I'd just like to encourage people to apply. I work with @cbanek on the LSST EPO team. Working on a large science project is amazing. Every day is interesting. There is a shared goal beyond just making money, similar to a startup with traction. The environment is pseudo-academic, which combines the best of academia and working for a national lab. The portal already has some design work done but is generally greenfield for technology choices. And last but not least Tucson is great and quite affordable.
Norvig's "Warning Signs in Experimental Design and Interpretation" is also worth reading and covers the higher level problem of bad research and results. Including mentioning bad statistics.
Unless they have credit for writing the song, or self publish, the band makes most of their money from touring and merchandise.
BitTorrent isn't a zero sum game. It's difficult to prevent and any action upsets fans. Why not embrace it and get free PR. Meanwhile, the people that will buy it (or request it on a radio station, or listen on Spotify) need to be aware of the music. And both groups end up attending concerts. So it's really a win for the bands. It's the labels that are at risk.
I like how one simple succinct relevant question can say so much about Norvig's claims. It seems appropriate coming from the creator of LISP. And, of course, the mutual respect, professionalism they both had to leave it at that.
I really shouldn't admit this but /cough circa 1997 I had abandoned Apple. I had a PC and Linux box at home and Unix terminal at school. I remember being impressed by this campaign and hopeful that Jobs would fix Apple. But I couldn't have imagined what Apple and Steve Jobs had in store for the world. What a remarkable recovery. Thanks Steve.
I started coding .NET around 1.0. Completely anecdotal but out of the dozen+ people I knew that dove in at the time - zero are still actively involved in .NET.
I rarely take a .NET contract. But what I can say is 1) They always pay my highest rates. 2) Generally it's a bad / scary experience in comparison to python or Clojure (where I do the majority of my work and contracting).
I thought the goal was to motivate users and IT organizations to stay current. This frees up Mozilla developers from fixing bugs in N many different old versions of Firefox.
To me, the reasoning behind the change in version is pretty clear. Especially looking at the disaster that was IE6. As soon as there is any support for old versions some IT department somewhere will immediately decide it's time to freeze their version. Moving forward after making a freeze like this becomes very difficult (that has been my experience). This presents two options 1) It's their own problem and move on or 2) Continue to patch old versions. The issue with patching old versions is bad IT decisions end up costing Mozilla time. Meanwhile chrome just continues chugging along at full speed only supporting current.
The current linux distro versioning and support structure seems to map well to this problem. Ubuntu, for instance, has LTS versions that IT can stick with and are patched for X many years.
Windows users update their anti-virus software and definitions in near real-time. Operating Systems update near real-time... why not browsers. I now use chrome most of the time and I am (surprisingly) happy with their versioning. I was a naysayer when they first started too.
I know I directly benefited from a Carnegie library as a kid. With philanthropy at this scale there is potential to benefit humanity in a way that may otherwise not happen. Compare this to other paths that wealthy people have taken, such as creating trusts that mostly benefit the family and still exist today (e.g. Rockefellers).
Buying and owning a gaming laptop or desktop is similar to owning a hot rod.
There are as many different philosophies to how and what to buy as there are gamers. On one end of the spectrum people track pricing trends and chase the best possible value/performance and build it all themselves. On the other end people pay a premium for an innovative case or component or a name brand. This is clearly on the far end of the spectrum, including the expected premium price to get anything Razer.
In the end it's purely for the sport of it. You are right that there are better deals. But there is definitely a segment of people that are more than willing to pay a premium to get an awesome case with a ultra new innovative component like this. Bring a laptop like this to a gaming night at a local coop and everyone will be oogling it and checking it out... That's what it's all about.
I thought his comment implied it. In addition his profile has his website which makes it quite clear he works for Wolfram (about and github): http://taliesinb.net/
If someone posts a link in their profile and you don't follow it, they can't be held accountable.