about the market price. This reeks of scamcoin.
Plus it was instamined: 43% of all the coins issued so far were mined in the first 24hrs.
Block #4242 [1] is about 24hrs after Block #1 [2], outstanding 1,864,104; the latest block right now is #75345, outstanding 4,330,405.
In other words; there are plenty of good intentions to make it available as open source; but the hard and painful peer review process for which open source is a prerequisite has not yet actually happened.
Road to hell and all of that.
Lesson here: don't rely on this for your gun-running, money-laundering or tax-evading needs. It's probably run by the NSA anyway...
I've been following darkcoin since the day after it was released, have talked to Evan (creator), and I really do not agree.
[0] is only temporarily true as pointed out already.
[1] doesn't support what you said, the about us NOT saying they have experience with X, Y and Z does not mean the same thing as it saying they do not have experience with X, Y, and Z.
[2] I've always disliked that, however price changes are what get people excited, I would potentially say even more so than innovative features.
So I really don't think scamcoin is the right term, however I personally would not be investing at the current price. I sold all my darkcoins a while ago for a very nice profit and cannot see the price rising a whole lot higher (in the short to mid term) than it currently is, unless a large DNM starts accepting it or similar. Then again I also said I can't see the price rising a whole lot higher when it was at .01 DRK/BTC, so what do I know?
> Although, you are talking about PG (who is the founder of this forum), so you might get downvoted just for the hell of it ;)
I'd like to add that while this may be true, it's not a good thing. Any act of silencing someone in an act of fanboy revenge is an embarrassment to this forum. It's a shame the downvote threshold doesn't rid of this type of behavior, and I doubt raising it would help. I'm tired of seeing grayed out controversial opinions.
Well though there were for sure "fighting words" in this comment.
And with anyone who is admired such as PG you would typically try to be very careful (almost diplomatic) in how and what you said.
Statement was:
"He should just stick to essays about startups and lisp instead of pontificating on something he clearly has very little understanding of."
or, suggested re-write (for someone who feels this way):
"PG's essays about startups and lisp are great|good|wonderful however in my opinion, and based on my particular experience, I can't tell that he has any particular expertise in Philosophy".
Unicode tools (at least should) have ways to determine visually similar letters. Maybe someone more knowledgeable about Unicode than me can pull out the term for it (maybe "homograph"?). For example: 'ö' and 'o' should 'match' using this method. It also allows you to do things like make sure that μ (mu) and µ (micro sign) match.
So in response to:
> I'm not sure if interchangeable is the right word. 'phởne' and 'phone' yield different result lists.
The results are different because it's matching somethings that are an exact character match, and others that are just visually similar (homographs?).
Domainr tells you if a word you enter is available as a domain hack, but there were no tools that actually find the words for you. Sorry I could have been more clear there, thanks for pointing that out.
Full disclosure: I live in Vancouver. Searching for "startup" on meetup.com returns 78 groups for Vancouver and only 31 groups for Toronto. While Toronto is said to be better for startups the difference is small enough that it comes down to a personal choice of schools and lifestyle.
The radio (in it's traditional sense) has no chance of survival. It's only lifeline is people listening to it in cars but even that won't last. If I'm in the mood for listening to music I can pick my own songs or use a service that creates customized playlists and listen to them without sitting through 10 minutes of ads every three songs. The whole idea of radio stations is old-fashioned and if it was pitched today it would be laughed at by every VC in the room. Maybe I'm being too harsh on it, but that's just my opinion that I've formed over many years of trying to find something good on the radio in the car.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7612737