thetabyte

Given everything I've read from Notch in the last year or two, I would be highly unsurprised if he wasn't pushing this as a way to dump his hands of anything to do with business and/or notoriety (as much as he ever will be able to). His recent sentiments have expressed a lot of regret that he is no longer able to spend his time doing simple game programming & experimentation with a decent level of obscurity -- and I can't blame him for it. This is wild speculation, of course.

I'm really interested in this project, but wish they had left polyphasic sleep entirely out of it. The sleep data they provide (REM and NREM monitoring, etc) seems fantastically useful, and the lucid dream induction is intriguing, if dubious; however, the inclusion of polyphasic sleep makes me suspicious of the scientific rigor of the project on a whole. It's making it hard to decide whether to go ahead and back - on the one hand, I sleep with a mask anyway, definitely want the sleep monitoring capabilities the device offers, but on the other, can I trust it?

Ahh, that makes sense. Can there be a sliding scale of delay for the ability to comment, or depth of thread allowed (before commenting is disabled for that thread), based on the output of the flamewar detector?

This may also have the side effect of allowing for some opinions to be shared, without being mired in flame-y back and forth. (And, importantly, still allows the story to stay more visible)

Especially after pg's response to the blog post about sexual assault at CodeMash, I wonder—why can't the flamewar detector just disable comments?

I tend to have a lot of respect for pg, and found his apology for what happened in that thread to be admirable. Whether or not preventing discussion of the issue on HN is positive or negative...I have very complex feelings on the issue, and see valid arguments on both sides.

What I do not have mixed feelings about, however, is that these issues need to be put front and center, so that people in our industry a) know they exist b) know how common they are c) are inspired to make personal effort to fix it. I would hope that pg agrees.

If he does, why not make such stories, when they set off the flamewar detector, maintain their ranking, but disable comments? That way, the issue is still raised, and people are still alerted to it, but it prevents the (some believe) "unproductive" discussion.

Hm? Was that meant to be an insult to me? I'd appreciate hearing your full reasoning for the disparagement. From my perspective, I was only sharing a classic piece of literature that had a theme relevant to the parent's comment, with a message we all could learn from, that happens to be one of my favorite poems. I didn't claim to be out there, throwing myself on the line—though I did attend a protest on the matter, and have previously actively participated in a political campaign to support my views. Anyways, you were saying?

"First they came for the communists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.

Then they came for the socialists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me."

-- Martin Niemöller, 1946

I agree. That's a problem for which he deserves more than a little criticism. But that's not what I was discussing, at all.

Are you under the impression that you can review the entire federal government, decide which programs to get rid of, and shut down every one of those programs, during your first year on office?

Because if so, please, run, I'd like to see it happen.

By pitiful, I meant that this shutdown seems minuscule among the variety of other privacy violations—but that hardly justifies the Guardian using this specific reveal as an attack piece.

I find it amusing the the Guardian seems to position this article in such a way that it is meant to disparage the Obama administration. While the administration is far from above criticism, and a variety of other Guardian reveals do justifiably criticize the President, my personal takeaway from this is a sign that the administration did at least attempt to curb some Bush era privacy invasions—though perhaps to a pitiful extent. Funny how the article doesn't seem to put it that way.

First, advice:

Like many people here, I agree that there is nothing more important than building things that you can show people. However, the process of getting to that level of capability can often be somewhat mystifying. There are a few tools I recommend for that. First of all, interactive tutorials, like those at Code School, are fantastic introductions to web frameworks, if you're just getting started. I first learned Ruby on Rails with Rails for Zombies. However, these tutorials will not give you the skills to actually build anything—rather, they are a good primer. From there, find a good book, preferably one that focuses on actually building something, like Michael Hartl's Rails Tutorial. Finally, I really love to use screencasts (a la Railscasts) for picking up domain specific information for particular tasks. Hope that helps!

Second, a relevant question:

I've just recently started freelancing myself, and I see a variety of advice. "No Rails developer should make under $75/hour!", "Take what you can get, work your way up slowly!" "You probably charge too little!", etc. How do you actually evaluate how much your skills are worth as a freelancer? How do you match with clients who need and are willing to pay for your particular skill level? If anyone has any links to relevant advice, those would be great to.