ConradHex

If I may ask: why not just take it every day? Does it cause side effects?

Have you tried? Read any books or even articles on how to do so?

Someone could write a greasemonkey script...

They occur a lot more than they used to, and they don't get modded down as much as they should. The signal-to-noise ratio here is going down pretty quickly.

It's clear this has a market.

I did want to point out that my own grandparents are 75-ish, and use gmail just fine, and have a blog that they update regularly.

So I'm not sure if this market will be increasing, or decreasing. Over a long enough time frame, I think it probably will be decreasing, as more tech-savvy users get older.

I'd argue it's for a good cause, and doesn't have much potential for harm.

Weird. I fully expected to read the article and be able to figure out what the FBI was trying to do, and see their side of the story. But I'm more baffled (and frustrated) than ever.

Listening to local radio this morning, the DJs were discussing how they used twitter. My impression is that it's really taking off in the mainstream in the last several weeks.

I think your comment underestimates developments in 3d hardware and software in the last 15 years or so.

Nah, they do pretty extensive April 1st stuff every year.

>What's the distance between a point and a line segment?

I think I agree with you. I would argue that the mathematical ability needed to solve the question above is to realize how to phrase a query to google, find the resulting formula, and turn it into code. You don't need to be able to derive it, for the vast majority of jobs out there.

Also: I've noticed that most programming is equivalent to what in grade school and high school they called a "word problem". Most of the class would groan when we had to do these; I loved them. I suspect if you struggled with word problems, you would have a hard time programming.

What's a "one-time subscription payment"? How does that differ from any other one-time payment for something? In other words, can this be used for generalized one-time non-recurring payments, as well as subscriptions?

I'm no expert, but I'm guessing it's so they don't have a bunch of accounts with 2 or 3 transactions a month making them lose money.

A 640x480x16 bit frame buffer is 600k. At 30fps, that's 17,6 megabytes per second of data. And 640x480 is a ridiculously low resolution these days, and 30 fps isn't so hot, either.

There would have to be some amazing compression for this to make sense, or a VERY fat pipe.

I think "queue" could arguably be used as a verb.

Hmmm... Maybe they could add an automatic "send apology" button...

Namecheap has been great for me, too. I recommend them.

And lots of lessons were learned, and taken to heart? (cough)

"Vendors do all sort of tricks to make their claims look good..."

Reminds me of: http://www.dilbert.com/2009-03-02/

I don't mean to be stuffy, but I don't think HN articles should have titles like "Funniest x ever", for any value of x.

Maybe we should bring back Erlang week?

Please see "the entire front page".

:)

I love being this guy. Great way to learn how different systems work, and it's fun trying to find bugs or holes in other people's code. (Politely!)

Whenever I think about the financial sector at all, I cry and/or go into a fit of rage already. So it's probably for the best that I don't know.

The reason insurance is generally exempt from gambling laws is that you are supposed to use insurance to protect you financially from what would otherwise be a negative event. Which I think fits here...

Could be. Or maybe he's just telling the truth. Do you have evidence of Joel being dishonest before? His blog doesn't feel like it is, to me.

From the article:

"OK, it’s just one data point. All I know is sales of FogBugz and Copilot."

"This could be a fluke; it might not reflect any reality."

I think it's very informative for them to share (relative) sales numbers like this.

> Is this Joel on Software post another thinly veiled advertisement for their services? Yes.

It was also informative, at least to me. When JoS stops being informative and/or entertaining, I'll stop reading it. There's no sign of that happening, though.

I would imagine he's possibly downmodded because the headline is intended to be a subtle joke.

Note that the company didn't survive, in part due to this episode.

Also, taking big risks can be very profitable... for a while. It sounds like they were running seat of the pants, and it caught up with them.