Michael Carter

“What makes you think humans are sentient and aware? There is no evidence for it. Human beings never think for themselves. They find it too uncomfortable. For the most part, members of our species simply repeat what they are told – and become uncomfortable if exposed to any different view. The characteristic human trait is not awareness but conformity, and the characteristic result is religious warfare. Other animals fight for territory or food, but uniquely in the animal kingdom, human beings fight for their 'beliefs.' The reason is that beliefs guide behavior, which has evolutionary importance among human beings. But at a time when our behavior may lead us to extinction, I see no reason to assume we (human beings) have any awareness at all. We are stubborn, self-destructive conformist. Any other view of our species is just self-congratulatory delusion!” Dr. Ian Malcolm, The Lost World, Michael Crichton - Dave Roth

look at how narrow a spectrum a political candidate has to walk within in order not to violate political correctness. - Gregory Lent

oh, just saw david roth ... lot of people think the same, it is all conditioning, predetermined ... advaita vedanta and mystics, not just skinnerites ... ego thinks it can do something.. hardly - Gregory Lent

Wow love the comments here! Looks like a few real people around! Avoid HiveThink! - Igor The Troll

"The Age of American Unreason" is a great book. Pick it up if you want to read more on this subject. - Michael Carter

Advice to those who want to defend intellectualism: Don't quote Dr. Ian Malcolm from The Lost World. If you're going to scratch that deep into literature for your debate points, you should at least go all the way back to Jurassic Park. - Rex Hammock

Which quote are you reffering to, Rex? - Roberto Bonini

@Roberto Bonini -- I'm referring to the quote that is posted in this thread that quotes Dr. Ian Malcolm, a fictional character in the novel The Lost World, by Michale Crichton. I find it extremely ironic to quote Michael Crichton to defend intellectualism as his 2005 novel, State of Fear, was written as an indictment of the type of intellectual orthodoxy reflected in the interview this thread is discussing. - Rex Hammock

Ah right, Rex, I see it now.Its a great quote. - Roberto Bonini

I wonder if there's any chance of reversing the trend. If we elect McCain then I fear for the intellectual health of the US greatly... - Tad - the Meme Maker

All trends are reversible, it's just a question of how much work it will take or under what circumstances it will happen. - Alex "Chameleon" Scoble

How scary is it that we have to worry the Obama/Biden ticket is too smart? That was also Adlai Stevenson's problem- and Ike won. That worries me. - Abby Martin

Smart is a good thing, but to win in politics you have to be able to speak to middle america, which is difficult for a lot of smart politicians to do without sounding patronizing. I don't think that Obama will have problems there. It's also why Clinton one twice. - Alex "Chameleon" Scoble

You seriously think Obama's able to speak to the midwest without patronizing us? Guns and religion? I think that ship may have had already sailed. - Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins

Mark given that he is US Senator from a midwest state, I'm thinking the answer is: YES. Fortunately there are those who look beyond sound bites. - Ruth Ferguson

@Ruth - come on, it isn't like Obama is from Peoria, he's from Chicago. You'd think that'd be enough for he himself to be able to identify with most flyover denizens, but aside from the hope and change bits, most folks from the midwest just don't agree with his issue stances, not to mention his attitudes. The only folks that are looking past the soundbites where he habitually patronizes folks from the midwest are folks not from the midwest. - Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins

Where exactly are you getting this bit: "most folks from the midwest just don't agree with his issue stances, not to mention his attitudes"? Both my fundamentalist sisters from rural Indiana and my friends in suburban and urban Chicago are planning on voting for Obama, for completely different reasons. That's anecdotal, but also a counterexample. It has at least more substance than your generalization. Evidence, please. - Rick Powell

I - Richard Lawler via twhirl

I'm incredibly offended at the assertion that everyone in the world who judges politics on less thna complete knowledge of the issues lives between the appalachians and the rockies - Richard Lawler via twhirl

@Rick (and Ruth): I'm getting at the fact that he and Biden have both not only expressed anti-gun views (for one topical example) but actively insulted folks who like guns. Folks in rurual midwest like guns - they just do. It has no bearing on whether they're smart or not, but Obama and Biden both seem to think it reflects on their level of intelligence. That's insulting to me. Folks from a big city like Chicago (tho it's technically midwestern) don't identify with gun-toting midwesterners. - Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins

(for evidence of their insulting comments towards midwesterners, see the transcript of one of the dem primary debates here: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r...) - Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins

The problem with Obama and Biden is not that they are too smart (they aren't as smart as you think) but that they think everyone else is dumb. Big difference. - Soulhuntre

Sorry Mark, I don't see it. - Richard Lawler via twhirl

Mark, again, your comments are filled with generalizations, which could be taken as condescension, but I won't. The two aforementioned sisters are both from rural Indiana. Neither of them, nor their husbands, have ever owned a gun. My brother in law collects Corvettes. Does that count? My mother was from Kentucky, her father was Pentecostal preacher. No guns. And she was a Democrat. My father was a Reagan Democrat and then came to regret it. No guns either. - Rick Powell

The family my sister married into, all the boys were cops. Outside of the job, none of my cousins owned guns. Gun-totin' Midwesterners, I never met one. - Rick Powell

If I knew my mother at all, she would have been inspired by Obama, just as I am, by the fact that he's black - her Christian affinities were with the black churches in Indianapolis - and because he's a Christian and because he's a Democrat. What I'm really saying is: You don't know the Midwest. - Rick Powell

@soulhuntre: Which is more condescending, advocating a gas-tax break, or concluding that it was pandering and refusing to back it? I believe Obama's paraphrased words were "The American people are smarter than that." Sorry, I don't see or feel the condescension. You've talked about "class envy" in some of your comments. Perhaps you're suffering from another kind of envy. - Rick Powell

@Rick Powell - you're certainly welcome to choose quotes that individually support your view here, as I could for mine. The issue is one of overall tone. You're welcome to disagree with that evaluation - but as it is a subjective one you can't "prove" it, and neither can I. Obamas sliding numbers do however show that there is a real, and growing, problem with his message. The idea that people who don't support Obama are racist, dumb or hate smart people is what will lose him this election if anything does. - Soulhuntre

wow! and they say this is a country divided! read this thread. black/white. smart/dumb. city/rural. appalachians/rockies. religious/agnostic. gun-toters/pacifists. great-taste/less-filling. how many more ways can we find to set up us vs. them arguments? what ever happened to looking for "common ground?" jeez. if this is how this presidential race is going to be, then in the end, i think we'll get the leaders we deserve, and they'll be just as divided as we apparently are. - .LAG

To be honest I think the US is pretty together. I mean, while we have differences among groups it's not like we are in the middle of a civil war with opposing groups slaughtering each other. Political discourse will be contentious. We have a lot of common ground. We want to proper. We want to be safe and have our children safe. There are lots of differences on HOW, but other than on the fringe we really don't demonize each other. - Soulhuntre

i hope you're right @soulhuntre. i think this presidential race will bring a lot of a that contentiousness to the forefront in the next 70+ days. let's see how it plays out...warts and all. - .LAG

cause Google want to release a version that works, but just havent yet! - Josh Chandler

There's a new SyncML app for iPhone that let's you sync with multiple SyncML services - Jason Carreira

@Jason: Care to share what it is? - Justin Korn

I like to think conspiracy but then I find that more fun then the realities of development schedules. - Shawn McCollum

Nailed it with .NET! Yay :D I wonder how .NET will be when I graduate in 4 years... - Yuvi

Even better: Linq for NHibernate :) - Michael Hocter

I am using Linq with SP's - Alex Sauceda via fftogo

Dude - I was talking to a buddy that works at MS - he was telling me about plinq - Parallel Linq. Say you have a linq loop to process or build some data... by adding one keyword plinq will run the loop on all your processors simultaneously. He says that makes stuff go stupidly fast. That'll be part of .NET 4 which he says should be out next year. I think there's a community preview right now though... - Tad - the Meme Maker

@Micheal: I believe LINQ for NHibernate isn't really 'nailed' yet? And, it doesn't have the designer that EF has? (I'm a virgin in both NHibernate and EF, so forgive me if I say something stupid) - Yuvi

@Tad - D00d, I've been using PLINQ since the CTP came out a coupla months ago and allow me to say that it's totally effin effin awesome. I mean, just so totally effin awesome. effin. - Yuvi

Yuvi - I wish I had the time you have to play with all the cool CTP stuff. :) - Tad - the Meme Maker

LINQ to SQL and other ORM's are good for basic CRUD's, but when performance counts (searches, reports etc), I'd rather write SQL/sprocs by hand - Jemm

Wait until the next CTP of Visual Studio comes out soon-ish. It's good, good stuff. - Akiva Moskovitz

Joni - the perf stuff I've seen shows that there's very little performance loss if any when using linq. Have you seen otherwise? I'll take the time I save from having to write sql in my .net code over a 0.000005% increase (my made up sarcastic statistic) any day. :) That said, linq works just fine with sprocs, so still not a reason to not use it. - Tad - the Meme Maker

@Joni - I heard LINQ to SQL chokes if you use it for a large number of updates/deletes/inserts. *heard* - not seen first hand. - Yuvi

Dear Akiva - do you have any inside sources/outside sources? One d00d waiting for 2k8 SP1 here. - Yuvi

I'm actually working a contract with Visual Studio right now. Of course, I can't really give anything away but it's coming very soon and we're all very, very happy with it. I'm writing code on the latest builds of 2k8 every day. - Akiva Moskovitz

For most normal operations it is fast enough but the special situations (20%, maybe) require some work by hand. And yes, sprocs can be called from the LINQ, too. :) - Jemm

@Akiva - Latest build of VS 2k8? *swoon* *thud* - Yuvi

*jealous* damn I need a new job, but there's not much of ANYTHING here in Phoenix with .net 3.5... *pout* - Tad - the Meme Maker

@Akiva - hey, I can ask you 'bout your IDE Code Editor coloring scheme, right? Don't tell me it's the default Blue+Black on White courier! @Tad - yours? - Yuvi

Mine's still just the default - I've gotten used to it over the years. If I could find a GOOD scheme that mimic'd TextMate on the mac I might try it out. - Tad - the Meme Maker

@Tad - It's not even Consolas? o_O - Yuvi

Not familiar with that Yuvi... Linkage? I code on so many different machines/platforms that I usually just end up with whatever the default is. I used to care a lot more when all my screens were CRTs, but LCDs are so much easier on my eyes. - Tad - the Meme Maker

Well, I get new drops every day but I don't install them! I'd waste an hour of my day every day. - Akiva Moskovitz

Yuvi, mine is definitely not default. Dark gray background with low constrast colorizations (lots of earth tones with some blues). The only white I have is for numerals. If I remember on Monday, I'll cut a screenshot of it. One of my co-workers who does code reviews for me absolutely hates it. - Akiva Moskovitz

Yuvi - just changed my font to Consolas, but that made me want to increase the font-size to 11... I'll see how this looks for a while. Neato - Tad - the Meme Maker

@Tad - http://www.codinghorror.com/bl... that should do it. - Yuvi

Neato cool Yuvi - I'll try some out. - Tad - the Meme Maker

Tad, Consolas for LIFE. Although you might want to check out a font called Dina (http://www.donationcoder.com/S...). It's very, very readable at low font sizes and the lower-case 'm' is clear. A few coders I used to work with awhile back swear by it but I've gotten so used to Consolas that I just never saw the need for switching. - Akiva Moskovitz

@Akiva - Consolas for LIFE! Atleast, till something better comes out ;) I hated Monaco (the Textmate font). And, I use Consolas at point 13, so the 'unreadable at small font sizes' issue never arose for me :D - Yuvi

Yuvi, my colors are very similar to the second example from that page. - Akiva Moskovitz

Thanks Akiva! I'm trying Dina now. :) - Tad - the Meme Maker

@Akiva - Mine too - although not the same (Mine are slightly bigger, and most of the time they're VB9) ;) - Yuvi

I can't wait to start using linq! - Justin Korn via fftogo

I've to test out how LINQ is in Mono. Once I get the VM working.... - Yuvi

We were able to leverage Linq to build a strongly typed API to our database for our clients. It's VERY cool stuff. (And I say this as a total Mac fanboy.) - James Williams (willia4)

cool! I hate dealing DB coding :) - Tim Hoeck

Yuvi, Tad, Akiva, tried most of those settings and have lasted longest with this one : http://blog.wekeroad.com/2007/... - /(bb|[^b]{2})/ (Kamath)

@Kamath - I too had it till my last re-install ;) - Yuvi

Yea folks - any of you tried db4o? Rocks as well! - Yuvi

+1 to Consolas, but that Dina font is way cool. - Peter Simard

It's so Sad! He made our world richer with is intelligence and good humor. I wish all the best to their kids. - Fernando

I am so happy I got to interview him. One of my favorites! - Robert Scoble

This really hits home. Great guy, great message. May he rest in peace. - Dave

I just looked back on my blog from meeting him: http://scobleizer.com/2006/01/... -- interesting that he had a big impact on me even back then. - Robert Scoble

Really very sad. I saw his last lecture and was very impressed. Always hoped, he would get through this... - Matthias Schwenk

So sad - he gave one of the great speeches of all time and in such an unassuming, selfless way. I'm glad his kids will at least have that to treasure. - JMaultasch

An inspiration to many. He will be missed - Tim Finucane

One of the finest. Some people are great a reminding us how to live, mainly by example. He was one of them. His web page doesn't seem to be loading..does anyone see where we can leave thoughts for his family and friends? - Loren Heiny

A real loss. I never met him (obviously) but I know of him through the eyes of those who did. - Soulhuntre via twhirl

The book was amazing. - Steve Rubel

Fuck. fuckfuckfuckfuck. Randy was one of my favorite HCI teachers at CMU, and I'm so glad that his 'Last Lecture' got the world-wide attention that it did. I can't imagine being as brave as him in this place, and he fought off the cancer for about 6 months longer than the 4 months his doctors gave him. Even though I've known this was coming for months it's still really hard. - Kevin Fox

I keep putting off the book, which is ironically exactly the opposite of what I should be doing: moving forward and living life instead of treading water and letting life happen. Peace to you, Randy. - Kevin C. Tofel

I'm very sad but will always be inspired by the way he spent his last several months. - Dimitrios Diamantaras

I was a huge fan of Randy's; his work will live on far longer than this in the lives of those he influenced. - Aaron Krug

i love the "bedside conversion" line... - Don Martelli via twhirl

Inspirational. Will be watching his video many times throughout my life. Brave, wise man... - Hao Chen

What better way to go than knowing that you made every day count and that you touched the lives of so many people around the world! Even though his departure is a huge loss, we are blessed with the inspiration he leaves us with! - Gabriel Biguria

I'm going to order the book, finally. - Roberto Bonini

We knew this day would come but it's still sad just the same. The way the man approached his death, is an inspiration. My prayers are with him and his family today. - Peter Simard

"Why not use GrandCentral? It's free." from one of the comments. Jeez. - AJ Batac ♘

I posted on Craigslist yesterday, it was a bit irritating - I had to pass 2 captchas, do phone and email verification. These spammers make life hard for normal people :( - Bindu Reddy

Takes one bad egg doesn't it to make all our lives miserable. Life in prison for spammers - Deepak

"...And I’m trying my pathetic best to look cool and mysterious, because I was 17 and so into the myth of myself." Oh why didn't I know this then?! - Christopher Harley

nice, forwarded it straight to my highschool-graduated brother. - Vincent van Wylick

You know, this advice would've useful at the beginning of high school, middle school even. So much adolescent misery is rooted in the pursuit of social standing and popularity. - Cornelius Toole

"a team of our engineers" = Noam :) - Paul Buchheit

This was actually one of my favorite interview questions early on at Google ("how would you write a spell corrector?"). Most applicants fumbled around and needed quite a bit of help. Noam, on the other hand, had the best answer I ever heard. It was immediately obvious that he was smarter than me. - Paul Buchheit

What did Noam say? Was it the one Google lists as "The non-routine, creative solution is to use the query corrections and refinements that other users have made in the past to offer spelling suggestions for new queries."? - Philipp Lenssen

That's a very basic summary Philipp -- the actual algorithm is quite sophisticated. - Paul Buchheit

"Learning, it turns out, is a lifelong major." Amen! - Nenad Nikolic via twhirl

@paul: its wrapper can use some common-sense improvements, though. - Alex

@paul Noam was a legend at Duke (at least among the Putnam-inclined math majors.) I love the feeling of asking an interview question I really like a few dozen times and then having someone come along who gives a better answer than the one I came up with. Of course, that raises the bar for all subsequent candidates. :) - Josh

I always worry about a company or organization that hires the same types of thinkers, even if they are thinking in a good way. Some of the best ideas I've ever had have come from trying to answer the questions of pretty dumb people who just weren't thinking through something. It's best to have a mix to truly spur on creativity. - Andrew Leyden

That algorithm explains why searching for an obscure word (vetted) causes it to give me search results for "Dictionary". - Gabe

@penguinsix: one can quite safely assume that an average googler (and non-googler) has enough interaction with the outside world to be routinely presented with such questions. Hiring them might be useful to increase the concentration of them, though =) - Alex

Paul, That's a great example, I use Google Search as a spell check tool all the time. esp when FireFox and MSFT spell checks don't offer the right suggestions, or pick up words like blogosphere. Google always gets it right. - Tac Anderson

Not to be nitpicking but Google doesn't always get it right Tac :) http://images.google.com/image... - Philipp Lenssen

darn - Allen Stern

interesting. anecdotally it seemed to me my battery life with the blackjack was better. - rob zand

So when wifi is on, 3G is off? Does that happen automatically? - Tom Landini

I keep my WinMob phone on 2.5G (GPRS) day to day which gets me a few days of battery (and is fine for my push email). If I want to surf, I just switch it into 3G mode and back when I'm done. Can you force the iPhone into 2.5G mode as that would be the clincher for me? - mattpovey

iPhone is mortal ... 3G eats power - Jonathan Greene

That really hurts. My at&t tilt has pretty terrible battery life but at least I can swap out the batteries if I need to. Despite this, I still want an iphone. - Robert DeBord

At least the Blackjack came with 2 batteries :p - Rodfather

I open links in a new tab. I hate it when I can't find an item again. - ha3rvey (That One)

ya but sometimes Robert the item on FF can still move to another page while you are reading due to the auto-refresh - Steven Hodson

Yes...Both-it just depends. - Mark Forman

Opening in current window means the back button should always keep the post on screen. - Andrew Smith

The recommended strategy I think (assuming you open links in new windows) is to open a comment box -- to avoid refresh. I often forget though in the heat of the moment - Brian Sullivan

I often go back. - Duncan Riley

I open it in it's own tab, then click any links - Michael W. May via twhirl

You can come back and *try* to search for a lost post, but it seems FF indexing is too slow so recent items are not available for searching. - Yuval Atzmon

You can't step in the same FriendFeed twice. - Karim

I allways open links in a new tab. And if the FriendFeed page was refreshed, I try to find the item... during, say, 30 seconds max (which is too much ;-)) - Thierry R. Andriamirado

I often open the link to the entry then open the link, means I can refresh the comments easily - Glenn Slaven

A reddit style top frame could be handy - Glenn Slaven

I always open in a new tab. - Louis Gray

I open the "Link to this entry" in a second tab. - Hutch Carpenter

I open it in a new tab so I can keep FF open. I want to comment on both if possible. - Ben Parr

*All* links always in a new tab, not just on FF.. - Atul Karmarkar

FF links should open in a new window (at least on iPhone) to make it easier to comment - it could be a preference in a user's profile - Francesco Bertocci

I often do - Shey