Morozov is tapping into a current of thought that is becoming increasingly popular. It's the same sentiment that has triggered a backlash against TED talks - a backlash against attractively packaged memes that are being sold using slick conference talks or other forms of effective marketing. This sentiment is partly driven by a skepticism about what is really being marketed. Is it the idea or is it really personal influence, consulting careers and book sales?
It's easy to apply this type of skepticism to O'Reilly media which promotes endless ideas such as 'Big Data' rebranding old technology and approaches as new, invalidating any previous concerns with data privacy and the like. I think we as an industry take the memes too seriously and with too little critical thought.
It's a sad day. I came across a passage recently from The Tao of Programming which reminded me of Dennis Ritchie.
"The programmers of old were mysterious and profound. We cannot fathom their thoughts, so all we do is describe their appearance.
Aware, like a fox crossing the water. Alert, like a general on the battlefield. Kind, like a hostess greeting her guests. Simple, like uncarved blocks of wood. Opaque, like black pools in darkened caves.
Who can tell the secrets of their hearts and minds?
From end-note 2. "Stallman considers himself afflicted, to some degree, by autism: a condition that, he says, makes it difficult for him to interact with people."
It's worth remembering that even Stallman himself admits he is mildly autistic. Autism is often characterized by black and white thinking and lack of empathy towards others - both of which are displayed to excess in his comment.
They may be world-renowned scientists and philosophers but none says anything that you wouldn't get by asking a random bunch of people on the street the same question. They also seem to share a Abrahamic view of God and religion.
Some of these conversations strike me as a very Western view-point of religion, God and theism/atheism.
Religions like Buddhism, Jainism, Advaita Vedanta, Taoism and many eastern 'mystical' traditions don't actually talk about creator deities and the other meta-physics to which these scientists are non-believers.
> Who is the greatest contemporary philosopher that comes to mind?
That is a question that is as difficult to answer as "Who is the greatest contemporary scientist?"
Some candidates are Slavoj Žižek, Peter Singer, Annette Baier, Alastair Hannay, Daniel Dennett, John Searle, Simon Blackburn, Thomas Nagel, Leo Zaibert. The are also many famous philosophers are partly academics in specialist fields, eg. Richard Dawkins, Umberto Eco, Noam Chomsky, Steven Pinker, George Dyson and many more.
I assume since no-one has mentioned Google+ in connection with Google App Engine, that is not built on top of it.
Sure Google+ probably shares infrastructure with GAE, but you would think that if Google were really serious about GAE they would use it for their own external products. It sends a mixed message to the market when they tell app developers to use a technology for mission critical apps that they are not using themselves.
One of the cool things about using a functional language for web development is the potential to use continuation-passing style (CPS) to make http look like a stateful protocol, which makes implementing chains of user interactions a lot simpler.
I know Clojure doesn't support first-class continuations, but does anyone know whether is it possible to use Clojure Noir to program in this style?
You can easily transfer your H1-B to another company (the one you hold equity in), it is not a big deal. What you can't do is work for both companies at the same time.
Yes you can but you will need to get your H1-B transferred to the new company.
Non US-citizens can hold equity in C-Corps (not S-Corps), but that by itself does not allow you to live or work in the US. You would need to you get your H1-B transferred to the new company, but this is not a particularly difficult process.
It's easy to apply this type of skepticism to O'Reilly media which promotes endless ideas such as 'Big Data' rebranding old technology and approaches as new, invalidating any previous concerns with data privacy and the like. I think we as an industry take the memes too seriously and with too little critical thought.