Marry Young · Permalink

I’be read this article and my first impression was that it was an April Fools joke, but it seems like there’s a legitimate rebuttal that was featured on the 2nd on the same website so I’m guessing this person is serious.

I want to point out a few things here:

1. Mrs. Shaw thinks her own marriage is of interest to anyone reading the article.

This is particularly a stupid assumption. If one is going to argue for marrying young, that individual must present quantitative data that supports her claims; not some personal anecdote.

2. She makes unjustified claims.

On paper, our unmarried peers looked more carefree. But many of them also relied on their parents to supplement their income, drove home for long weekends and holidays, or stayed on their parents’ health insurance and cellphone plans (even though they had decent jobs!).

I may be nitpicking as I realize that this is not a scientific paper, but at least link to some website that has credible numbers on that matter. She may be making this up, of course.

3. She thinks she know what she’s talking about.

Sometimes people delay marriage because they are searching for the perfect soul mate. But that view has it backward. Your spouse becomes your soul mate after you’ve made those vows to each other in front of God and the people who matter to you. You don’t marry someone because he’s your soul mate; he becomes your soul mate because you married him.

This paragraph had me sitting in awe: It is so stupid that I didn’t know where to start. I suppose I’ll start by giving her credit for thinking that waiting for a “soul mate” is a waste of time, however it’s all down hill from there. Your spouse becomes your soul mate?!?! First of all, what does that phrase, soul mate, even mean? If a phrase has some super convoluted word that is so vague that it can be used to mean anything, it has failed as a phrase and should never be used by any intelligent individual (I might be giving her too much credit here). She used the word soul mind you. And really? A reference to God? I understand that people think that marriage is some sort of super-metaphysical-soul-transcendent event, but it’s just two people agreeing to live together for the rest of their lives. That is, of course, unless they decide they don’t want to anymore. It’s two people with an initial agreement: It’s nothing more than that. It’s not even a commitment.

Marriage doesn’t require a big bank account, a dazzling resumé, or a televised wedding—it requires maturity, commitment, and a desire to grow up together.

Last time I checked, Shaw mentions someone by the name of Britney Spears whose “first marriage was annulled within hours, and she racked up a second divorce before the age 26”. So I think it’s safe to claim that marriages do not require maturity, commitment, nor does it require a desire to grow up together. Whatever that means. It’s one thing to get something wrong, it’s another thing to prove yourself wrong.

All marriage requires is an initial agreement to get married. I’m glad that Mrs. Shaw is enjoying her marriage, but I wish she had kept her ignorant ideas about to herself.

Google's Love for "Open" · Permalink

This gesture shows how Google is all about the open community, and the company is so unselfish that it will never create anything for itself.

Google engineer: DRM is Bullshit · Permalink

Charlie Osborne:

In conclusion, the Google engineer argues that “DRM’s purpose is to give content providers control over software and hardware providers,” and it is doing a fine job so far.

I fucking knew it.

Déjà vu · Permalink

Hmmmm… Where have I seen this go wrong?…

On Concentration

Tuesday, 12 March 2013

From an early age, I could never be focused on one thing for too long. Maybe I have ADHD or something similar. It’s not so bad that I have to see a doctor, but I always thought that I was never productive as I wanted myself to be. I think want is a vague word so I suppose it’s not meaningful in this context. Many people want stuff like money and fame, but not many are willing to sacrifice anything to obtain what they want. For me, the things that I want are things that I have to be constantly reminded about like good grades or getting a job, but perhaps the things the I truly want to do, I’m already doing it. I don’t have to be reminded to blog or to program. I have never set any alerts to remind me to do things that I really enjoy.

I think this, for me, is a significant dilemma. My brain says getting a job and earning money will allow me to buy things that I want, but my instinct and habit is prohibiting my from stepping outside of my hole to do anything meaningful. So here’s what I’ve done for the last few months have either been,

Forced upon me like putting a half-assed effort to do homework
Something that gives me instant gratification like surfing the web

After self examination, I’ve learned that I am still a child and need to learn (somehow) how to set a long term goal and achieve it.

The only thing I know so far is that setting things like New Year’s resolution is complete BS. When someone sets a goal like that based on dates or events doesn’t work. This is based on my own experience and from observation. Therefore, what I need to do is list the things I truly want and start doing it right away because there are always reasons why I can’t do that thing. “Oh, there’s a project due tomorrow. Well I can always sleep and do it tomorrow morning.”, “Oh, I need to get get a job. Well, I’m busy right now watching YouTube videos”. I’m basically stuck in a hole and I don’t know how to get out. The only problem is, that’s another one of my wants.

You Almost Got It Right I.E., You Got It Wrong · Permalink

I’ve recently been more inclined to practice my typing skills and I was looking up different mechanical keyboard. One link lead to another and I found Mr. Atwood’s piece that describes how “coding is just typing”.

Now, I’m not sure if he meant it as a hyperbole, or if he was serious, but that statement is definitely false. The difference is as follows: When someone codes, there is usually a thought process that goes into it. When someone types, unless someone is thinking about where their fingers are going next, there’s no though process. I think he was more correct (still wrong) when he wrote that coding is just writing.

He then quotes Steve Yegge saying that there are programmers who are not great typist, and that they have no excuse to not be a great typist.

So let me get this straight, The title of the piece is “We Are Typists First, Programmers Second”, but there are professional programmers who are not great typists?

Here’s a thought experiment. Let’s say the task is to create a prime number calculator in a day. There is a great programmer who injured both his wrists and can only type 5 wpm and a great typist who took a CS 101 class 10 years ago in college. Who’s going to make a better prime number calculator? The typist can type all he wants but, he is never going to produce anything useful. My point here is that a programmer needs to know how to program before he can produce useful code.

I’m not saying that typing is not an important aspect of a programmer; instead, I’m saying that it’s not as important as understanding programming paradigms. Typing is only important if you know what you’re doing.

In essence, programmers are programmers first, typists second. I think that’s a pretty logical statement.

The never fulfilling dream of high speed Internet · Permalink

Well, did you ask?

Burn List · Permalink

From now on, I’m going to make a collection of Gruber’s über diss.

Pirated Pirate · Permalink

This is so absurd I’m not entirely show if its totally true.

Had One Job · Permalink

Cool site for entertainment.

Tesla v. The New York Time · Permalink

Moral of the story: don’t fuck with Elon.

iOS Lock Screen Bypass · Permalink

So it doesn’t really bypass the screen…

Obama's Wager · Permalink

Wait a second… Does Obama really think he can increase minimum wage and attract manufacturers here in this country?

Speech Time · Permalink

If Obama is really serious about getting manufacturing in America, he has to do 3 main things: Cut down minimum wage, reduce corporate taxation, and relax the immigration policy. Of course if that happens some people in this country might get screwed, but those people are the ones who are not competitive in the job market. This statement is politically incorrect, but sometimes truth hurts.

FBI Hypocracy · Permalink

Just Wow.