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Google hopes to remake programming with Go - http://news.cnet.com/8301-10...

Tuesday from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

Thomas Amberg, Barry Mitchelson, Marwan Osman and 103 other people liked this

This could be very good! "Google software luminaries such as Unix co-creator Ken Thompson believe that they can help boost both computing power and programmers' abilities with an experimental programming language project called Go. And on Tuesday, they're taking the veil of secrecy off Go, releasing what they've built so far and inviting others to join the newly open-source project." - Paul Buchheit from Bookmarklet

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What do you think, Paul? I know it's early, but Python latched on at Google... Think this is a response? And just on a lark, do you think Go may be headed for the browser at some point (to replace javascript)? Many of us have wondered if Chrome will take a stab at reinventing/reworking the web stack. Go feels more like a back-end tool, but wondering what came to your mind when you saw this... - Christopher Galtenberg

Christopher, Python is nice, but we need a new system language, something high-performance to replace C/C++. This may be it. - Paul Buchheit

Yeah, I was remembering your thoughts from here, Paul: http://friendfeed.com/paul.... Wonder how the ooc folks feel today... - Christopher Galtenberg

My first reaction was oh yay, another C like language with brackets to make it acceptable. Having Rob Pike and Thompson on the team is impressive but makes me think of a plan9 resurrection. Using CSPs though is pretty cool and it looks like it supports mobile tasks. - Todd Hoff

"Specifically, Go uses a technology dating back to the 1960s called CSP, or communicating sequential processes, that handles interactions among a set of cooperating programs, Pike said. The technology made an appearance in programming languages such as Occom and Erlang, but it generally hasn't been applied in systems programming." - Paul Buchheit

If Google uses this for internal projects, that will give it a big advantage over something like plan9 in terms of being practical (not to mention the fact that it's free software, which plan9 was not, and a programming language, not an OS). - Paul Buchheit

I am very excited about this, it's not genius or rocket science but it maybe the language to put alongisde C/C++ for real. I thought it was going to be D, maybe this is it - Lawrence Oluyede

D seems too fragmented to be usable. All my hopes are on Go now :) - Paul Buchheit

And note that the language is designed to be IDE independent. - Piaw Na

Plan9 was a set of composable tools. In this case Google is providing the OS and the tools. - Todd Hoff

Go is NOT an OS! - Piaw Na

Where's the link to it? - Gabe

http://golang.org/ - Lawrence Oluyede

Please ; at the end of lines... (I hate languages without ; for some psychological reasons) - Ozgur Demir

I am no fan of language features designed to ease parsing but i suppose that's important for a system language? But it's hardly a user (i.e. programmer)-centric design. I think they should have drawn more from Scala (for concurrency model) and Io (for a beautiful syntax) instead of the messy, old languages they chose. Luckily, it's not designed for my needs so i'll never have to worry about it. - ·[▪_▪]·

@ozgurdemir I agree. Either require them or don't. Don't make them optional in some cases. It confuses what programmers generally expect of a programming language: consistency. - ·[▪_▪]·

Just checked and hated it. Sorry guys, it's not about the rest of the language.. it's just the ;'s. - Ozgur Demir

while checking it, I noticed how much I love C / Java syntax and how lame to trying to change it just for to make a new product different. - Ozgur Demir

@Paul you should know better than to confuse a language with its implementation! The people working on this all hail from the C/Java lineage and I don't know...may be fast but generally C is a hassle and Java is too dumbed-down. Trying to fix the mistakes they made in the past. Wonderful... - Rudolf Olah

For god's sake, who cares what the syntax looks like? What matters is whether it solves useful problems or not. It's designed to clean up a lot of the problems stemming from the legacy of C[++], compile fast, execute fast, be appropriate for systems programming, and have good primitives for concurrency. Those are good goals in my book, and they fill a much-needed niche. - Joel Webber

I do care. - Ozgur Demir

I thought it was kinda weird the way the video highlighted how fast it compiles. Compilation speed is great, and the vid was impressive, but I've never seen a language launch where that was highlighted so much. "Look, it compiles fast!!!!!! Oh, BTW, we are trying to solve concurrency". - Nick Lothian

@Ozgur: Sure, but as long as the syntax isn't broken in some way, or ambiguous (VB6 comes to mind), it's surely much less important than what the language is capable of (compile speed, execution speed, what can be expressed, etc). Syntax seems like a distant third- or fourth-most important aspect to me. - Joel Webber

@Nick: That kind of struck me as well when they first started talking about it. But when you consider that your main alternative is C++, and that compile times can get absolutely brutal (try compileing WebKit sometime -- it takes hours), it makes a bit more sense. - Joel Webber

@Joel. yea, I can't say you're wrong and I am right.. these are all preferences.. for me, syntax is an important aspect in terms of code readability that's why I care since it becomes a real pain in the ass on a midsize or bigger project. - Ozgur Demir

This thread is degenerating into rubbish. You know who you are - please stop. - Christopher Galtenberg from iPhone

@Joel yeah, I guess. But compiling something like that should take hours! Back when men were men and compiling a kernel on my 386 was a major undertaking success was so much more satisfying! Who are these young'uns Thompson & Pike and what do they know anyway! - Nick Lothian

Yeah, really! Real programmers had to swap disks multiple times to run a Pascal compiler on Hello World for the C64 :) - Joel Webber

Yeah, compilation speed doesn't mean too much. Would be nicer if they focused on the *thinking* part with regards to concurrency. - Rudolf Olah

Compilation speeds mean a lot when you're dealing with the google programming model. This is a company that invented code search for internal use. (See as an example: http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7613693...) - Piaw Na

Luckily it isn't named "goo". - Peng-Toh

@Piaw - nice example. I only skipped through it, but I can't see why something like that makes compilation speed critical. It seems similar in concept to static analysis - more speed is good, but the lack of speed doesn't break the model. - Nick Lothian

@nlothian: static analysis and compilation both include parsing. efficient parsing of C++ is rather hard to achieve, due to messy nature of multiply included files and macro substitutions. if code analysis takes hours (ok, half-hours), it ceases to be useful. - 9000

Lack of speed totally breaks the model. When you can get your analysis and search tools to respond in sub 500ms, the model for coding completely changes. You no longer remember where files are --- you just search for them and expect the search tool to remember for you. This enables massive code sharing, and allows small teams to be extremely effective, since they can now leverage other teams' work. - Piaw Na

Must be Google.. - ★ Soner Gönül

Why compile time matters: http://xkcd.com/303/ - Robert Felty

Use an IDE for iterative development of the components you are working on, make modules independent through interfaces, do a nightly build so the bulk of build products like libraries etc are available, then these compile issues go away. Justifying based on compile times is so 1990s. - Todd Hoff

Ah, but how exactly does your IDE allow you to do iterative development quickly? You have to be able to compile individual modules (whatever form they take) quickly enough to make this feasible. If you take C[++] as the de facto systems language, it fails badly on this front, because the only way to share interfaces among modules is via the preprocessor, and precompiled headers only get... more... - Joel Webber

Poor Frank McCabe and his ten year old "go!" language: http://www.reddit.com/r... - Daniel J. Pritchett

C++ allows for abstract base classes. No implementation. Compose systems this way and you minimize recompilation. And I'm assuming the initial subsystems are developed in a mocked unit tested environment and then within a very narrow scope, so interface changes are minimized until the system test phase is reached. The compilation argument would make sense if they were talking about a... more... - Todd Hoff

Sure, but you still have to define the abstract base class (interface) in a header file somewhere, and individual .cc files end up depending upon a large number of these in practice, so that any change to one of them tends to force you to recompile a lot of object files. As you say, there are some ways of reducing this effect, but in practice large C++ systems end up taking forever and a day to compile (try compiling WebKit; a lot of Google code has this problem as well). - Joel Webber

C++ templates are also implemented badly, which makes compilation slow. - Piaw Na

Only if you don't compose your system well Joel. I've worked very comfortably on systems that took 12 hours to compile across a cluster of 32 build machines. I'm not saying I don't want a language where you don't have to go through all these hoops, but to say it's inevitable in C++ is not so, you just have to beat make into submission and not create a big ball of mud, which is good practice anyway. - Todd Hoff

@Todd: Fair enough -- I'm definitely not saying you're wrong, and I have also worked on fairly large C++ code bases (mostly games) without everything going to hell in a handbasket. But you have to admit that it would be nice if you didn't have to wait many hours (or use a Google-sized build cluster) for compiling your code :) - Joel Webber

I've worked "comfortably" on projects where the full rebuild time was a few hours on my local machine, but I can't say that I was ever working optimally. Even in the instant-on environment I'm working in now, there are occasionally changes that I have to wait a full build/deploy cycle to test and it almost always takes me 2-5x as long to solve problems in that case. You can multitask while you wait, but it's just not the same (IMHO, of course). - Matt Mastracci

I think 12 hours to compile across 32 build machines is unacceptable. I want instant compilation. You know, the kind that Turbo Pascal used to have. - Piaw Na

I think that there's a dramatic improvement in developer productivity when the compile-link-run cycle time goes from a minute to a second. - Gary Burd

Piaw before you say what is or is not unacceptable you might want to take the trouble to know what problem is being solved. Turbo Pascal to a real deployed product like a unicycle is to the 5th fleet. - Todd Hoff

But any, good, modern IDE compiles incrementally and continuously so there's no noticeable compilation step. Compilation shouldn't be a _highlight_ of a new language. It's nice and the ease of building developer tools is a benefit to uptake but, in the end, the language has to be something developers _want_ to read and write since we have to look at it so much. Syntax matters. It's why so much sugar is added to languages. - ·[▪_▪]·

As stated before, modern IDEs don't scale to google-sized code bases. Go is not designed for your tiny projects that fit in main memory. It's designed for large scale development projects. - Piaw Na

@piaw You seem to assume that Google doesn't organize it's code. Any good project, regardless of size, especially for large projects, should be modularized. If Google has to load every piece of code into the IDE, they have more serious problems than Go will resolve. Trust me, I work on a project with tens of millions of lines of Java code and i've been responsible for analysis and... more... - ·[▪_▪]·

Well, Piaw actually did write a fair amount of the code at Google, so I'd give him a little more credit :) I know plenty of people at Google who *do* use Eclipse/IntelliJ on Google's code base (myself included), but you do have to break it into manageable chunks to make it work. That's sometimes easier said than done, to be fair. - Joel Webber

When I worked for a large company in the internet advertising business, I found that dependency creep was a constant problem. I spent more time than I would have liked trying to get fast compilation time in Eclipse/IntelliJ. I welcome a tool that helps with this problem. - Gary Burd

"I have already used the name for *MY* programming language" http://code.google.com/p... - Maxamad

I think that time spent pruning and organizing your code and library is best instead spent working on better tools that make your development environment super fast and capable of scaling. That's the way Go was designed. - Piaw Na

If you want fast turnaround, eliminate compiles all together. There's no reason why a language can't support a double or triple hybrid model. Look at a language like Factor, image based like Smalltalk, you write a function, and can patch it into the live running app instantaneously, where it will run interpreted in combination with compiled code, until the runtime gets around to... more... - Ray Cromwell

I noticed that Go has an interpreter work-in-progress living in its source. The start of an instant-run mode? - Matt Mastracci

Smalltalk had a massive sharing problem --- you couldn't ever replicate what was in your Smalltalk image on someone else's machine. Eliminating compiles would be nice, but again, if you're solving problems at a massive scale, interpretation would be an order of magnitude loss in execution speed that you can't afford. That said, a Go interpreter would not be out of the question, or even hard to build. - Piaw Na

@Piaw - was just reading "Coders at Work" this week and Ingalls (http://www.codersatwork.com/dan-ing...) was saying the exact opposite. He said he pauses his Mac machine and sends his Smalltalk system state over to a Windows developer and they start right up, debug, and fix. - Daniel J. Pritchett

The point is not to have the production version run in interpretation, the point is to increase developer productivity by allowing a fast edit-run cycle, production builds can take as long as necessary. When you're in development mode, you often don't need full execution speed, you are checking for correctness. Take GWT for example. You can make changes to Java source, hit reload, and... more... - Ray Cromwell

What does production mean? An experiment that processes a large number of records so you can decide how to proceed with your line of research is hardly production, but it nevertheless has to execute fast over large amounts of data. You might think that it doesn't matter how quickly that runs, but the difference between 10 minutes and 100 minutes is huge in terms of productivity. - Piaw Na

Yes, if you copied the entire image over, you could replicate a smalltalk VM. The problem is, then you have to live with the other guy's image and customizations. Smalltalk is great, but it really was designed as a single-user environment. - Piaw Na

It depends how often you are running experiments over huge datasets like that. In the case where I needed some experimental data to proceed, yes, if after every edit, you had such an experiment, then maybe programming in a neutered language would be worth it, but I'd say that for the majority of developers, this is not the case, so being able to run unoptimized builds/interpretation... more... - Ray Cromwell

No, it is not for everyone. It's very much for large scale datasets that are encountered somewhat frequently on the WWW. - Piaw Na

Amit Patel

Generation specs: Stopping the short-sight epidemic - health - 06 November 2009 - New Scientist - http://www.newscientist.com/article...

Sunday from delicious - Comment - Like - Share

ǝuǝƃnǝ, Private Sanjeev, Victor Ganata and 8 other people liked this

What causes nearsightedness? It doesn't appear to be genetic. Spending lots of time outdoors while growing up seems to greatly reduce the chances of being nearsighted. - Amit Patel

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"Near work, such as reading, had always seemed like an obvious contributor, since short-sightedness appears more common among highly educated people." - Clare Dibble

"Playing indoor sports turned out to have no benefits for the eyes, whereas even physically inactive time spent outside was beneficial" - Clare Dibble

"The result? On average the children in Sydney spent nearly 14 hours per week outside, and only 3 per cent developed myopia. In contrast, the children in Singapore spent just 3 hours outside, and 30 per cent developed myopia. Once again, close work had a minimal influence; the Australian children actually spent more time reading and in front of their computers than the Singaporeans... more... - bob

My optometrist was very impressed that my myopia is getting better. He thinks it's because I take off my glasses to read, but now I think it's because I spent a lot more time outside than others. - Piaw Na

My myopia stopped getting worse when I started going out more, but there were so many other lifestyle changes at the time that it's hard for me to say whether it had an effect. For example, when outdoors I also exercise more :) (hiking, mostly) - Amit Patel

Our 9 month old son loves being outside. Maybe this will mean that he won't be as near-sighted as I am. - Robert Felty

FWIW, I've heard that sleeping with a night light can cause myopia... - Andrew C

This peripheral blur theory sounds very interesting. I actually only need my glasses to drive or watch TV/movies... I should get back to what I used to do for years, which was go without the rest of the time. I've needed lenses for nearly 20 years now, but the progression (degradation) has been very very slow. - Andrew C

AJ Batac

Massachusetts family of 6 lives off $4/wk for food - http://www.youtube.com/watch...

Monday from Facebook - Comment - Like - Share

Laura Norvig, Felicia Yue, Jeannie Choi and April Buchheit liked this

she rocks! good chutzpah - Felicia Yue

I would not want to be in line behind her (nor would I want to be the cashier). - Robert Felty

There are two issues I have with this. The first is that manufacturer coupons are almost always all processed foods (boxed dinners, packaged things) so you have to be cool with eating mostly processed foods if you're going to do that. The second is that you can't menu plan or do much true cooking or baking if you're doing shopping like she is. You end up with whatever processed foods you get with your coupons and then have to make meals out of that. - Rochelle

April Buchheit

Maclaren recalls strollers after amputation reports | Reuters - http://www.reuters.com/article...

Monday from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

"Maclaren USA Inc is recalling about one million strollers sold in the United States over the past decade after receiving a dozen reports of children's fingers being amputated when caught in the stroller's hinges. Maclaren announced a voluntary recall with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) on Monday. The CPSC said consumers should immediately stop using the strollers, which were made in China, unless otherwise instructed. The recall involves all Maclaren single and double umbrella strollers sold in the United States starting in 1999. Maclaren said it has received 15 reports of children placing their finger in the stroller's hinge mechanism, which led to 12 reported fingertip amputations in the United States." - April Buchheit from Bookmarklet

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Yikes! I own two types of these strollers, the Techno XT and the Volo. - April Buchheit

"Consumers were told to contact Maclaren at (877) 688-2326 or through the web site www.maclaren.us/recall for more information." (The site is down, of course.) - April Buchheit

So the problem happens when you open or collapse the stroller with the child's finger in one of the hinges? It's hard to imagine how that would come about. - Gabe

Yes, indeed, Gabe. But then again, you never know with kids. - April Buchheit

Spencer sometimes closes my laptop lid on his fingers. He hasn't lost any fingers yet, but he always seems to be surprised that it hurts (same goes for drawers). - Robert Felty

April Buchheit

"If You Want To Be Popular...YOU CAN'T AFFORD TO BE SKINNY!" - http://imgur.com/SrW5N

Monday from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

Jim Norris, Felicia Yue, Robert Felty and 8 other people liked this

My, how times have changed. - April Buchheit

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Must Tumble this! - Anika

"Tells how to gain weight and keep it!" - Gabe

That model looks pretty skinny to me already. - Robert Felty

Back before they invented pizza and hot dogs. - Cristo

Simon

Rhaphanidosis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki...

Saturday from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

Benjamin Golub, Bret Taylor, joefouche and Paul Buchheit liked this

"Rhaphanidosis is the act of inserting a radish into the ..." - Simon from Bookmarklet

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How did this ever pass the "notoriety" editorial test? - Bill Strathearn

Was it a daikon radish? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... - Robert Felty

"This article about a criminal law topic is a stub". Criminal law, my <strike>ars</strike> err... word! - Большие ириски

Matt Cutts

Scamville: The Social Gaming Ecosystem Of Hell - http://www.techcrunch.com/2009...

October 31 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

Niels Provos, Maggie, Tudor Bosman and 18 other people liked this

I don't get it. People actually pay for points on their games? - Piaw Na

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Piaw - it's a trade of money for time. - Andrew C

BTW, I had no idea the scams were this bad. I have friends who work at some of the "bad" gaming companies named here. - Andrew C

Maybe this is part of the reason that Apple is so restrictive about iPhone apps. - Robert Felty

Robert, Apple's review process can't discover apps that do this -- they can't tell whether the ad unit that shows a legitimate ad during the review process suddenly starts showing scammy lead-gen a week later. I'd look at it a different way: scammy lead-gen shows up everywhere that content providers don't attach value to having a satisfied user (email spam, search engine spam, etc.). The best way for FB to avoid this is to make their platform useful for nontrivial app authors. Looks like they're trying... - Daniel Dulitz

Good point Daniel. It seems like it is a pretty difficult thing to police. Maybe they could create a blacklist of advertisers. - Robert Felty

Its not always the advertisers, its how the offers are presented. Tatto Media suggested we block people from seeing more than 3 articles on our site without forcing the user to fill out an offer of their choice. Of course we didn't implement this and it wouldn't drive the user experience we are looking for. - Matt Ellsworth

Jess Lee

I'm a sad carnivore trapped in a vegetarian restaurant.

November 3 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Christian (Simply X), Eivind, Faraz Mullick and 36 other people liked this

oh man... that does suck. - Josh Haley from iPhone

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And surrounded by all those delicious vegetarians? What is there to be sad about? - Jim Norris

I went to get a burger afterwards. Am fine now! - Jess Lee

I've heard of vegetarian places so good carnivores don't even miss the meat. ... I've never visited such a place myself. - Andrew C

Andrew, no such place exists, my friend. - Chieze Okoye

I've heard of them too, Andrew, but only from vegetarians, and if you're going to rule out a whole category of foods on a whim, you must not like food that much, so your opinion doesn't carry much weight with me. - Mr. Gunn

Now imagine how often the opposite happens to vegetarians! Weddings are particularly bad. I usually eat something beforehand, and bring a Cliff bar with me so I don't pass out from starvation. - Robert Felty

Next time that happens, let us know asap. Someone will send bacon. :) - April Buchheit from iPhone

:( sorry Jess...that sucks. I know sometimes fake chicken just doesn't cut it... - Anna Lynn M.

I once went to a vegan wedding at Greens in San Francisco. The food was yummy. But we both woke up thoroughly hungry the next morning, as though we ate nothing the night before. - Piaw Na

A whim, Mr. Gunn? That's completely false and baseless. And here I actually used to have some respect for you as a source of information. - Ruchira S. Datta

I wondered if someone was going to give me static about calling their choice a whim. OK, so it's not a whim, it's a serious and considered decision to toss out a whole category of food. It's an indication that something (be it environmental, ethical, or other perfectly valid issue) is more important to you than food, so perhaps the person making that choice isn't necessarily going to be your go-to person for information about food. - Mr. Gunn

Mr. Gunn, I see that your view has its own consistency. A word to the wise: if you ever do find someone to whom *nothing* is more important than food, I would suggest that when you go to them for information, you either make sure they're not hungry or stay a safe distance away. - Ruchira S. Datta

Hey now, gourmets don't usually think of other people as food. - Andrew C

Andrew C, why not? - Ruchira S. Datta

I'm a sad cannibal trapped in an empty restaurant. - Jim Norris

@Ruchira - too gamy, and then there's the social and legal barriers too. - Andrew C

Andrew C, the opinions of people who would let social and legal barriers stand in the way don't carry much weight with Mr. Gunn. As for gaminess, apparently it's an acquired taste--maybe those who haven't acquired it are not true gourmands. - Ruchira S. Datta

I think Gunn's statement can be logically reconciled with mine by stating that the axiom of what is and isn't food is fundamental to the whole concept of food... - Andrew C

Calling it an "axiom" puts it beyond the realm of reasoning (rather like a "dogma"). So be it. - Ruchira S. Datta

It's not axiomatic at all, it's entirely dependent on how hungry you are. - Jim Norris

Jim, thus the wisdom of my warning. - Ruchira S. Datta

Ruchira, come on. I see what you're saying, but you're taking the facetiousness a bit too far. "Humans aren't food" is a much more common understanding among humans (hence axiom) than any of the various reasons why vegetarians don't eat meat. - Chieze Okoye

Chieze, so the basis for "Humans aren't food" is simply social conformity, which depends entirely on the milieu in which you happen to find yourself (and again is beyond the realm of reasoning). All right, I revise my warning: when you go to the person to whom nothing is more important than food, make sure they're not hungry, stay a safe distance away, or make sure there are other people like you within shouting distance. - Ruchira S. Datta

Oh, and you'd better make sure the same will apply after you've eaten and digested the food they recommend. - Ruchira S. Datta

Eat the waiter. - Kevin Pedraja

escape! - Susan Beebe

OMG Jess is still trapped? It's been 19 hours! We need to send help. - Stephen Mack

OK, so the semantics of all this and fun and everything, but let's get real. However laudable and noble their aims, a vegetarian foodie is like a painter who won't use the color red or a designer who won't include a curved surface in any design. They can be good resources on how to work within their constraints, but aren't considered general authorities. And a lot of them are just doing it for the attention (*ducks*). - Mr. Gunn

Mr. Gunn, don't know about that. One reason Indian food is so rich (real food, not the restaurant stuff) is that the food evolved to be vegetarian in many parts of the country. People there don't choose (most anyway) to be vegetarian because it's trendy. This from someone who has literally eaten almost everything there is to eat - Deepak Singh

I know Deepak. It was just a little snark followed up by giving Ruchira a hard time. I love y'all, for real. - Mr. Gunn

You, snarky? Never :) - Deepak Singh from IM

I find that most meat eaters haven't had much good vegetarian food. I am nearly always disappointed when a meat eater cooks for me. That is why I learned to cook (and most vegetarians I know are pretty good cooks). That being said, given the choice between going to a strictly vegetarian restaurant and going to an Indian restaurant, I usually choose Indian, for several reasons. (1) It is usually cheaper. (2) It is usually more filling (3) Indians sure know their spices! - Robert Felty

Wow, did not expect my whining to result in such a long discussion. Go FriendFeed! - Jess Lee

Where did you get the burger? - Cristo

McDonalds. - Jess Lee

Booooooooooo urns - Andrew C from Android

Mr. Gunn, how many puppies have you eaten? And I assure you, I'm vegetarian all day, every day, whether anyone is watching or not. Where I live this actually doesn't get me much attention. - Ruchira S. Datta

Is puppy meat suppose to be good? I guess if the puppies are properly fed (like veal) they could be tasty, although I've never encountered them on the menu. Of course, I have eaten from taco trucks, so who knows? :) - Cristo

Nothing else is exactly the color of pus. A painter who does not keep a supply of infected wounds around to supply this color is not a true artist. - Ruchira S. Datta

Ruchira, we generally find RGB or CMYK do a decent enough job. But I really don't think whole meat (as opposed to ground) can be adequately simulated with non-meat ingredients. - Andrew C

I'll concede that vegetarians aren't typically going to be authorities on types of cuisine that normally feature meats as essential parts of meals, just as I confess being a neophyte when it comes to the medium of pus on canvas. - Jim Norris

My friend prefers bacon on his veggie burgers. - Cristo

Andrew C, if you are referring to the current state of science and technology, I agree with you. The reason RGB and CMYK work (although seriously, there are many artists who don't think using them is true art) is because our understanding of color perception is currently much more advanced than our understanding of the perception of odor or texture. - Ruchira S. Datta

Jim, I certainly wouldn't pose as an authority on whether the chicken tikka masala in a particular restaurant is good. But Mr. Gunn is discounting my opinion on whether *any* dish in a restaurant is good. The only statement he would allow is "It's good, considering that it's vegetarian." Not, "It's good," period. Apparently since I'm vegetarian I must be out of my senses. - Ruchira S. Datta

_The Emperor of Scent_ is a fascinating book about odor perception (and I tend to think the opinion of the central character is probably right). - Ruchira S. Datta

It's usually the opposite for some of us. Please try the setan. - Jacob

Robert Felty

WordPress " Mark as Read " WordPress Plugins - http://wordpress.org/extend...

November 4 from delicious - Comment - Like - Share

shows registered users which posts they haven't read - Robert Felty

Kevin Marks

at SJC we get to walk down staircases in the open air, for that authentic 50s jetset vibe

November 2 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Ho John Lee, James Williams, Sam Harmon and 5 other people liked this

Only if you fly in to the Ghetto Terminal C. - Kevin Fox

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That's why I love Terminal C - checkin in single-digit minutes, retro vibe in CA sunshine FTW - Kevin Marks from email

I like that passengers can enter/exit at both ends of the plane at the retro terminal. - Gary Burd

ditto that Gary! - Robert Felty

I love boarding out of Terminal C. Retro vibe FTW, it makes you forget all the post-9/11 hassles and be in the moment for a second - James Williams

I, too, love Terminal C. I long for the days when traveling was a lot less hassle than it is now. - April Buchheit

Welcome to the high-tech capital of the solar system! NOT. - Steve "Daddy do it!" Lacy

Should we start a campaign to keep Terminal C at SJC? - Kevin Marks

Terminal B's looking pretty beautiful though, and I love the big comfy seats with integrated power and USB power in the armrests! - Kevin Fox

Terminal C is also my favorite. It's interesting that people are so polarized though. - Paul Buchheit from iPhone

I love Terminal C and am worried about it eventually being upgraded to be big and slow like Terminal A. - Amit Patel

After two long distance relationships, I have sentimental feelings for Terminal A. - Daisy

I'm flying, on a jet plane... - Jim Norris

I do know the "You're not really flying if your feet don't touch the tarmac" feeling. - Steve "Daddy do it!" Lacy

Benjamin Golub

Cake - http://bgolub.posterous.com/cake-16...

November 3 from Benjamin's Posterous - Comment - Like - Share

Mo Kargas, Maxamad, Robert Felty and 3 other people liked this

Did you get to eat it too? - Robert Felty

Robert Felty

[brothercake] Docking boxes (dbx) - http://www.brothercake.com/site...

November 3 from delicious - Comment - Like - Share

All sorts of draggable boxes, which can be sorted, and put into grids using javascript - Robert Felty

Amy Harmon

Happy Halloween! Happy Samhain! Burned sage & letters written to be burned as a cleansing for the new year.

October 31 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Spidra Webster and Robert Felty liked this

Which letters did you burn? I hope you didn't burn the ones that are most frequently used like 'e' or 't' or 'a'. - April Buchheit

I'll take an r, Pat - Robert Felty

Clare Dibble

Pizza! - http://blog.fedibblety.com/2009...

October 19 from The FeDibblety family - Comment - Like - Share

Daisy, Zoya, Tudor Bosman and 9 other people liked this

Wow! We're still struggling to get a few bites of purees in. :) - Rochelle

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Thomas definitely wouldn't have been able to tackle pizza crust at Spencer's age, but now that he's got a pretty good set of baby teeth (central & lateral incisors and first molars), he does pretty well with most things especially pizza crust and bagels. - April Buchheit

Spencer also really likes cherry tomatoes, though we don't have any pictures of him eating those. - Robert Felty

That baby is so Fedibblety! He's all Clariscious and Robtastic. - Bethany

Terribly cute :) I love the little wrinkles on the bridge of his nose! - Jeanette Bosman

:) - winckel

Chris Brinkerhoff

Do some languages predispose — in a subtle way — their speakers to be merrier than the speakers of other languages? http://judson.blogs.nytimes.com/2009...

October 30 - Comment - Like - Share

Clare Dibble liked this

is a happy face universal in humans or do other societies have different happy faces? - Chris Brinkerhoff

It seems that Japanese people associate happiness more with the eyes than the mouth. We use :) for happy, but Japanese people use (^_^), which seems to be more reflective of raised eyes. - Robert Felty

Isn't this the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis? - Gabe

Paul Buchheit

ooc - low-level / high-level goodness - http://ooc-lang.org/

October 28 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

Shivanand Velmurugan, JMaultasch, Benjamin Golub and 56 other people liked this

Looks promising. C++ is too much of a disaster -- we need a real successor to C. "ooc is a modern, object-oriented, functional-ish, high-level, low-level, sexy programming language. it's translated to pure C with a source-to-source compiler. it strives to be powerful, modular, extensible, portable, yet simple and fast." - Paul Buchheit from Bookmarklet

89 more comments

Meh. I dislike post-fix'd declarations, and given that the assignment operator is frequently used, I think C's decision to make it a single character operator is the correct one. Otherwise, it doesn't seem any better than say, Objective C, D, or any of the other languages vying to be the next C. - Piaw Na

Have you looked at the D language? http://www.digitalmars.com/d/ It's been around for years and near the top of language shootouts in performance. - Ray Cromwell

Pointers? Do we really need pointers? - Gabe

Yes, if you're doing a systems language, you need pointers --- for writing device drivers, if nothing else. - Piaw Na

Based on the sample code, it appears to have a very direct interface to C, which I think is important for a systems language. For most things I'd rather just use Python, but for lower-level, perf-critical stuff, we need something else. D looks like too much, but I haven't tried it. - Paul Buchheit

Type inference, yummy - a main reason why Scala has mad traction these days - Christopher Galtenberg

Start by creating a really lightweight and easy to use development environment. I should be able to teach Jay Rosen to program in it. Back in the 80s there was serious compeititon in this area -- from Borland with Turbo Pascal and on the Mac, from Think Technologies with their C and Pascal systems. The languages aren't the issue, at least not for me. I want to program in C again, but the curve is too steep in all the environments. Give me a Turbo environment and some nice libraries, and lets go! :-) - Dave Winer

Dave: http://tryruby.sophrinix.com <- that kind of easy - Christopher Galtenberg

Piaw Na: For ':=' I've just made a homepage edit to make it very clear. := is decl-assign. Regular assign is '=' as in C/Java/etc. RTFM! ;) - 'n ddrylliog

Piaw Na: As for trying to be the next C... well, no =) The next C is probably C itself, since C hackers are way too picky to be satisfied with anyside above C (in high-level/low-level terms) - 'n ddrylliog

Btw, why is everyone thinking of ooc as a systems language? It can be used as such, but it's not really the goal. Do you all think so because it's compiled? - 'n ddrylliog

I'm thinking of it as a systems language because that's what I want. We already have reasonable options for higher-level stuff, but when writing a database or whatever, we're stuck with C or C++. - Paul Buchheit

Paul Buchheit: Hmm. High-performance implementations of current reasonable high-level languages are still pretty much experimental :/ (unladen swallow, shedskin, etc.) Why sacrifice performance? Many compiled languages have shown that expressivity isn't reserved to "interpreted" languages. =) - 'n ddrylliog

Piaw Na: about ooc being better or worse than Objective-C, D, etc. Well, D is really complex. It gives a *lot* of control, but it makes code less readable imho. As much as you may currently dislike it, the ooc syntax is (for some at least) more readable, so more maintainable, in general simpler, etc. (a lot less trickier than C++, for example. And if you don't see what I'm talking about, you haven't done enough C++) - 'n ddrylliog

Ocaml is pretty expressive, it has a REPL, and it's been in the top of the language shootout benchmarks for years. - Ray Cromwell

How does ooc compare to C#? If I had to write something like a compiler, I'd use C#. - Gabe

The missing dots really bother me. - τorƍue

C++ a disaster? I don't think so, its main problem is the lack of high level straightforward frameworks. IMHO generic programming is a deeper paradigm than OOP, but like functional languages has a slow learning curve, look at the matrix implementations/compiler optimizations in Boost! - Sebastian Wain from iPhone

Sebastian: C++ has lots of significant problems. For example, it's actually 3 languages: precompiler (#define), C++, and templates. The template language is so powerful that you can't even tell if the compiler will halt on a given program, let alone understand the error messages it produces. Just the shear size of the language, manual memory management, things like multiple inheritance, and vast overlapping standard libraries make it hard to program in by giving the progammer an overly large cognitive load. - Gabe

My two biggest gripes: Error messages from templates, specially from STL, can be notoriously hard to track down. And secondly, default implicit conversions can lead to hard to track down bugs. When you have a type system so complex you have to mentally "run the compiler" as you code, something's wrong. - Ray Cromwell

I've been doing nothing but C++ lately. It's not bad, but only because everyone subsets it. The compilers are horrible, but I don't think that's because nobody has an incentive to improve g++'s front-end. - Piaw Na

Ouch. decl-assign is terrible. I hate that. I think C's syntax (e.g., int a = 3; ) is much better than decl- assign. If you want to imitate C, at least make the declarations C-like. Personally, I think language design should be performed so that you can hand-code a compiler (i.e., no lex & yacc). Why? Because hand-coded compilers can much more easily produce human readable error... more... - Piaw Na

I've seen it argued that LL(k) compiler-compilers don't have this fault, because they generate recursive decent parsers that look somewhat like what you'd write by hand, JavaCC certainly has this attribute for example. Although I'm quite fond of the parser-combinator approach now. - Ray Cromwell

Gabe: the issue is: when you need performance you must follow the C++ path. Don't forget http://theory.stanford.edu/~amitp... - Sebastian Wain

What Ray said. yacc uses an LALR parser, and LALR parsers are kind of notorious for producing inscrutable error messages. LL(k) compiler-compilers can generate much more intuitive error messages, and the code they generate often looks like something a human would write. Both JavaCC and ANTLR are good LL(k) compiler-compilers. I believe LL(k) parsers aren't strictly as powerful as LALR... more... - Laurence Gonsalves

On the topic of ooc: the "object [space] method-call()" syntax is the most jarring thing about the syntax for me. I'm surprised that there doesn't seem to be any actual introduction to that syntax on the linked page -- it's just used several times without explanation. Also, I have to say I'm not a fan of conservative garbage collection. - Laurence Gonsalves

Yes, when I hand code parsers, I write them in recursive descent form. The problem with C++ is that it's not easily parseable in that form. And seriously, any language where you can write map<string, string>, but have to write map<string, vector<string> > is seriously messed up. - Piaw Na

+1 to Laurence's comment about conservative GC: that's plain evil. - Piaw Na

Yeah, Piaw only uses progressive GC, and even then he keeps complaining that it's finding ways to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. - Daniel Dulitz

I believe JavaCC grammar repo has a relatively straightforward C++ grammar implemented, using LL(k) - Ray Cromwell

Piaw Na: You got so much wrong in so few comments that it's actually worrying. Decl-assign is not terrible. It's called type inference, and is used in a lot of modern languages (ML, C#, Scala) to make our lives easier, and limits repeating yourself and it works damn well. Grow up and learn other languages. So no, the goal is not to imitate C. Go use Objective-C/C#/C++/Java/D if you want C-like languages. - 'n ddrylliog

Piaw Na: Second: I have hand-written the ooc 0.3 compiler's parser, and it was a piece of cake, because the syntax is so simple and unambiguous. Having "object[space]field" is a non-issues since declarations are "name: type". And you're mistaken in thinking that the fact you can hand-write a parser for a grammar means that it's simple. It's the other way around. If you can write a LL(K)/LR/PEG grammar, then the syntax is *very* straightforward. And the new ooc compiler (rock) uses a PEG grammar.. - 'n ddrylliog

Conservative Garbage Collector: There are advantages 1) the performance is a lot better than you would expect (and actually faster than plain malloc/free for lots of small objects) 2) there are advantages, e.g. seamless integrations with all the C libs out there. 3) Writing a GC isn't easy, the Boehm has been around for years and is well-tested/optimized, portable, etc. Read the papers please :/ This thread is a showcase of ignorance and arrogance. - 'n ddrylliog

As for "Language blah is better". No, sorry, apples are not better than oranges. That's your personal taste. Well, good for you =) One size doesn't fit all. Why do you even bother? - 'n ddrylliog

why `diagonal := Vector3f new()` instead of `diagonal := new Vector3f()` or even `diagonal := Vector3f()` is this because someone felt he must not be like any other language? - Tzury Bar Yochay

I know several typed inference languages. I dislike them --- again, type inferencing never took off not because the technology was hard, but because programmers preferred the declarations --- it really helps. Not to mention tools like ctags/etags, etc., do a good job for popular programming environments (i.e., vi and emacs), which meant that languages without such support never get widespread use. - Piaw Na

Conservative Garbage Collector: 1) this is more an argument abut gc than conservative gc. I have no problems with gc, I just want accurate gc. 2) That's a fair point, but not enough to make me want to use conservative gc. I'd be happier managing resources from C libraries manually than worrying that hash values are confusing the collector. 3) Yes, writing a gc isn't easy, but I'm sure... more... - Laurence Gonsalves

@Piaw, a type inferenced language just means that the type is concretely there, just it doesn't need to be declared in syntax. Thus, any smart editor or IDE, or other tool could reify or show types on demand if the developer so chose. Ctags are a relatively primitive mechanism for source code indexing, once you have an editor which understands your language's AST/semantics, you don't... more... - Ray Cromwell

Tzury: why 'diagonal := Vector3f new()'? Because new is simply a static method: http://ooc-lang.org/blog... Your definition of "any other language" must be "Java and C++" and both are inconsistent/magical on this issue, as opposed to, yeah, pretty much "any other language" (Smalltalk, Ruby, Io, ...) - 'n ddrylliog

I've never heard of this before. Feel a bit disconnected. - mikepk

Ray: for better or worse, most programmers out there are using Emcas and vi. Why? Because no other tool scales up when you're dealing with large code bases. (That's one reason why even some Java programmers at Google use vi and Emacs) I don't care how primitive the tools are, they have to get things done. - Piaw Na

I agree with Laurence about conservative GC. The big one is memory fragmentation. Once upon a time, when all we ever wrote were desktop apps, memory fragmentation didn't matter. For server side applications, it matters a heck of a lot, and any language that uses conservative gc might as well provide the delete operator. - Piaw Na

C++ can be used quite effectively without STL or complicated templates, but it will never be safe from corruption or memory leaks. - Todd Hoff

I love lamp. - Mark Jepsen

@Laurence 1) Yes and no. The performance gap between good conservative and precise (/accurate/exact) garbage collectors is less significant than one would think. 2) That's a valid point 3) Actually, I've thought of using Steve Dekorte's libgarbagecollector (look on GitHub). These are still plans though, Boehm was clearly the easiest option to start with, and ooc itself isn't bound to... more... - 'n ddrylliog

Easily one of the most fascinating threads on FriendFeed right now. You guys are talking mostly over my head but it reminds me that I need to get my ass out of managed languages one day. - Akiva Moskovitz

@mikepk The language+impl has only been out there for a few months. =) - 'n ddrylliog

@Todd Totally agreed, which explains some design choices in ooc. Memory leaks is a non-issue with a GC, and as for corruption, as long as you stay out of manual memory manipulation, the compiler does most the checking for you, statically. - 'n ddrylliog

@piaw: I think we're mostly in agreement, but I really don't think it's fair to say that "most programmers use Emacs and vi". I use vi a lot, but when it comes to Java/Scala code bases, I still use Eclipse (or IntelliJ, or whatever). Even at Google. I just don't map the *entire* Google Java code base into my workspace at once. I'm pretty sure the vast majority of Java developers at... more... - Joel Webber

Joel: sure, you can play tricks like mapping only what you use. But a surprising number of Java users at Google kick up vim/emacs just so they can use the *fast* low-latency search tools when they need to read code outside of what they've mapped. The numbers were really surprising to me. - Piaw Na

I've been using emacs for 2 decades and I still use it when I need to quickly edit something or slice and dice text with macros (or I write sed/perl to do it). But when I'm developing stuff, a switchover point occurs where emacs is no longer sufficient and I desire the IDE. Emacs is great for scripts where you can test for errors via a quick eval, but the cost of a compile is high in... more... - Ray Cromwell

There is, once you get into Google-size (or even Linux-kernel-sized) code bases. But I guess I've living in the Google bubble for so long, the concept of not having mega-libraries doesn't even occur to me. And we've built enough fancy tools at Google that make Emacs way faster than Eclipse/IntelliJ (see http://code.google.com/p...). Latency matters! - Piaw Na

Ultimately, this is a search problem, something that google excels at. I'm not sure why you think Emacs has any innate advantage over Eclipse/IntelliJ for this. If GTags can be built for Emacs, it can be done for those IDEs. (Those IDEs already index all symbols and store them on disk) The issue here is that "find symbol" is necessary, but not sufficient, especially on large code bases.... more... - Ray Cromwell

Heh. I open sourced all the infrastructure, but not the ranking algorithms for code (which are google proprietary) Having seen lots of old Google hands work in Emacs, I think you'll find that they disagree. People have tried adding plugins to gtags for Eclipse/IntelliJ, but none have succeeded --- those IDEs aren't designed to take plugins quite the way Emacs does. Even Vim isn't as... more... - Piaw Na

As a practical example, the Linux kernel core (minus the whole driver universe) is about 500kloc. The GWT compiler, which I work on, is about 500kloc. I have zero complains about my IDE's ability (IntelliJ 9) to deal with this code base. Call it a medium sized code base if you will. Too big IMHO to practically use with Emacs/VI (where I desire refactoring and other navigational... more... - Ray Cromwell

What you'll find is that top engineers everywhere have heavily customized environments, scripts, editors, libraries, even their own programming languages, that make switching hard. Anecdotal evidence doesn't really prove anything, if "old hands" is meant to covey argument by authority. Like I said, I've been personally using Emacs since 1987, I use a bevy of ELisp, Perl, Awk, and other... more... - Ray Cromwell

I think the mindset difference is huge. Codebase too big? The IDE solution is to subset. The EMACS solution is to create a search index held in memory and apply search technology to it. The size of the community hacking away on these tools also matters. - Piaw Na

Piaw, you do realize that the IDE solution (I can't speak for Eclipse), is to build a search index and apply search technology? IntelliJ spiders all your reachable code and files on project setup (now, as a background process since it can take some time) and serves up IDE functions by consulting the index. In fact, it's very much like Google Suggest. I can type symbol lookup requests... more... - Ray Cromwell

Oh yeah, but they do it on disk and so have high latency when the code base scales up. I know, because people switch to Emacs/gtags from those IDEs for that reason. :-) - Piaw Na

Google's code base is large? I mean, I know the data it holds and indexes is very large, but somehow I assumed the code itself was quite small. - Andrew C

Actually, they cache some or all of the indices in memory depending on heap, at least according to the IntelliJ lead, if you increase heap, you lower cache thrashing. I still don't see why you think ETags/CTags/etc is any different in this regard. IntelliJ uses a similar index structure, it just records a bitmask on each tag as to the context (comment, identifier, method, field, etc).... more... - Ray Cromwell

@Andrew: I assume Piaw's talking about the *entire* code base, apps and all. That's a lot of code. - Joel Webber

gtags keeps it all in memory on a server, so there's no disk seek latency. There's nothing fundamental about the IDEs that makes this stuff impossible to do. It's just far easier to do in Emacs when there's just one of you. Once the prototype gets going, it's usefulness allows others to add in more useful functionality. Until recently, things like IntelliJ weren't even open source, so... more... - Piaw Na

Thanks Joel. Yes, I'm talking about the entire codebase. All of it. :-) - Piaw Na

@Piaw, Ray: It's becoming clear to me that we're all essentially saying the same thing. To deal with a large, complex code base, you need good tools. IDEs vs. Emacs isn't really much of a dichotomy if they're both building indices and cross-references of your code base and serving them up to you within the editor. They're both IDEs, n'est-ce pas? - Joel Webber

Yes, I'm just saying, if you need to build something in a hurry, it's far easier to do it in Emacs. But more importantly, ignoring a base of Emacs/Vi users when designing your programming language is ignoring a large percentage of the population. And in some cases, it's a large percentage of a very influential population. - Piaw Na

@Piaw I somehow lost your point between the "omg I don't like type inference" and the "you're ignoring Emacs/Vim users". It's still straight-forward to look for declarations of things, what's your problem? It's precisely why := and = are separate operators - 'n ddrylliog

You'll get no argument from me. I'm a fan of diversity in programming, and I do use emacs daily. IntelliJ/Eclipse would do well to offer a simple in-editor tool for building plugins via any Java scripting engine and support saving those persistently. I guess my point is, I can't live without Etags functionality, and now I can't live without all the other features I've gotten used to:... more... - Ray Cromwell

Even without any support, editing ooc in at text editor (I personally use Vim and Geany for .ooc) is very easy, cause you can search for "whatever:" (notice the ':') and be done with it. Try doing that with a C/C++/Java codebase =) That's the payback of a simple, non-ambiguous consistent syntax - 'n ddrylliog

And AFAIK, most ooc users/contributors/hackers use vim. A few use emacs, too. We have a vim syntax file, and a contributor is looking into writing an emacs mode. =) - 'n ddrylliog

@Piaw, Ray, et al: To finish my previous thought -- There will always be some point at which an IDE (be it Emacs or Eclipse) will fail to scale. The time and space required to deal with the code base eventually grows without bound, and you simply aren't going to load it into a single machine's memory. Even if you could load all of Google's code (or at least its index) into a single... more... - Joel Webber

Or you do the work to integrate the external search tool (or whatever) into the IDE. Emacs is designed to make that easy. The other IDEs that are around today, not so much. Code Search introduces a lot of latency. gtags as implemented internal to Google has sub 300ms response times. Whenever it goes down, I get complaints from people, declaring that "it's just too much work to remember where files are." - Piaw Na

I think Piaw's concern with type inference comes from the fact that explicitly stating the type of something acts as documentation. With type inference that documentation goes away. For example, in ooc, suppose I search for "whatever:" and I see "whatever:= foo()". What's the type? Whatever foo() returns. So now I have to look up foo(). Suppose it uses type inference on its return type (assuming that's possible in ooc). Now I have to dig even deeper. - Laurence Gonsalves

I'm guessing the IDE digression related to the fact that a sufficiently smart IDE can add the implicit type information back by doing the same type inference as the compiler. The problem with going down that road is that you're coupling the code editor and the language. Either your editor needs special language support so it can do the type inference, or you have to put up with not having an easy way of knowing something's type. - Laurence Gonsalves

I don't understand how you can do conservative garbage collection without leaking memory. - Gabe

Gabe: In theory, you can't. In practice, Hans Boehm did a lot of studies in the 1990s showing you that the leakage is very tiny. The real problem is memory fragmentation. With accurate GC, you can actually improve the locality of your data structures in memory (e.g., by putting elements of a linked list or array next to each other so a cache fetch brings them all into cache), with conservative GC, you can't do that. - Piaw Na

@Laurence: type inference: For me, the advantages far outweighs the drawback(s) (And, no, no return type inference in ooc). Plus, you don't *have to* use type inference. You can declare type explicitly in your whole codebase if you feel like it. - 'n ddrylliog

For the record: I'm not saying I necessarily agree with Piaw's distaste for type inference. I've thought about the issue in the past, but haven't used languages with type inference enough to have an opinion one way or the other. The lack of return type inference might be a good compromise, as it would tend to limit how far you'd have to search to figure out the type of something, while still eliminating a lot of the "busy work" in languages that require that you specify the type of everything. - Laurence Gonsalves

@Laurence You've come to the exact same reasoning as me =) - 'n ddrylliog

I do still think you should explain the "object[space]method-call" syntax somewhere on that page. Up until the point where you use that syntax ooc looks vaguely similar to C/Pascal/Algol/etc., so seeing this unfamiliar syntax with no explanation is confusing. - Laurence Gonsalves

@Laurence I just edited the homepage. Better now? - 'n ddrylliog

w.r.t. fragmentation and conservative GC: take a look at "Compacting garbage collection with ambiguous roots" by Joel Bartlett. Worked very well when I used it in a home-brew JVM for alphas at Dec/Compaq about twelve years ago. - Sanjay Ghemawat

I really like the way C# handles pointers and GC: All objects are allocated from the GC heap. If you need a pointer to a GC-able object, you only get it by pinning it. Once the pointer goes out of scope the object gets unpinned. And you can only use pointers in code marked "unsafe" so it's obvious to the reader. - Gabe

Gabe - does the fact that C# is not compiled to machine code like C++ make it slower? - Robert Felty

Rob: C# gets compiled to native machine code when you run the code. There's also a program that ships with .Net called ngen which will create a native image without having to run the code. - Gabe

It would be nice if Microsoft open-sourced C#/.net. I know there is Mono, but that seems like it will always be second-class. - Paul Buchheit

What happened to the "Opening .Net Framework's Source Code" project, any ideas? - Ozkan Altuner

I guess Rotor isn't good enough, huh? - Gabe

I was thinking of an actual open/free license. - Paul Buchheit

Paul Graham on object orientation: http://www.paulgraham.com/noop... - Donald C. Lindsay

April Buchheit

"Blue Cross sent me a postage-prepaid postcard to send to my Senator opposing a Public Option" (PICS) - Democratic Underground - http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss...

October 26 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

Laura (hear me raura?), Michael Muller, Jay Cuthrell and 98 other people liked this

"So I'm using Blue Cross's postage to send MY message. Thanks Blue Cross for the postage." - April Buchheit from Bookmarklet

148 more comments

Ingenious. - Maxamad

The postcard says "Postage will be paid by addressee", which implies it's the senator who will be paying the postage. Of course, the senator's franking privileges may make it so that the taxpayers pay the postage. - Gabe

True. But why is it that the Senator Hagan/taxpayers should be paying for Blue Cross' message? - Christopher Chung

My friend did this, too. I hope I get one in the mail. - Ayşe E.

They haven't sent me one of these, but when they do, I'll be sure to mail it in unmodified (or with a big "NO ON PUBLIC OPTION" written on it, perhaps). The very notion of government run health insurance is a travesty that will end up bankrupting this country. - Otto

So you don't think Medicare or the Veterans Health Administration is going to pan out, even after all these years? - Mark Trapp

Medicare and the VA system are living proof of my statements. They offer crappy service and are continually costing more and more as time goes on. They are unsustainable in the long term, and basically expanding these failures to cover everybody is only going to accelerate the problem. - Otto

What's long term? The VA system has been going since 1778, and Medicare since 1965. Are you thinking at the 300 year mark, they'll finally collapse? - Mark Trapp

Right on! Good for you! That's a great idea - Ciaoenrico

Our Canadian single-payer health care has been going strong for some time now with no risk of bankruptcy. I'd like to see some evidence that our system is unsustainable. - Matt Mastracci

The VA system is garbage, ask any veteran who has to use it on a regular basis. And medicare is on the verge of bankruptcy, and has been for at least decade now. Last I checked, medicare was the biggest drain of tax revenue that exists. Predictions I've seen give it 10 more years, tops, even with restructuring. - Otto

What Matt said. - Nathalie, Dreamer of FF

Love this post. - Trish R

That's awesome! - Jan Ole Peek

Of course, the assertion that government-run health insurance is unsustainable (whether Medicare, the VA, the Canadian system, or any other) raises the question of what system is more sustainable than government-run insurance. It's certainly not the current American one. ... I love April's use of the mailer. - John (a.k.a. dendroica)

Don't get me wrong, I'm all in favor of health care reform... But insurance reform is unnecessary. The problem is not the insurance companies, their reactions and bad-behaviors are created by the high cost of medical care to begin with. Fix the health care system to not cost so damn much, and the problems with insurance will solve themselves. Strike at the source of the problems, not at the consequences of them. - Otto

Otto: Insurance causes high prices of medical care. Since you don't pay, the hospital can set its prices arbitrarily high and the insurance company pays whatever its maximum is. Since the insurance company pays so much, they have to have high insurance rates, which makes insurance expensive to buy. If the government had their own insurance, they would be big enough to demand low prices,... more... - Gabe

That's insane. The existence of insurance does not cause the high price of medial care. You have it exactly backwards. Furthermore, the idea of a government-run-insurance plan would not solve that problem, if it was at all the truth, because you're dealing with a supply demand situation. The government run plan could say they weren't going to pay above $X, at which point the medical... more... - Otto

The truth is that most of the waste in medical costs comes from two places: administrative overhead and fraud. Both of these are primarily caused by Medicare and the bureaucracy surrounding it. - Otto

Otto: Why is that you keep ignoring all the evidence from other countries that support national health care (e.g. http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues...) and you also keep ignoring the facts that show that medicare has lower costs that private insurance (e.g. http://www.cms.hhs.gov/Nationa... ) - Robert Felty

@Otto - why do you think there is so much administrative overhead? To deal with all the different insurance companies and the reems of paperwork to get a claim approved and avoid malpractice suits. That means more people have to be hired and trained just to deal with all that stuff and more systems and processes have to be put in place to handle it all. Insurance companies make more... more... - Her Lindsay-ness

@Lindsay: I know several people who work in administrative roles in hospitals. Not one of them agrees with you. The problem isn't the insurance forms and such, those are fairly standard. Almost all of the administrative overhead is due specifically to Medicare. And no, I do not work in the health insurance industry, so your ad-hominem attack makes no sense whatsoever. Why is it that... more... - Otto

@Robert: I'm not ignoring evidence from other countries, I'm discounting most of it based on facts that contradict the ones you are linking to. And Medicare has lower costs than private insurance because it rarely pays for anything. How many people who have medicare must also have their own insurance in order to get proper medical treatment? Have you looked up the numbers on that? - Otto

Otto, how does limiting the pricing result in providers refusing service? In Canada, the Federal Government sets the pricing schedule, but the private providers are still here, providing us good service for a set fee. More info on our system: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... I would say that our health care system is an excellent counterpoint to "if you fix the fees at a certain point, providers will stop providing service". - Matt Mastracci

Otto - would you care to share some references which contain the facts that contradict those which I shared? I am open-minded, but I need to see actual data from credible sources to form my opinions. - Robert Felty

How does Otto make the claim that insurance isn't even part of the problem when medical loss ratios in the health insurance business have dropped from 95% to 80% in just 15 years? (and if you don't know what that means, you don't have an informed opinion about health care reform.) - Andrew C

I am always amazed at the ignorance of those arguing against public health care services when practically the entire world is doing it and they always have their facts wrong about Medicare and every other system. They'll become advocates when they or their loved ones are being evicted or foreclosed upon while they are dying an excruciating and untreated death. - Brad Nickel

Otto, just exactly how many veterans have you actually talked to? The VA definitely has flaws, but all the veterans I've talked to seem to like the service provided, and often compare it favorably to the private sector. And why are all those people out there so opposed to changing Medicare if it's so terrible? Since you've stated you haven't seen a doctor in decades, how could you possibly have any experience with any health care system whatsoever? - Victor Ganata

FFS... @Matt: Canada has a lower doctor to patient ratio than anybody else does, and it's decreasing all the time. @Robert: You have Google. Use it. I wouldn't believe links you provide me, so why should you believe links I provide you? Do your own research and make up your own mind. I'm not trying to convince you or anybody else, and I frankly don't care what you believe. @Andrew C:... more... - Otto

*shrug* I'm supposed to be swayed by second-hand anecdotal evidence from someone who doesn't have any recent direct experience with any health care system? If you don't care, why do you continue to post? - Victor Ganata

*shrug* I'm supposed to be swayed by somebody who actually has a vested interest in the health care system (ie, a doctor)? See, I can use fallacious arguments as well as you can, Victor! ;) Also, I post to express my opinions and ideas. Why else would anybody post anything? - Otto

Otto, your facts on doctor:patient ratio are incorrect. Our ratio is 2.2 per 1000, versus 2.4 per 1000 in the USA. In fact, our ratio has improved from 2.1 in the 1990s. While our doctor:patient ratio is not as high as other public health care systems, it isn't far off that of the USA. - Matt Mastracci

Here's my reference: http://www.oecd.org/dataoec... "Between 1990 and 2007, the number of doctors per capita remained relatively stable in Canada" - Matt Mastracci

Otto, but, fair is fair, so long as you don't pretend your anecdotes are generalizable truth, I won't pretend mine are either. It is clear that you do have quite a grasp on fallacious arguments. :) And I do agree that it's important to consider the source of your evidence. - Victor Ganata

Otto, the dropping medical loss ratio specifically means an increasing share of premiums isn't going towards paying for health care; that is /by itself/ inherently bad! In an actual working market, advances in efficiency, if any, would be passed along to the consumers in the form of lower premiums. Instead, prices are getting jacked up even faster than health care inflation because the health care insurance industry exploits monopoly power. - Andrew C

@Matt: According to the WHO: http://nofearsingapore.blogspot.com/2007... the numbers are slightly different. Close, admittedly. However, the important thing to note is that Canada's ratio is the lowest among almost all industrialized countries, which was my point. I was not comparing to the US, specifically. - Otto

@Andrew C: I understand what "medical loss ratio" means. I understand what "profit" and "premiums" are. What I don't understand is why you think a company should not be allowed to make a legitimate profit? Insurance is gambling. If you don't like the bet, then don't gamble. Or, if you really want to see the loss ratios decrease, then ALLOW COMPETITION. Currently there is virtually no... more... - Otto

You make no sense. A company should certainly be allowed to make a legitimate profit, but indefinitely extracting rent at this level is a clear symptom of market-setting power. Trying to call one the other doesn't actually make them the same thing. Also, people can only reasonably get it from their employer _because that's the only affordable option_. Individual insurance exists; it's... more... - Andrew C

I find it pretty funny BTW that you have implicitly agreed with the rest of us that the health care _insurance_ industry actually is part of the problem. - Andrew C

"Insurance is gambling. If you don't like the bet, then don't gamble." It shouldn't have to be a game. Everyone is going to need medical attention at some point in their life. It's a matter of how you will be able to afford to pay for it. People pay for insurance because it's the only way they can afford to ensure that their health will be taken care of. It's not really an option if you... more... - Her Lindsay-ness

lolling at the "insurance is a gamble" statement. Classic. - Dragon Goldmaplethorpe

It's the conservative message: You're On Your Own. - Andrew C

For the record, I'm not a conservative. I'm also not a liberal. I'm a person, with my own opinions and ideas. Labeling people only means that you're not paying attention to what they're saying. - Otto

@Andrew C: Individual insurance is priced out of the market because of regulations limiting what kinds of plans can be offered. Why can I not a health insurance plan for, say, emergencies only? I'm healthy, I don't have any need to go to the doctor much, I never get sick, the only reason I'd need to do so would be an accident. So why can't I buy that insurance? State regulations... more... - Otto

@Lindsay: Your statements are provably false. Not everyone is going to need medical attention at some point in their lives. Furthermore, if your statement was true, health insurance would not work at all, since the entire point of "insurance" is to spread risk. If risk was 100%, as you claim, then there's nothing to spread. For the record, I do not currently have, nor need, health... more... - Otto

So basically you're gambling, hoping that you will "win the game". At what point do you decide you need insurance? And hopefully you don't get anything before then. It is pointless to argue with someone like this, just let him enjoy his smug satisfaction on having figured out the whole mess. - Dragon Goldmaplethorpe

Everyone has some chance of getting hit by a bus or eating E.coli tainted food or having a tree branch fall on them. {shrug} - Andrew C

Except for the winners who have somehow divined ways not to do so, I guess. - Andrew C

@Otto, your claim about emergencies-only plans being ruled out seems incorrect to me: http://www.insurance.com/health-... - Andrew C

Otto is completely right. Insurance, not having insurance, it's all gambling. What's relevant is regulation limits choices; or forces one person's judgement and preferences on another. Big government healthcare won't work because the government can't do anything well because unlike a market it doesn't have distributed knowlege and I don't think the incentives are right. Witness the UK's... more... - Rob Fisher

While I don't know if we're using the word catastrophe in the same way, clearly there are policies that have very high deductibles where realistically, the only time they would pay benefits would be if you ended up hospitalized. And there are plenty of policies that don't cover preventative care at all. Even these types of policies are out of the reach of quite a few Americans. - Victor Ganata

What a silly response Otto. Its all emotional. Why do you think the argument here is so passionate? The fact that you would even dismiss it that way tells me everything I need to know about your point of view and existence. Sad. - Brad Nickel from email

If "the government can't do anything well" why do they even exist? Unless you're an anarchist, I can't see how it makes sense. - Victor Ganata

There are limited things governments might be good at. Defense of the realm; keeping the peace. They are not good at providing goods and services. When they try to provide (or control the supply of) food, for example, you get famine. That's because you need market signals to stimulate [the right amount of] supply [and demand<delete], and that information is not centralised. The same problem affects government supplied healthcare. Hence waiting lists. - Rob Fisher

We have waiting lists now. In what way are the NHS's waiting lists worse than the delays caused by having to argue with insurance companies to get coverage for diagnostic tests, procedures, and specialist referrals? - Victor Ganata

Because the latter involves the invisible hand somehow! - Andrew C

It's hard to say. I'm not arguing that you don't have a problem, just that more government isn't the solution. E.g. on the NHS you often end up paying for your own treatment anyway just so you get it in time. This is not an improvement. - Rob Fisher

So that's not really different from the current system we have now: you can always pay cash. I think "more government isn't the solution" is a bare assertion that needs a fair amount of evidence to actually prove. - Victor Ganata

Medicare and the VHA have waiting lists? Really? I haven't ever heard anyone waiting for Medicare, and it's single payer. I haven't heard of anyone in England (or Canada, or any other developed country) put on a waiting list. Do you have evidence to support that? You would write off education, food safety, the highway system, firemen, and air safety as well? Seems like you're asking for a very extreme form of government that isn't very much like what developed countries are or what they provide. - Mark Trapp

Otto: The way that discourse works in research-based journals is that one person makes a claim, and backs that up with either data, and/or references to other research. I would happily read any references you give. I don't understand why you wouldn't look at references that I give. - Robert Felty

Rob Fisher: if government controlled healthcare doesn't work, then why does Canada spend less on health care per person, but have lower infant mortality rates, and longer life expectancy? In addition, these numbers have improved since they started their single payer system, while our numbers have basically remained flat. http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues... - Robert Felty

Victor: What can I say? You probably won't be impressed by my Austrian economics theory. You could come and live in the UK and get sick, and see what it's like. :) I do hope the USA manages to avoid the worst of it. Maybe look around at what many other countries do; I don't think anyone gets it quite right. Singapore seems to have good healthcare; but their statistics look good partly... more... - Rob Fisher

Part of the reason all healthcare isn't like that is because not all health procedures and exams are as simple as eye exams. - Andrew C

I also think it's fallacious to believe we're actually arguing about a completely government controlled system. The public option is not even close to a true single-payer system, and nowhere near a nationalized health care system. It is quite similar to Medicare, except with different eligibility criteria, and as far as I can tell, Medicare doesn't seem to have destroyed the private health insurance industry, no matter how many people try to argue that slippery slope. - Victor Ganata

@Rob Fisher - the number of Canadians who seek treatment in the US is not very large: http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi... - Andrew C

You probably can't get a new liver in an hour and expect to have a good outcome no matter where you go. - Victor Ganata

But you should be able to get simple scans and tests quickly and cheaply. You can't on the NHS. The point about this not being about an NHS-like system is taken, though. - Rob Fisher

If you are insured by a private insurer in the US your health fate is decided by insurance underwriters and doctor panels whose sole mandate is to save and make money for the company- not to keep you healthy or prevent you from getting sick or sicker. A doctor's intuition on what a patient may need, even in terms of preventative/investigative testing is hooey as far as they are... more... - Karma Martell

How do we get to a point where you can make money by keeping people healthy? People want to be healthy, so it must be doable. - Rob Fisher

The prescription drug cos would fold, Rob. That is not what they want. - Karma Martell

i wish i could do more than "like" this. oh, and while i'm here loving this, @Rob Fisher -- my answer is, make money doing something other than "keeping people healthy" -- putting profit and human life in the same objective is bound to have some horrifying conflicts of interest, no matter how pure the "health" motivation is. and with $$ involved, it will never even be close to approximating pure. - (dot)lizard kelly

@Rob - you can make money by keeping people healthy, but as (dot)lizard kelly just said, you can make _more_ money by not... for example, by collecting premiums from healthy people and denying coverage to your sick customers. - Andrew C

@kelly - I wouldn't mind people profiting by keeping people healthy. Hospitals and doctors do that. The trouble with insurance companies is that they profit by denying people care. - John (a.k.a. dendroica)

Karma: As long as *someone* can make money at it, doesn't matter who. (dot)lizard kelly: food is important to be healthy; people make money at providing food; no conflict of interest there. I'm not convinced there's anything so different about healthcare. I'll sleep on it and let you know if I have thought of an amazing business plan in the morning. And if it doesn't work, I'll be looking for regulations that stop it working. - Rob Fisher

(I suspect the reason is you can't switch insurance companies easily.) - Rob Fisher

Simple scans and tests frequently lead to incidental findings that are almost always benign but lead to literal million dollar workups. I actually don't think easy access to everything is always the right answer. - Victor Ganata

The food example may not be a good counter-argument here in the U.S., where farmers have actually been paid not to grow things in order to artificially keep prices up. - Victor Ganata

Evidently you and others that spout this free market gobbldy gook have never worked for corporate America and the absolute incompetence in those organizations. Hello , can you say mortgage, banking, savings and loan, energy, etc etc etc. It is a lie and a myth and you folks have gotten away with it for far too long! Thanks, Brad - Brad Nickel from email

I have worked for corp America. As Brad says, free market is never free. The wealth is not distributed. There needs to be accountability and standards. As Obama says, an insurance co should not be able to come between a decision made by you and your doctor. And Victor, it's about fair access, not just access if you have the money and you can override the system. - Karma Martell

The problem is that access is controlled by two forces: actual medical need, and the need to generate a profit, and lots of times these forces end up opposing each other. As the costs of medical care continue to increase, I think we're going to have to decide as a society which is actually more important. - Victor Ganata

This is not to say that I don't think people who actually provide the care shouldn't be compensated for their labor. (In my case, that's just self-interest.) But there's a huge difference between fair compensation and outright profiteering. - Victor Ganata

So who is paying for the "Public Option"? - Brett Veenstra

And who here does not know Blue Cross is a private company. - Mahmood Padura

If you go by what's in the House bill, the public option will initially be financed by seed money from the federal government that is supposed to be paid back in 10 years. In the long run, it's supposed to be funded entirely by the premiums of people who choose to participate in the plan. - Victor Ganata

Otto: it is not the existence of insurance companies that keep prices high (auto insurance's existence doesn't make auto repairs artificially inflated), it is how the system works. If I am a healthcare provider and you are a patient who will only pay $100 no matter how expensive the treatment is, I can set the price as high as I want. Your insurance might only cover $500, but somebody else's might cover $1000 or $5000, so there's no reason I shouldn't set my price at $5000 for the treatment. - Gabe

Furthermore, let's say that there's a 1% chance that you'll need another $5000 test (an MRI perhaps). If you do need it and I don't give it to you, there's a chance you'll sue me and my malpractice insurance goes way up. If I give it to you and you don't need it, you don't care because you're not paying for it. You end up getting lots unnecessary tests just so I don't get sued. In... more... - Gabe

I dunno, didn't Japan solve the MRI problem by providing lots of them and driving the cost-per-exam down? ( http://www.pbs.org/wgbh... ) - Andrew C

And besides, the insurance companies in the States deal with that problem by denying procedures. - Andrew C

Health care is not a right http://peikoff.com/video-u... - Crutis

It might be instructive to look at the US airline industry before and after deregulation. It used to be that prices were fixed, so airlines competed on service. This meant that service was good, and profits were built-in so airlines weren't constantly in bankruptcy. It also meant that flying was a luxury that most people could not afford, which made it not so crowded either. After... more... - Gabe

Unless you intend on repealing EMTALA, access to emergency care regardless of ability to pay is in fact a guaranteed right in the U.S. - Victor Ganata

Hmmmm... Unless Crutis you think they fall within Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness! Thanks, Brad - Brad Nickel from email

What of someone is happiest if they choose not to acquire health care insurance? It would seem to me that the imposition would thwart their pursuit and remove their liberty. - Mattb4rd

When are we going to learn that the cake really is a lie? Re: Washington D.C. - I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure. - Mattb4rd

Civilization is impossible without some form of government. The idea that we can live without it is the lie. - Victor Ganata

No, the lie is that government is somehow required in all aspects of daily life. Civilization does need government, but mostly it needs it to stay as small as possible and leave people alone as much as possible. You are not a child. Grow up and deal with your own problems instead of expecting the rest of society to take care of you. - Otto

BTW, a "public option" doesn't actually bother me provided you use absolutely zero tax money to pay for it. Make it paid for entirely by the premiums of the people who opt-in to it, and I have no further argument against it whatsoever. (Also, eliminate the part of the current plan that imposes tax penalties on those of us who choose to not have health insurance, as that is simply flat-out wrong. If I choose to cover my own risk, then that is my business, not the governments.) - Otto

Yeah Otto, that works well. For example banks, mortgage companies, savings and loans, toys from China, Enron.... The naive Libertarian view of the world that somehow everything will work out in the end and all will be well makes me laugh every time I hear it. Greed, perversion, violence, and chaos don't go away when the government goes away. Human run institutions are all equally flawed... more... - Brad Nickel from email

Brad: I don't know what world you're living in, but it's not the same one I am. Government has done very little good in the world, and is in fact responsible for the vast majority of evil in it. Perhaps you forget who's waging wars, eh? A few people inconvenienced by a bank or who signed bad mortgages doesn't really much compare to millions and millions of dead people. Also, "this... more... - Otto

Sure, because the US Department of Defense had absolutely nothing to do with the Internet whatsoever. But I agree. To believe that the government is either completely virtuous or always evil is delusional. - Victor Ganata

Actually Otto, religion and greed are responsible for most of the wars. Whether a government fights them or not is irrelevant and these days its private corporations that are fighting much of our wars and doing a piss poor job of it as evidenced by the debacle that is Iraq. That there is a fine example of where we should have let government run things, but we had to privatize things at... more... - Brad Nickel from email

@Victor: The DoD had very little to do with creating the internet, short of funding it. They paid for it in order to connect universities together (whom they were funding for other projects as well). It's not like they sent over a bunch of engineers to lay some cables or actually wrote any of the protocols or anything. Vint Cerf didn't actually go work for DARPA until 1976. The first pipes were laid when he was still in school. - Otto

@Brad: It's amazing to me that anybody can espouse a philosophy like yours, which enables governments to control the population and do basically anything they like, including killing millions of innocent people through senseless wars and immoral legislation. Corporations didn't bomb Iraq and Afghanistan, the federal government did. Corporations didn't lie to us about the non-existent... more... - Otto

Yes, because ordinary people with no funding or government backing whatsoever can always complete large scale worldwide projects if they just work hard enough, without any assistance. Rugged individualism FTW. - Victor Ganata

@Victor: Why must everything come down to "large scale" and "worldwide" in your view? Are you so incapable of taking care of your own problems that you want to a) take care of everybody else's and b) have yours taken care of by everybody else? We're talking about health care. Why must "health" be a worldwide problem, to the extent that you want to take away individual rights in favor of... more... - Otto

Otto, where are we talking about taking away individual rights? I'm talking about HR 3200, not some fantastical single payer system or some nationalized health care system from your paranoid nightmares. Don't be a fool. Look around you right now. Clearly health can be a worldwide problem. And it's disingenuous to believe the Internet would have been built if some government hadn't been around to provide funding. - Victor Ganata

Silly Otto... Its obvious that an informed conversation with you is impossible, since you are unable to defend your actual philosophy or arguments and rely upon distortions and extremely silly exaggerations to try and make a point when the question being asked can not be answered with the truth. This happens every single time I debate a Libertarian. They can't explain themselves or how... more... - Brad Nickel from email

Because we'll have to pay for your silly self to keep you alive when you are sick and dying and don't have coverage. - Brad Nickel from email

@Victor: HR3200 takes away my right to choose my own health insurance (in my case, none) by imposing additional taxation and penalties for my choice. It also uses tax money to finance the "public option", which I'm firmly opposed to. And it's disingenuous to believe that the internet would have NOT been built if the government had not provided the funding. It would have happened... more... - Otto

@Brad: I'm tired of listening to your socialist and communist rhetoric. (See? I can apply incorrect labels just as well as you can! I'm not a "Libertarian".) Anyway, if you want the government to control your life, keep it to yourself, I'm not interested. Also, if you can find anywhere I called you anything other than "Brad", I'd be very interested. Note: Saying your ideas amount to "totalitarianism" isn't name-calling when it's true. - Otto

You are a funny guy Otto and I mean that in all the ways it can be interpreted. - Brad Nickel

Fine. Welcome to my block list, Brad. If you ever grow up and decide that you want to have a real conversation instead of trolling, then I'll be happy to oblige you. Until then, just rant incoherently to somebody else, eh? - Otto

LOL. See what I mean. You are funny. - Brad Nickel

Are you kidding me about the Internet, Otto? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... Note that 2 of the original nodes were UC schools--government funded public schools. With HR 3200, it's obviously going to take money to get the public option up and running, but it's supposed to be paid back in 10 years. As for the mandate, it's not ideal, but I don't see how else it will work. Otherwise,... more... - Victor Ganata

No, I think they are supposed to let him die. - Brad Nickel

@Victor: No, I'm not kidding, and that link backs up every word I just said about it. As for the public option paying for itself, are you joking? Medicare is continuously in the red (average benefit per person in Medicare is $11,000 per year!) , and you think making a bigger version will somehow magically work? As for the mandate, that's an absolute deal-breaker, because it it is... more... - Otto

That's how government projects almost always work: they award private companies contracts to do the work. Even HR 3200 is structured that way. - Victor Ganata

If you actually look at it, HR 3200 isn't structured like Medicare. And why is it that state laws that mandate you to carry auto insurance if you drive haven't been struck down by the Supreme Court if it's so unconstitutional? If you're totally healthy there are policies with $10,000 annual deductibles that cost like $50 a month. Obviously, the health insurance companies would rather you pay for a more expensive plan if they can get you to. - Victor Ganata

Why in the world is a high deductible insurance plan not what you want, Otto? - Andrew C

"Medicare is continuously in the red" - regular people who aren't on Medicare either lose benefits or coverage entirely or get outrageous rate hikes, so I'm not sure why you seem to keep claiming private insurance is any better... - Andrew C

My goodness, a single-payer plan in BC costs ~$54/person/month and the deductible is way lower than $10K. And what I lose in 'freedom', I gain back in peace of mind and more money in my pocket overall. (and isn't the glibertarian definition of freedom money?) (Amazingly, the US actually spends as much _government_ money on health care per capita as Canada, and then of course far more in private money on top.) - Andrew C

@Victor: a) State laws don't require you to carry auto insurance. They require you to carry auto insurance *OR* post a bond for some fixed amount, in case you hit somebody else. and b) Auto insurance is about liability (protecting other people from you), while health insurance is not (it's about about protecting you from other things, people included). - Otto

@Andrew C: I fail to understand the question. A high deductible insurance plan is not what I want, because it is not what I want. What I want is a health insurance plan that will only cover me from, say, accident. Something that doesn't cover routine crap which I won't be needing anyway, or which I can pay for myself. In cases where there is an accident, I don't want *any* deductible,... more... - Otto

A high deductible plan effectively only covers you for catastrophes, because you're on your own for the first $5K or $10K, so all "routine crap" will be out of pocket. - Andrew C

BTW, not seeing a doctor even for routine checkups is also gambling. Good luck with that. - Andrew C

"Effectively" is not the same thing as actually. And if there was some kind of major incident, I'd still be on the hook for the $10k, which is still problematic. Basically, a high deductible means that you're getting no real coverage at all, it's not disaster coverage. - Otto

The $10k outlay doesn't sound problematic to me; you've been investing your money, right? - Andrew C

Andrew C: No, it's not. There is no actual need for "routine checkups" in a healthy human being. You'd free to disagree, but I'm just going to say you're wrong, and that is that, so there's no point in arguing it. And whether I can afford $10k or not is beside the point, it's still not the type of coverage I actually need or want. - Otto

Otto - You have a valid point that insurance is designed to cover catastrophes. It turns out that preventative medicine helps to avoid catastrophes though. So it is in the best interest of insurance companies to encourage their customers to get preventative care. One way to do that is to pay fot it. Another way to do it would be to give people discounts for getting regular checkups, just like you get discounts on auto insurance for having a good driving record. - Robert Felty

Yeah, there really is no point in arguing with you, not when you just make statements and "that is that". (Good thing cancer never starts off growing in the body for years before becoming a major problem! And that arteries don't ever get clogged before they close up entirely.) - Andrew C

Robert: Preventative medicine does help to avoid catastrophe, however, it's also far cheaper to cover your own costs there instead of relying on insurance coverage to pay for it for you. It makes no sense for insurance to cover basic care. You don't pay for gasoline with your auto insurance, do you? The fact that insurance covers basic care means added burdens to the administrative overhead, higher premiums, etc, etc. It's a bad system overall. - Otto

OK, so you want catastrophic coverage that starts from dollar 1 for accidents, but no insurance for routine procedures. I think this is a little ridiculous, but you're right, I don't think insurance companies offer that. - Andrew C

Insurance companies are actively prevented from offering it, is what you meant to say. Many state laws require certain minimum levels of coverage, so the plan I want/need is unavailable to me because of over-regulation. - Otto

Preventative care isn't gasoline. Food is the analogy to gasoline. And no, health care insurance doesn't pay for food. - Andrew C

@Andrew C: Okay then, if you don't like that metaphor... Does your auto insurance pay for oil changes? My point is that health care should not pay for routine stuff *unless I want it to*. I do not want it to, I'm perfectly capable of dealing with routine stuff on my own. - Otto

Otto - this is not just about you though. It is mostly about the millions of people who don't have any insurance at all right now. Also, with the oil change analogy, that is not quite right either. Standard auto insurance does not pay for vehicle failure. It pays for vehicle damage due to accidents. There probably is a small correlation between frequency of oil changes and automobile accidents, but I bet that the correlation between regular colonoscopies and advanced colon cancer is much higher. - Robert Felty

Robert: Auto insurance does indeed pay for vehicle failure, if you have comprehensive insurance. Depends on the type of failure. On the other hand, you can get liability insurance to only pay for accidents caused by you, if you so want. You have choice of what to get. And I'd venture to bet that the correlation between colonoscopies and colon cancer is indeed quite high, but in the... more... - Otto

Otto - my dad gets regular colonoscopies, because he has diverticulosis, and I am not ready for him to die just yet. - Robert Felty

Robert: He has a medical condition. I'd hardly call that "routine maintenance", sort of thing. - Otto

Sure. The reason why health insurance companies don't offer plans like that are completely because all 50 states have strict mandates, and certainly not because the health insurance companies don't think they're profitable and would prefer that you pay for more coverage. Of course it's always the government's fault, and never the invisible hand's. - Victor Ganata

Victor: In this case, what I said was in fact true. All 50 states and even the federal government have tons of regulations on the health insurance industry. Rates, premiums, etc.. these are all fixed by the individual states. The insurance companies have to work within a very narrow window of guidelines, sort of thing. This is one reason that so many of them have tried hard to deny... more... - Otto

The only regulation I see that applies to all 50 states is that insurance companies have to be solvent, capable of paying claims, and able to process claims in timely fashion. Fact is, the insurance companies have continued to make record profits despite all these regulations, so I'm not exactly going to cry them a river. - Victor Ganata

Switzerland gets by with strict regulation... Admittedly, I doubt they have the kind of catastrophe-only plans you like, but (1) the insurers there make it work, and (2) they achieve better coverage and outcomes than the current US system does. - Andrew C

@Brad Nickel - The right to life does not imply the right to the labor and property of other individuals. Medicine is exactly that: the products and services of tremendously skilled individuals. To claim by right their labor and products is the moral equivalent of slavery. - Crutis

I just can't get over the rhetoric. It truly makes me laugh outloud. Slave labor. It's not worthy of further debate. - Brad Nickel from email

It's hardly slavery when health care professionals take oaths to serve society in exchange for the position of privilege it puts them in. And they provide care that isn't fully compensated quite frequently: it's part and parcel of many of the contracts they sign with insurance companies. Are you going to call that slavery too? - Victor Ganata

@Victor, no I call it what it is: charity. Charity should be encouraged. @Brad, when you stop laughing maybe you can refute the right of a physician to contract with a patient without government interference. Until then the only laughable idea is the logical conclusion of your argument that physicians could be imprisoned unless they run their businesses for free or at a loss. - Crutis

It is impossible to be a physician without government interference, since license to practice is issued by the state. I'm not sure I'd want it otherwise, personally. Anyway, once again we're straying from the topic at hand: there's nothing in HR 3200 that says you have to accept gov't issued insurance, anymore than you have to accept Medicare or Medicaid. It will still be quite possible to have a nice little boutique practice without getting a paycheck from the gov't. - Victor Ganata

I do medical billing for a nursing home. Those of you who are in favor of a public option obviously don't understand Medicare and Medicaid. We couldn't take care of anybody if we had to rely only on what the government pays. And doctors didn't go to school for all those years and incur all that debt just to be civil servants with tons of red tape and poor compensation. There will be a huge shortage of doctors within a decade. If the bill passes the Senate, we're in for a true disaster. - Dawn

Robert Felty

Defrobnication: Iterating over unicode strings in python - http://defrobnication.blogspot.com/2009...

October 13 from delicious - Comment - Like - Share

Dan Freeman liked this

Has some nice notes about the difference between narrow and wide unicode in python, and differences between python 2.x and 3.x - Robert Felty

Louis Gray

Friendfeed co-founder Buchheit: Most interesting part of Facebook is that it’s not Google - http://entrepreneur.venturebeat.com/2009...

October 24 from Google Reader - Comment - Like - Share

Paul Buchheit, Kol Tregaskes, Amani and 22 other people liked this

I like this part, "Even if you’re not going to start a startup right away. If you’ve been in your job for awhile, you should quit. Google was really comfortable. I knew all the people. It’s important to do things that will make you uncomfortable." - imabonehead

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I totally agree. Comfort leads to stagnation - Kevin L

Quitting to be uncomfortable assumes that you have enough money to make it awhile without being paid, which many people don't. - Robert Felty

I love what he said about how it's dangerous to believe that once one is done with school they can stop learning. Life is one big learning opportunity. - April Buchheit

Robert, having enough money for sure helps. And, because it's reality and not a novel, one needs to be realistic and not romantic about one's chances. But many people, perhaps most, have more actual resources to draw upon than they think, so they talk themselves into keeping the life they have. Young "exceeds expectations" people with strong friendships, a little savings, and a lot of... more... - Daniel Dulitz

I've pretty much moved on whenever I've felt that there wasn't anything new to learn, or if I wanted to try something that couldn't be learned where I was. Getting comfortable somehow just doesn't seem right. - Deepak Singh

I agree with Daniel. Money certainly helps but age is a bigger factor. It's easier to take risks and make mistakes when you've got a lot of time to make things right if they go wrong. - Benjamin Golub

I can tell you from experience: NOT having enough money can be a powerful motivator. - Hayes Haugen

April Buchheit

Beautiful Boy - http://camilla-april.blogspot.com/2009...

October 23 from Camilla and Thomas - Comment - Like - Share

Susan Beebe, Louis Gray, Anne Bouey and 2 other people liked this

Thomas is really starting to look grown up! - Robert Felty

Great expression, so happy!! - Susan Beebe

April Buchheit

This is good, too, but his chin is cut off.

October 23 - Comment - Like - Share

Ruchira S. Datta, Susan Beebe, Anne Bouey and 2 other people liked this

gee, I bet that hurt! - Robert Felty

Rob: He seems happy enough. :) - April Buchheit

cute!! - Susan Beebe

Aydin Senkut

Facebook Now Accounts For 1 In 4 Internet PVs vs Google (1 in 12) - http://www.businessinsider.com/henry-b...

October 22 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Private Sanjeev, Piaw Na, David Lounsbury and 6 other people liked this

I don't see why Google would be so concerned about this. The websites have completely different purposes. If I want to find image processing algorithms in python, I go to google. If I want to see what somebody I talked to a couple times in high school had for breakfast, I go to facebook. - Robert Felty

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Remember Google's mission? To organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. Facebook deliberately keeps lots of information away from Google. Users can't make their profile information searchable - even if they want to. Facebook is not playing on Google's side. - Tim Tyler

This is no surprise. Google's goal is to get you off Google's site and to where the information lives. - Piaw Na

Yes/No. one of out 4 Google searches is on Youtube now - and check slide 41 on this presentation: http://bit.ly/2yZH3d; look at the way people spend time and how much that changed. What if FB could offer Google type search but layer it with all the rich data from FB - Google doesn't have that choice, but FB does - I don't think it's as simple as you think... - Aydin Senkut

Robert Felty

The Creepiest Things You’ll Ever See | JamesGunn.com - Official Website for James Gunn - http://www.jamesgunn.com/2007...

October 23 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

Maggie, Anika and Angsty Lo is Angsty liked this

originally shared by Melanie. Very creepy indeed. Some of these look like dolls! - Robert Felty from Bookmarklet

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AUUUGH - Stephen Mack

LOL, my first thought was "nonsense, that doll is barely creepy at all." It's a person AAAAAAK! - Angsty Lo is Angsty

Dreadful. Best line: If this thing on the right came out of my wife’s womb I’d have to smash it with a stick. - Anika

Kevin Fox

1960s guide to Highbrow and Lowbrow

October 21 - Comment - Like - Share

G. Sigh, Mark H, Ginger Makela Riker and 13 other people liked this

I'd like to see this updated for the noughties! - WorldofHiglet

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I didn't even know there were grades of brow between high and low. - Gabe

I definably recognize some of these things as things my grandparents had when I was growing up. It's interesting to see the class connotation of some of these objects. - Clare Dibble

I don't think that bridge was ever lower-middle brow. My dad, who grew up working class, played Euchre (common in the midwest). My mom, who went to a private college, learned bridge there. My dad didn't learn bridge until my mom taught him. - Robert Felty

Mark Trapp

Menlo, the font that replaces Monaco as the default fixed-width font in Snow Leopard, isn't that bad: using it over Inconsolata

September 3 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Menlo is nice. - Kevin Fox

I don't like the hyphens. They look too much like an mdash, and run together when using long options like --help. This is particularly important for me when I get homework from students where they copy/pasted some code from Microsoft Word, and wonder why it doesn't work, when they have mdashes instead of hyphens. - Robert Felty

Daniel Reeves

PayPal Hopes Open Platform Will Spur Innovation - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com - http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009...

October 21 from delicious - Comment - Like - Share

They are actually way ahead of us in Africa in terms of mobile money. http://www.economist.com/opinion... - Robert Felty

April Buchheit

An Epidemic of Fear: How Panicked Parents Skipping Shots Endangers Us All | Magazine - http://www.wired.com/magazin...

October 19 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

Ken Gidley, Jessie, Victor Ganata and 7 other people liked this

"In certain parts of the US, vaccination rates have dropped so low that occurrences of some children’s diseases are approaching pre-vaccine levels for the first time ever. And the number of people who choose not to vaccinate their children (so-called philosophical exemptions are available in about 20 states, including Pennsylvania, Texas, and much of the West) continues to rise. In states where such opting out is allowed, 2.6 percent of parents did so last year, up from 1 percent in 1991, according to the CDC. In some communities, like California’s affluent Marin County, just north of San Francisco, non-vaccination rates are approaching 6 percent (counterintuitively, higher rates of non-vaccination often correspond with higher levels of education and wealth). That may not sound like much, but a recent study by the Los Angeles Times indicates that the impact can be devastating. The Times found that even though only about 2 percent of California’s kindergartners are unvaccinated (10,000... more... - April Buchheit from Bookmarklet

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"Today, because the looming risk of childhood death is out of sight, it is also largely out of mind, leading a growing number of Americans to worry about what is in fact a much lesser risk: the ill effects of vaccines. If your newborn gets pertussis (whooping cough), for example there is a 1 percent chance that the baby will die of pulmonary hypertension or other complications. The risk... more... - April Buchheit

I did see some research from Canada about a year ago that showed that doing some vaccinations before 12 months was correlated with a higher incidence of asthma. When it was time for Spencer to get his shots, I could no longer find that research, and instead found some that dismissed those claims. So he got vaccinated. - Robert Felty

There was (and still is) a big swirling feeling of unease about vaccinations in the UK. We have our children vaccinated because we feel it's the right thing to do for them and everyone else. The many, many research papers on the subject overwhelmingly point to vaccinations being safe and I don't want to lose my kids to a disease I could have prevented. But I understand why some parents are confused, and why, in their confusion, they choose the easiest route which is to do nothing. - WorldofHiglet

“The choice not to get a vaccine is not a choice to take no risk,” (Offit) says. “It’s just a choice to take a different risk, and we need to be better about saying, ‘Here’s what that different risk looks like.’ Dying of Hib meningitis is a horrible, ugly way to die.” - April Buchheit

Thank you for posting this, April. - Stephen Mack

If people choose not to have their children vaccinated, I don't really care if their child dies. Afterall, that is the risk they chose to take. However, it is a shame if their child then transmits a preventable disease to somebody who couldn't be vaccinated or for whom the vaccination didn't provide immunity. - Gabe

Gabe: My thoughts exactly. "Sure, don't vaccinate your kids. Just stay away from my family." - April Buchheit

Gabe

I heard that Google just switched their mapping dataset to a really crappy one.

October 16 - Comment - Like - Share

Paul Buchheit, Tanath and April Buchheit liked this

Why would they do something silly like that? - Gabe

6 more comments

Because they hate you - Becca

Or they hate their users: "Take the exit onto I-80 W toward Lowa. Take exit 151A on the left to merge onto I-57 S toward Memohis". I'm pretty sure Illinois's highways signs don't actually point to Lowa and Memohis. - Gabe

I wouldn't be surprised if they do Gabe. I know that there are plenty of signs on I-94 in Michigan which say either Detroit or Chicago. - Robert Felty

Rob: I'm going to guess that all of the signs around to Chicago point to actual places like Iowa (rather than Lowa) and Memphis (rather than Memohis). - Gabe

I thought you had made those typos. Now I see what you mean. - Robert Felty

Here's the putative trip: http://maps.google.com/maps... - Gabe

Yes, but you can crowd source the corrections. ;) - Cristo

Rachel Lea Fox

Amazon.com: Here Comes Science [CD/DVD]: They Might Be Giants: $9.99 - http://www.amazon.com/Here-Co...

September 29 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

G. Sigh, April Buchheit, Michelle Martinez and 6 other people liked this

I put this on my Amazon wish list a while back, intending to talk about it when it showed up on my feed, but it never did and I forgot all about it. Science, kids, TMBG -- what's not to love! - Stephen Mack

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And I love that they have the adorable videos to go along with the songs. Super awesome! - Rachel Lea Fox

Sarah got us here come the one two threes, and Spencer and I both love it ;) TMBG are kid friendly and mother approved. - Clare Dibble

Thanks so much for putting this in your feed - I ordered it and my kids (3 and 5) both love it. Our eldest now tells people who ask what she wants to be when she grows up that she wants to be a paleontologist! - James Macgill

Great CD/DVD...these guys really put out quality stuff for kids that the parents can enjoy too lol. We have all their kids cd/dvds. - jamar78

They played a few songs from this disk during their Flood concert. They were pretty good songs. - Gabe

I can't stand more than 5 minutes of Barney, but this stuff is pretty enjoyable. I do still think it is a bit of a mixed bag. The number 1 song is all about how if you add up everything in the omniverse, it adds up to 1. The number 7 song is about a bunch of number 7s showing up at your house wanting to eat cake. - Robert Felty

Clare Dibble

OpenSecrets.org: Money in Politics -- See Who's Giving & Who's Getting - http://www.opensecrets.org/

October 19 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

Robert Felty liked this

Heard a good interview on NPR this morning about the rise of lobbying. Knowledge is power. - Clare Dibble from Bookmarklet

Some interesting stats on Obama's appointees for ambassadorships. A number of them are not from the foreign service, and have been big democratic contributors over the years. That being said, they do seem pretty-well qualified as well. - Robert Felty

Robert Felty › Comments