beta

Terrible.

No but seriously, gvim all the way.

And what would having had used Greasemonkey already or not have to do with adoption of this script? If the script is useful, users would use the the script and whatever Firefox addons it required regardless.

Still, I'm pretty dubious of the notion of "finding your own hacks". I mean just look at written english in most articles, they aren't comprised of just a list of sanitized opinions and facts. They're full of prestigious jargon, funny quips to pull the audience to pull the audience to the readers side or at least entertain (the same goal?), etc, etc; as far as I'm concerned, just more "cognitive hacks".

Shrugs

In the past 3 years X has improved tremendously. I recommend anyone check it out for themselves.

I too assert however that manipulating the audience in spite of appealing to reason is unethical, and that some sort of notion that we should practice manipulation so as to strengthen ourselves to it is rubbish, if we consider manipulation to be unethical in the first place. Hence, if it's beneath us, even if using manipulation made us better at persuasion through appeals to ethos and pathos, or at least better apt at detecting and exposing manipulation, what what would be the point after having compromised our own values in the first place?

Nope. Not unless you're so desperate for up mods that you're going to start posting non-posts.

No kidding. That's the whole point of the parent post in the first place isn't it? He's asserting that manipulation, is self evidently wrong, that there is no justification to resort to manipulative tactics over argument through reason.

Here's a counter example for you: If we taught that murder is wrong, we'll never use it and we are less able to defend against it... etc. That's actually, exactly how most people are brought up and for good reason. We generally consider murder to be wrong.

Let me tell you something, the world seems to be raising more individuals comfortable with implementing these sort of manipulative tactics, "appealing to the audience" as it were. As far as I can tell, what this article promotes is a sure fire way to encourage your child to grow up into being a manipulating psychopath; nothing could be further from fostering talent for argument through reason.

As for the "jerk" aside, well, it goes either way. You can either say something politely, knowing that most people who disagree with you will probably ignore you. Or you can say something more heavy that will get their attention, but then you'll have to deal with character assassination tactics like marginalizing you as a extremist or a jerk, etc. Either way you're kinda screwed.

Calm down.

pretty much nailed it on the head there. A lot of developers really miss the point while getting sucked into these flamewars..

almost as annoying as the vim vs emacs bickering.

In all honesty, I speculate nearly all 'bad' and 'good' goals undertaken by individuals are for at some level their own gratification, satisfaction, medication, pleasure, whatever the semantic of choice.

There isn't anything wrong with that. From deliberately catching a glance of a beautiful woman across the street to tirelessly working at finding a way to end world hunger, it's done at some level for your own satisfaction. It's what drives the world.

To those who feel so threatened by the idea of associating whatever endeavor with pleasure as a motivation, calm down. It's part of what makes us human. It certainly doesn't strip an accomplishment of it's value.

I've been wondering that too.