gwalker

I've always thought that the GNU date command captured this confusion well.

On Linux, if you run `info date` and go to "input date formats":

     Our units of temporal measurement, from seconds on up to months,
     are so complicated, asymmetrical and disjunctive so as to make
     coherent mental reckoning in time all but impossible.  Indeed, had
     some tyrannical god contrived to enslave our minds to time, to
     make it all but impossible for us to escape subjection to sodden
     routines and unpleasant surprises, he could hardly have done
     better than handing down our present system.  It is like a set of
     trapezoidal building blocks, with no vertical or horizontal
     surfaces, like a language in which the simplest thought demands
     ornate constructions, useless particles and lengthy
     circumlocutions.  Unlike the more successful patterns of language
     and science, which enable us to face experience boldly or at least
     level-headedly, our system of temporal calculation silently and
     persistently encourages our terror of time.

     ...  It is as though architects had to measure length in feet,
     width in meters and height in ells; as though basic instruction
     manuals demanded a knowledge of five different languages.  It is
     no wonder then that we often look into our own immediate past or
     future, last Tuesday or a week from Sunday, with feelings of
     helpless confusion.  ...

     -- Robert Grudin, `Time and the Art of Living'.

Task Warrior was mentioned http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2596158 a while back on HN.

The article is infoq is more balanced http://www.infoq.com/news/2011/09/Metro-Plug-ins

The fact that MS may abandon Silverlight and other Windows technologies is far more significant that the "look, look Apple are right again" angle.

Interesting point from the article:

  A legal expert on intellectual property cases, who
  declined to be named, asserted that when pictures are
  filed both in the complaint and in separate
  productions, those in the complaint would be
  considered more important. **Visual evidence presented
  there typically indicates that the plaintiff wants to
  emphasize its significance, he said.** 

Presumably Apple are pretty experienced in the intricacies of patent law so I don't think you can blame the intern who can't use Photoshop...

"The definition of groups is... everyone inside the group knows who else is in the group"

This is a slightly narrow definition, the visibility of a group should be an attribute.

Dan Gillmor cites a good use-case:

"I'm considering a circle called "insufferable" for people I find personally annoying but whose work I feel obliged to keep track of, in any case."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/jun/...

Evolution of the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boss_key

Apple don't file patents, they file magic

Just searched for "Amazon App Store", it's way too early in the morning (in ireland) for freaky results

http://i.imgur.com/2W3UK.png

The amazing free market, the duct tape of neo-liberalism.

It's kind of a cool idea but seriously?

Depending on what you need to do something like Appcelerator http://www.appcelerator.com might be of some use. Dunno if they are planning on Windows Phone 7 compatibility.

Maybe you could do a types of sausages eaten at lunchtime or colour of buckets used by HN users or fight club rules...

http://images.icanhascheezburger.com/completestore/2009/1/18...

The Unix Haters' Handbook is worth looking up. I think it is out of print but the PDF is available for download.

My favourite from USENET is cleaning out .o files after compiling C code but fat-fingering the SHIFT key and instead of typing

% rm -f \.o

,typing

% rm -f *>o

which gives you an empty directory and a zero length file called "o"

ah yes....