glynjackson's comments

> "An engineers actions are so far removed from revenue that they can't make a claim so directly"

This statement is simply not true in my experience as an engineer in the tech industry for over 15 years. Sell a bad product 'once', and the sales person 'ability' to sell it again will decrease. Sales people ultimately sell a project and its features, interpreted by engineers. You must incentivise an engineer to be creative, write better features and good code or you run the risk of having something that destroys a sales person reputation along with the companies revenue!

There are many, many ways to test! A control group, quasi-experiment evaluation etc. "Correlation does not imply causation". All she has is a hypothesis, a theory based on observational research, while this is ok, the article tries to pass this off as 'fact'.

I'm not staying I disagree with her 'hypothesis' but, people should require evidence before accepting it as fact. Maybe if she have quoted studies, instead she used well know experiments to justify the hypothesis. When the one experiments she did quote by Sergey Metalnikov even concludes...

"The difficulty for the investigator lies not so much in inducing such responses, but in employing the proper controls, both immunological and psychological, in order to demonstrate that these responses exist and to explore the underlying mechanisms." - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK3908/

I guess a book entitled "What I think" would not sell as well.

Quote: "By the end of the year, she had received just six doses of the drug instead of the usual twelve. Marette responded just as her doctors would have hoped from the full drug amount."

I'm sorry, at this point I stopped reading. The Doctors don't know how she would have responded to the full drug, because it didn't happen! The word 'hoped' is not testable! Where was the control (Quasi-experiment)? There is just not way to tell if she would have responded better, for all we know she was 50% better than she could have been if she'd taken the full 12 doses. Or maybe 6 doses was just the right amount for her.

I do believe that the brain is a powerful tool and have read research that shows we can change things like body heat, pain and more with mind, but this story did not have anything that evaluated the impact and cannot be used as evidence of such!

The second he made-up a statistic quote: 9 out of 10 computer problems are fixed by turning it off and on again (I love IT crowd), I stopped listening!

I'm more looking forward to seeing the Sony VR. It's rumoured to be around the $250-$350 price mark. Sony have a history of getting traction despite not having the best spec/product, for example, remember HD DVD vs Blu Ray?

Do you have timeframes on other languages and how you are giving priority?

I believe there is more at play here. I hope someone more qualified would research this, very interesting.

Wow, this is really interesting stuff. One could read from this that to be more creative, say, for designers they should focus on the left screen.

Found httpie sometime back. I still use curl but 80% of the time I use httpie now.

I really feel sorry for the guy, but even just a few simple due diligence checks would have shown the company has no money even the accounts are overdue: http://companycheck.co.uk/company/07335249/WORLD-GLANCE-LIMI... http://wck2.companieshouse.gov.uk//compdetails On top of that the website screams fake. A limited company should always show company number and have contact details.

Thanks so much for this. I've been using gevent 1.1a2 to support Python 3.4. Does this mean we are out of Alpha? __init__.py shows 1.1a3 tho!

Is there any evidence that dark colour schemes when coding help sleep pattens? I ask because after using the default theme of sublimetext for 6 months then going back to white background for a few days made it difficult to sleep at night. Anyone else found this?

I often work late or watch movies on my laptop in bed. About 6 months ago I read about how screens/backlight have a negative effect on sleep pattens. I found an app called Flux (https://justgetflux.com/). A simple idea that makes a computer's display adapt to the time of day. I still have problem sleeping but, not as much as I use to!

Instead of Facebook owing your photos and ID, they now own your phone numbers and your friends phone numbers! Not the best swap. WhatsApp Terms: "In order to prevent and reduce unsolicited spam messages, as well as to improve your in-app experience, WhatsApp uses the phone numbers from your phone's address book." "WhatsApp looks at the phone numbers in your address book, then checks to see which of those numbers are verified in WhatsApp." http://www.whatsapp.com/faq/en/general/20971813

He shows a chorded keyboard for shorthand typing, how did that not catch on! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chorded_keyboard

Strange feeling watching the first computer mouse demo, first TODO list tutorial, code folding, auto numbering etc. According to Wikipedia he never received any royalties for his mouse invention.

Really? Build a button yourself to overlock! The Pi is about giving you the tools, now, go forth and build.

I agree, my few experiences don't prove anything. He mixed LSD, cannabis and alcohol on that night. I also agree, I knew very little about his mental health before that day. His section (involuntary confinement to a mental institution) was not taken lightly. What I do know is Doctors said the drugs (cannabis and LSD) had triggered an underlining mental illness. He developed severe paranoid personality disorder (PPD).

The other point you made is incredibly important, taking such drugs does not guaranteed you will become more creative. It is important you research, why you want to take it and your current/past health problems.

After a lot of research I have personally have taken nootropics on and off for many years. As a programmer I often work long hours, I need to function and problem solve. I found them to aid in learning and memory. Nasty ADHD drugs give me side effects and are just legalised amphetamines. Nootropics like Aniracetam seem to have the same effect with little to no side effects (for me).

My theory is that there is NO direct correlation between drugs like cannabis or LSD and creativity.

I know some talented people, experiences when I was young was watching friends "stoned"/"high" but talking utter crap! The next day after the trip (without fail) these already smart people "think" they have said or done something profound, but they never did!

Days later, their own creative genius is pushed on a search to find out what they said or did that was so profound/creative. Sometimes they do something amazing, but most of the time they don't!

When I was 20 at university (I'm in my 30s now) a friend of mine took cannabis and LSD for the first time. It was not something I did, not because of any moral high ground, but because it also kinda scared me. During the nightout he started to act really strange, bad trip everyone assumed. That weekend (the day after) his mum called asking us all what he had taken, he had been sectioned under the mental health act. It turned out his family had a history of mental health problems. He was sectioned for almost 2 years and never finished Uni.

I know I will get some backlash for saying this, but there is a lot to be said for a good IDE. - PyCharm (a Python IDE) would detect the example given. The word "elephant" would be grey (parameter not used) and the live Python interpreter would underline "elephnt" (Unknown reference) upon pressing return.

He does state "by default" this would not be detected, which is true. Yes, the compiler isn't always on your back, but Jenkins is ;)

What the title should say is "Why might a C++ programmer find Python tedious"- Answer, because he/she has to write tests.

My decision on which provider to use is based on trust. How can any developer trust that Google won't pull the rug out from under them. This can happen with AWS too but Google has a history of doing this. No matter how cheap I'll stick with AWS and the safer bet for my business, thanks!