fr0man

Joined 16 years ago

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Apr 16

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Comment · 16 years ago

This article could be titled '5 Reasons Why Every Person Should Get Married'. None of those benefits are specific to entrepreneurs. And marriage clearly isn't for every person, nor does every marriage offer all of those benefits. In fact, I would say a vast majority of marriages don't even bat .400 on that list. I'm not being cynical here; my marriage is terrific, but I'm also pretty sure we're in the minority.

Comment · 16 years ago

I tried both and have decided to go with the Kindle. My wife and I both thought the glitchy lag between page turns on the Nook was a deal breaker. It was far less noticeable on the Kindle, and we haven't even gotten our new gen Kindles yet. Also, the UI was slicker on the Kindle (in my opinion). You'd think a touch screen would be better, but it's slow, laggy, and glitchy compared to the Kindle interface.

Still, I liked both of them and the differences between them were very slight. It really came down to that page turn lag for us.

Comment · 16 years ago

The problem with this is reading a 400 page book on a tablet is a problem for those of use who experience eye strain. The refresh rate and the backlight really fatigue my eyes after more than a half hour or so. Also, the Kindle and Nook are now priced way WAY below even the budget tablets and have much better displays for reading.

Comment · 16 years ago

Here are a couple of scientific articles from two of the more well respected science organizations in the world. There are a plethora more, though it's hard to wade through the opinion pieces, which are far more numerous. The general consensus among the experts is human activity does have something to do with global warming. And there is a ton of direct evidence. In my mind (I'm not a climate scientist, but as a biologist I have been exposed to a lot of the research over the last 15 years or so), the question isn't so much are we contributing to global warming as it is how much we're contributing to global warming.

Like it or not politically, the way science works within a scientific community on issues like this is driven by the consensus of the expert community, which is informed by the data. Granted, it's easier to get published in a peer reviewed journal with an article that supports global warming than one that tries to debunk it, but in a scientific forum the data will eventually stand up on its own. If someone uncovers a preponderance of empirical data that contradicts human contribution to global warming, it will stand up to scientific scrutiny. The best example of a paradigm changing finding of this sort that I can think of in modern science is punctuated equilibrium. A lot of the evolutionary biology community screamed bloody murder at first, but the data were just too compelling to ignore. Unfortunately, on global warming the data all point in the opposite direction right now, i.e. global warming is happening and we as humans are contributing to it.

http://royalsociety.org/uploadedFiles/Royal_Society_Content/...

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/1686

Comment · 16 years ago

You're right. I never noticed because I always use the mouse scroll wheel for that. My #1 biggest Bing image search gripe is middle click doesn't work in Chrome for opening in a new tab, yet right click->open in new tab does.

Comment · 16 years ago

Not active for my Google yet, but looking at the article, it seems to be a set of changes they really had to make to keep up with Bing. Bing's UI for image searches is really hands down much better than Google's current way of doing it. I gave up on Bing text searches a while back, but always pull it up for images. Even if Bing's marketshare never takes off, I look forward to a game of leapfrog between the two. We as end-users will benefit from that.

Comment · 16 years ago

Interesting list. It's clearly not trying to sensationalize, or the Brown Tree Snake would have been higher. The explanation of the methodology at the top is good. A little more detail for each of the entries would have been nice. I've not heard of the #1 entry before and don't quite see how it meets the criteria to the degree of being the most harmful invasive in the world.

Comment · 16 years ago

Not quite. IE8 is making huge gains in market share, but almost entirely at the expense of IE6 and IE7. The overall IE marketshare is holding somewhat steady at 60%. I think what you're seeing is Windows users are perfectly happy to take an upgrade that Microsoft offers, but either afraid to branch out to a non-MS browser or else just don't know how to do so. Windows 7 shipping with IE8 has a lot to do with it, too, as people buy new laptops, etc, and never touch the browser it comes with.

Reference: http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Windows/Microsoft-IE-6-Share-Falls-...

I wish Chrome would take more from IE than it is from FF, but it is good to see IE6 drop so much. It's under 5% now.

Note: these are US numbers. If I recall correctly, the global numbers are shaded a little more non-IE.

Comment · 16 years ago

I get a good deal of spam from any unfiltered accounts I post as [email protected]. In fact the only Nigerian scams I ever received came from doing that. name[AT]domain.com is an easy way to prevent some of that for someone (e.g. a non-technical person doing a blog) without the javascript obfuscation code handy, or else without the know-how to use it.

Comment · 16 years ago

You can be a youth member and be gay as long as you're willing to live as a second class citizen, i.e. not avow that you're homosexual or hold a youth leadership position. They don't specifically bar homosexuals:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boy_Scouts_of_America_membershi...

Because, you know, nothing is better for our youth than making them deny who they are and teaching them they aren't worthy of being in a leadership position because of their sexual orientation or religious beliefs.

Comment · 16 years ago

I can't wait to see the Richard Stallman government files in 50 years. Would it be FBI or Homeland Security do you think?

Comment · 16 years ago

One successful example of this he doesn't mention is games. Several large-ish MMO's basically operate on this principle (Adventure Quest, Dungeon Runners and Runes of Magic to name a few). It's basically the exact same idea he's talking about, though games do have a very different incentive model than a business or professional service.

Edit: Turns out Dungeon Runners is no more. Sad, my wife and I really liked that game.

Comment · 16 years ago

U-Haul has some right ideas when it comes to their website:

You Searched for: uhaulsucks.com WHOIS results for uhaulsucks.com

   Registrant: 
      U-Haul International
      U-Haul International U-Haul International
      2727 N. Central Ave. .
      Phoenix, az 85004
      US
      Email: [email protected]

I had been burned badly by their awful pricing, trucks, and customer service about 4 times in a 1-year span back in 2001 and had the brilliant (to me at the time) idea of starting a site for posting U-Haul horror stories and warning people away. I just laughed when I saw this. Well played, U-Haul, well, played.

For what it's worth, rent their trailers but stay as far away from their trucks as you can. Go Penske or even Ryder if you have to.

Comment · 16 years ago

Rendered in Times New Roman. Awesome.

Comment · 16 years ago

Man, with VLC Player has been ready for prime time, I haven't downloaded a codec in years.