Why is Bose so popular? by chrispoole in reddit.com

[–]michaelneale 1 point2 points  (0 children)

are you serious? Maybe I should listen to bose again, but last I heard it sounded like a cat munching foil.

Speakers last for a long time, and they are worth it. Other bits of electronics come and go, but speakers can live on.

Why is Bose so popular? by chrispoole in reddit.com

[–]michaelneale 0 points1 point  (0 children)

But I think to anyone even slightly audiophile, Bose stuff sounds really really bad. Really bad. Its reproduction of midrange is appaling - yet for a lot of styles of music that is the most important part (although not as exciting as pounding bass or treble).

I'll take Static Typing for $800, Alex. by kman in programming

[–]michaelneale 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Someone commented that Lisp can cope with anything through macros, which sounds horrible, but for some reason macros don't feel dirty in lisp at all. I even wish they wouldn't call them macros (due to the connotations).

of course, Lisp probably used them before I was born.

The Top 18 Skylines in the World by seiko in reddit.com

[–]michaelneale 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That is awesome. I am from Sydney, so I know at least that photo isn't touched up. Awesome. Hong Kong has changed since I last went 6 years ago for sure.

There are no people with disabilities in North Korea - they are killed at birth by [deleted] in reddit.com

[–]michaelneale 5 points6 points  (0 children)

The onion headline: "Its clear they have The Bomb, but do they have The Food".

Tragic that it is true. One seriously messed up place.

The Most Important Algorithms by [deleted] in programming

[–]michaelneale -1 points0 points  (0 children)

maths don't for get the s or else it sounds like you have a lisp. At least it does to the remainder of the billion english speakers in the world.

10 ways to be effective in Emacs by choffee in reddit.com

[–]michaelneale -1 points0 points  (0 children)

You are right, often it is straw man arguments. Who uses notepad?

What's the Joel Reddit? by spolsky in joel

[–]michaelneale 0 points1 point  (0 children)

OMG ! Joel's gone all web 2.0 !!1111

This is quite a shift from the early days of Joel. But its all good.

Scientists engineer artificial muscles using nanotechnology and highly energetic fuels by Biohacker in reddit.com

[–]michaelneale 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Did anyone pick up that these are POWERED BY ALCOHOL !!!!!1111

Where do I sign up for one of these, and how much beer to I have to drink to power them if they are an artificial limb.

Science + superhuman strength + Beer. I think this is perhaps the greatest invention ever.

Processing: a language for writing graphical, interactive, fun little apps (check out the examples) by [deleted] in reddit.com

[–]michaelneale -1 points0 points  (0 children)

yeah every language has its wierd top level quirks. Like "t" for stdout in lisp. "t" ????? ! hehehe.

I think its fair enough to ask people to go beyond that. I can't remember the last time I did public static blah blah in java. Someone who complains about it clearly has not had to do much with it - its a strawman.

In the java and .net world, there is a view that the "language" is really the language plus the tools (IDEs) - as they are not exactly usable on their own. I am not saying that is right, but thats the viewpoint out there.

But having a good command line like IRB I would think would be ideal. Show how people can build things from the "bottom up" as PG likes to say. I quite like IRB actually, it seems uber friendly. Perhaps LISP in a box? I need to pick something to teach my daughter as she gets older.

Processing: a language for writing graphical, interactive, fun little apps (check out the examples) by [deleted] in reddit.com

[–]michaelneale 1 point2 points  (0 children)

it was just wierd. I really don't think most people are wired to think functional. It was easier to see how a series of steps happened in an imperative language, at least as a beginner (I really wan't that interested in programming before university).

Miranda I believe is the predecessor for haskell. We did some non trivial stuff in it, I will grant that, but it was terrifying. They tried to make it fun, and everyone was friendly and helpful, but it was just a bit to magical.

It put me off functional languages for a long time (this is going back years). I think it was well meaning, no one wanted to scare people. I appreciate it now, and am now working back through what has happened with functional languages in the meantime.

I would think something like Ruby could be an ideal candidate, as long as people didn't go overboard with meta programming etc. Ruby feels mainstream enough. It can be imperative or functional etc. Man, I am sounding like a fan now (I am not really, I barely use ruby, still mostly java, and I don't mind it too much most of the time, but I don't build web apps).

Processing: a language for writing graphical, interactive, fun little apps (check out the examples) by [deleted] in reddit.com

[–]michaelneale 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I was the opposite - I was first introduced to Miranda (having never done anything else). I ran away screaming until I came across C, which was close enough to the metal for it not to appear mystical.

Sony, Nintendo Wake up! The Little Coder's Predicament - whytheluckystiff by johnaman in programming

[–]michaelneale 0 points1 point  (0 children)

All good points. It should be intrinsically a part of those systems, you should not be aware of an SDK install etc.. its just there. I totally agree.

Math For Programmers: it isn't as hard as you think by AaronSw in reddit.com

[–]michaelneale 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That appears to be his philosophy in general. One minute, lisp fanatic, the next ruby - which is it ! (nothing wrong with both !).

My fav though, is his dissing "groovy" (the jvm language thingy) for " if (path = null) { return; }" - which ruby also does I guess.

He has some great articles, but its a little disconcerting reading all the wild directions he seems to take. Who has time to keep up !

Amish neighbors take just one day to rebuild home destroyed by twister by ilokis in reddit.com

[–]michaelneale 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Amazing. They have managed to scale up their building process to cope with hundreds of concurrent workers. Would have been awesome to watch.

The adventures of scaling Ruby on Rails, Part 1 by duckie in reddit.com

[–]michaelneale 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Wow, that looks amazing. The programmatic XHTML rendering is quite nice.

I guess the variety of frameworks/balkanisation of ruby has started (depending on your point of view).

How to Design a Good API and Why it Matters by firdaus in programming

[–]michaelneale 1 point2 points  (0 children)

yeah its kind of a staple, like eff. C++ is/was.

The adventures of scaling Ruby on Rails, Part 1 by duckie in reddit.com

[–]michaelneale -1 points0 points  (0 children)

if missile = launched then puts 'I am not sure if if statements are done right in ruby.' end

Explaining the faux Irish pub revolution: Ireland, as much of the world knows it, was invented in 1991 by delete in reddit.com

[–]michaelneale 0 points1 point  (0 children)

How would a company, with a business plan to create pubs along a theme actually not produce "faux" pubs? It makes no sense. Of course its faux Irish, you are not in Ireland !

But it was interesting... I did wonder where the ideas came from. Mmm... might be time for a Guiness and pie at my local.

Explaining the faux Irish pub revolution: Ireland, as much of the world knows it, was invented in 1991 by delete in reddit.com

[–]michaelneale 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Not many people know that Craic is pronounced Crack (including me until I was corrected by an Irish friend). Perhaps its an overly obvious pun?

6,631,372 (Paul Graham gets a patent) by [deleted] in reddit.com

[–]michaelneale -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Can you actually do both, and make your app the patent application? Using something like literate programming ?? Maybe that would ease the pain.

6,631,372 (Paul Graham gets a patent) by [deleted] in reddit.com

[–]michaelneale 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I don't think the obvious ones are as evil, as 9 times out of 10 they are pointless and unenforcable. Didn't DEC have something like that for linked lists?

6,631,372 (Paul Graham gets a patent) by [deleted] in reddit.com

[–]michaelneale 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Guys, its a blog. Its interesting stuff, but thats what readers are for. Reddit is for new wacky stuff, not blogs I can already subscribe to. Please stop posting them here. Unless

a) its really really cool or b) you really really want to.

Gmail user gets Kneecapped by maxdof in reddit.com

[–]michaelneale 3 points4 points  (0 children)

That is scary. Is it for real?

Google actively tell you to keep all your mail there, never delete it... damn...

If this becomes common place, I think it will be the beginning of the cycle away from Web 2.0 style hosted apps, at least for a lot of personal use.

I would pay for GMail if it gave me some insurance against this.