arjungmenon's comments

He was 45. (according to Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rajeev_Motwani)

Programmers don't suck at CSS Design, it's Stefano's stereotype of programmers that do.

Apparently, this guy seems to be a long time troll:

http://valleywag.gawker.com/5032989/journalists-do-it-for-th...

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/03/magazine/03trolls-t.html

We recently discussed (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=556399) a similar [2009] article by the same publisher (http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1890387,00....). I find the publisher coincidence (?) interesting.

The comment:

If you are male, the best "drug" for social anxiety is weightlifting. (No, you don't need to be a huge-ass body-builder-douche, if you don't do 'roids you probably won't be one, you'll look normal and athletic.)

I think probably it's all about testosterone - weightlifting increases the levels of those and thus makes us feel more "manly" and that just blows away the insecurity.

I'm not a scientist, so that testosterone stuff is just a guess, but it was amazing how at the age if 17 it transformed me from a shy, withdrawn, never-look-people-in-the-eyes teenager to a "real man" - relaxed, confident, one who talks to people as a real equal. Much of social interaction has hidden traces of very primitive instincts behind it: the sexual instinct and the fight instinct, and weightlifting gives you confidence in both (even though you would still be beaten to a pulp by any 120 pound Thai Box fighter, but that doesn't matter, you probably don't actually need to fight: it's just the feeling) which transforms into a relaxed and confident social interaction.

Another way to put it is that as an Aspie, I always felt alien from both the world and from my body. My idea of "me" is something in my head who tries to drive my body with a remote control and it just doesn't work well. Weightlifting got me to connect with my body, it made by body a part of the "me", and through the body as a medium, it made me connect with the world and other people. (Probably it's something about strenghtening some under-used neural pathways that connect the "self" parts of the brain with other parts.)

Now at 30 I'm often too lazy to do it, but whenever I do it for a few months, my Aspiehood just goes away.

I think at least for the initial startup period it would be a good idea to rely on Paypal or some similar service. The hassle of getting a merchant account might in some cases eat up too much of the founder(s)' precious time. Some successful retailers (like this indie game one: http://2dboy.com/games.php) continue rely on Paypal though they have a large user base. I think the best time to get a merchant account would be once the sales start rising above something like 10K/month or so. In that way, you'll (hopefully) have an account before your sales (again hopefully) hits 100K or so.

Close to NYC: Long Island.

I actually happened to use a website Cooltext (http://cooltext.com/Buttons) recently, and it also created buttons for you. Comparatively, your website's interface is definitely much better (more dynamic - buttons reflect changes immediately), but in terms of features/options it would be a good idea to take a look at Cooltext and try to add in some of the features that they offer. (Like a wider set of fonts to choose from, button special effects, etc.)

All of this begs the question: What is the meaning of life?

If you think of it, everything people do is quite remarkably purposeless.

Why does life exist?

Why do you exist???????

Because M&M is a tasty chocolate that is especially popular with children, the creators of X# want to send the message that their language is delicious toy suited for tots.

I'm in.

How did these guys (pastie.org) get hold of he Zune source code? I don't think Microsoft gives away any of their source to the public (except for some programs covered by MS's shared source license).

Do both. Learn new languages and new habits.

I wish it had been so when I wrote the SAT.

That's a very nice song.

Now on Slashdot: http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08%2F12%2F20%2...

Quote from the article: By controlling the software that can be loaded and the hardware that can be attached, Apple's device will be simpler, easier to use and more reliable than a PC

This smells like the dreaded "Trusted Computing" with its hardware engraved DRM.

Until people are free to install whatever apps they want to install & use any operating system of their choice; Apple or any company that controls what software can be installed isn't going to derive much success from their computers.

A very similar situation exists in India. There are literally thousands of cram schools all over the country that prepare students to get into engineering colleges, med. schools, e.t.c.

Short Answer is: Depends on what language you want to compile.

There's also BitC: http://www.bitc-lang.org/

Quote from their website: BitC is a new systems programming language. It seeks to combine the flexibility, safety, and richness of Standard ML or Haskell with the low-level expressiveness of C.