BrianHV

Because of the points you mentioned, I've been wondering why I haven't been able to find a framework-independent, open-source user management and authentication system. This seems like the sort of thing that should be solved in a standard way and not reinvented by every framework (or worse, application) that needs user management.

I've come across some paid services (e.g., stormpath, auth0) that seem to do what I'm talking about. It would be really nice if there were a free project along those lines though.

Having just started reading the Rust guides, I'm curious: can the closure type actually ensure it doesn't mutate any externally visible data, or does that only apply to memory? Can declare that a closure doesn't (or shouldn't be allowed to) write to disk or hit a database?

To be fair, it's not just the octave. The interval between a C and a C is a unison. The interval between a C and a D is a second. Two octaves are a fifteenth (not a sixteenth). The entire thing is one-indexed.

It's perhaps better to think of it as the number of notes you have to count before you reach the second note, starting with the first. If you start with C, you have to count one note before you get to that same C. You have to count 8 before you get to the second C, and 15 before you get to the third.

Yes, I should have gone logarithmic. But I spent enough time playing with that. Had to get back to work. ;) Thanks for figuring out that it's 16 cents. And yes, 16 cents is very noticeable. I might even say dramatic.

The thing is, tunesmith wasn't talking about a perfectly tuned equal temperament guitar. We're talking about tuning a guitar by ear so that one chord is sounds perfectly in tune (i.e., is in just temperament), then trying to play a different chord. It's going to sound off for the same reasons a just-tempered keyboard would. And as someone who constantly has to resist the urge to tune his B string too high in G major, I can tell you this isn't just a theoretical assertion.

That said, I have played on guitars (especially electric ones) that seem to resist sounding in tune even when the open strings are tuned "perfectly." Maybe that's a fret spacing defect in action. But it doesn't make the tuning-by-ear error negligible.

This doesn't match my experience. When I tune by ear, I spend a lot of time compromising to get even a few basic chords to all sound good. But since we're talking about the math, I thought I'd try to put some numbers behind my experience.

  Python 2.5 (r25:51918, Sep 19 2006, 08:49:13)
  [GCC 4.0.1 (Apple Computer, Inc. build 5341)] on darwin
  Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
  >>> A = 440
  >>> def alterBySemitones(basenote, semitones):
  ...     return basenote * (2 ** (semitones/12.0))
  ...
  >>> equal_B = alterBySemitones(A, 2)
  >>> equal_G = alterBySemitones(A, -2)
  >>> equal_E = alterBySemitones(A, -5)
  >>> major_third_ratio = 5.0/4
  >>> perfect_fifth_ratio = 3.0/2
  >>> equal_G * major_third_ratio     # B as third of G major chord
  489.9942949771866
  >>> equal_E * perfect_fifth_ratio   # B as fifth of E chord
  494.44133536930485
  >>> equal_B                         # Equal tempered B
  493.88330125612413

There's about a 4.5 Hz difference between just-tuned Bs in those two chords. For reference, the distance between that B and the Bb below it is about 27.72Hz. If your fret spacing is introducing that much error, it's going to be tough to tune the instrument for more than maybe one chord at a time.

Yeah, cabal isn't quite there yet. People are aware of the issues and are working on them, but it's a slow road.

As a workaround, my modus operandi right now is to use virthualenv and build everything in there. I understand cabal-dev provides similar functionality, but I haven't used it. I've never had dependency conflicts when I build something from hackage in a virthualenv, so if you're still interested in trying it you might want to give that a shot.

I was in a similar — albeit not so extreme — place to where Abe was. I tell everyone that I'm working towards a music career and experimenting with startups. But I recently (prompted by a birthday) started looking at how I spent the past few months. And when I looked at it honestly, I hadn't done some of the core things that are required to be successful. I hadn't networked in the music scene much, I hadn't played out enough, and I hadn't devoted serious time to writing code, preferring to learn new frameworks, languages, or techniques.

What I noticed was that in all cases, there was a fear of trying and failing underlying my inaction. I was worried that if I played out and didn't live up to professional standards I would develop a bad reputation quickly. I was worried that I would produce a service that some people would start relying on but that wouldn't produce enough revenue to justify maintaining it. It was a lot easier to tell myself that I would be successful when I put the effort in than to actually test that hypothesis.

So I made a conscious decision to err on the side of action in all things. I chose to wake up at 8:00 every day even though I love being able to sleep in; it puts me into a working state of mind. I chose to install LeechBlock in Firefox, which will make it so I can't even post in this thread by the time you're reading this. Between 9 and 5 every day, I'm doing only things that advance me towards my goals. (And eating.) And I refuse to allow myself excuses. If I imagined a friend asking me why I haven't done something that is an essential step in my process and I would feel embarrassed by the answer, I do it ASAP.

I've been at this a week now. I've already accomplished several things I ought to have done months ago. Hopefully I'm building habits that I can maintain indefinitely.

You may be right... but might it also be the case that the people who are doing something about it just aren't making a big deal about it?

I suspect many people in their 20s and early 30s can think of a time when they were rewarded just for showing up. One year of little league was like that for me. Some of my non-core (or non-STEM, in modern parlance) classes felt like that, though I tended to participate actively in those. Put a lot of stories like that together and it's easy to say that the self-esteem culture affects everyone, and a small step from there to say it affects everything.

But that doesn't take into account my other four years of little league. Or my many music auditions. Or the difficult years when I decided I didn't want to do homework. (I assure you my grades suffered those years.) No one involved in those things was making a political statement; they were simply allowing the natural consequences of my actions to work.

Obviously everyone has different experiences. But I suspect a lot of people would be able to recall fewer cases in their lives where mere participation was rewarded than those where natural consequences were quietly present.

It sounds like this was a good speech. I expect few people here will disagree.

I'd like to remark, though, on the fact that the author called this "controversial advice," while going on to describe not a controversy, but instead "overwhelmingly positive" reaction.

Recently I've been trying to think about stories like these. Stories where someone speaks the truth that society doesn't want to hear, and people rally around the truth teller. I try to ask myself who's in this willfully deaf society if everyone I see supports the truth.

And in this case, I suspect we're still seeing some inertia from the self-esteem movement to which the speaker alludes. But is there a deep controversy? Is David McCullough a brave whistleblower speaking against a near-unanimous wrong? Or is the New York Daily News making a big deal out of someone saying what we all already know?

"Shy people fear negative judgment" is a bit facile on its own; it was sort of mentioned in passing in her TED talk. But it's actually not far from my understanding of the subject. (IANA psychologist, though.)

The wikipedia quote you gave lists apprehension, discomfort, and awkwardness as the feelings that are symptomatic of shyness. Those feelings strongly imply a fear of something—some negative consequence that might result from a given social interaction. If that weren't the case, why would you feel apprehensive, uncomfortable, or awkward?

Many people recognize their anxiety, even if they don't label it, but either don't notice or actively deny that there might be an underlying belief that causes it. Beliefs can be things like, "She's going to notice how awkward I am," or, "I have no idea what to do in this situation," or, "If I screw this up I'll never live it down." An eye-opener for me was reading an inventory in a social anxiety book and seeing exactly how many of the distorted thoughts I accepted about myself without even knowing it.

It's also worth mentioning that cognitive behavioral therapy is largely about becoming aware of these anxiety-provoking beliefs and developing different responses to them. If anyone reading this is interested in trying to reduce their shyness, I recommend researching this approach.