zb

42 ms·

391.
by zb 16y ago
Dude, if you're going to make racist comments like that you're supposed to disguise them with some sort of parochial appeal for the good of the local economy, not just "anywhere in the Western World". Know the game.
392.
by zb 16y ago
I've never quite understood why Chinese people are somehow less worthy than Americans of having jobs. That aside, labour costs are not actually a large proportion of the cost of manufacturing electronics. The main reason goods like this are
393.
by zb 16y ago
Both the plane and its contents experience the same acceleration due to gravity. Unless the plane is accelerating, the occupants will experience weightlessness (e.g. vomit comet). Of course the plane is accelerating - in straight and leve
394.
by zb 16y ago
You sort-of have a point. Here's Eugene Ferguson on the Sputnik-triggered creativity fad of the 1950s: More important to a designer than a set of techniques (empty of content) to induce creativity are a knowledge of current practice and pr
395.
by zb 16y ago
You should read Richard Feynman's book What Do You Care What Other People Think . There's a really fascinating chapter about this.
396.
Habit Fields(alistapart.com)
9 points by zb 16y ago|1 comments
397.
by zb 16y ago
By "overrated" I don't mean that it's bad. It's overrated in the same way that The Mythical Man Month is the most overrated software engineering book, or Sgt. Pepper is the most overrated album. Those are important works, but they don't
398.
by zb 16y ago
I don't know if you would strictly call this a philosophy book, but one that is particularly relevant to engineers is Discussion of the Method by Billy Vaughn Koen.
399.
by zb 16y ago
Zen is an overrated book. Having said that, to say that "I have absolutely no idea why people like this book" when you haven't read it (and 25 pages does not count) sounds completely absurd. I do recommend you actually try reading it, e
400.
by zb 16y ago
This feels like a rewriting of history, given that the idea of the 'first-class man' was at the very core of "scientific management" and the phrase was, according to Kanigel, "a staple of Taylor's rhetoric".
401.
by zb 16y ago
In the study the participants were all assigned the same "compensation", and randomly assigned to groups where the fictional employee had either high or low "compensation" inequality. So to the extent that this study supports the conclusion
402.
by zb 16y ago
This is a seriously great article. One thing bothers me, though. This description of what a leader is, doesn't it fit Kurtz exactly? I can't help feeling that this is only part of the story; that we need something more than leadership alone
403.
by zb 16y ago
Although borisk is correct that engineers mostly work at higher layer of abstraction, this absolutely was taught when I was at engineering school. What's more, there was a detailed discussion of transistor geometry, which is fairly critical
404.
by zb 16y ago
If you compare Byrne's version side-by-side with another (as Tufte does in Envisioning Information ) then I think you'll agree that it's much easier to follow.
405.
by zb 16y ago
Well, as you can see from the article, Menlo does. Monaco is also very similar in this respect. Even if you're not on a Mac it shouldn't be difficult to find one or two.
406.
by zb 16y ago
And that might be fine if you see an l and a 1 next to each other and you want to know which is which. In the real world where you see one or the other and want to know which it is, this is really unhelpful.
407.
by zb 16y ago
I think this might be where the disconnect is. If you think up solutions and translate them into code, then I can certainly imagine the translating part could be very boring. That's the 1960s model of software development (still going stron
408.
by zb 16y ago
The TED talk he links to is definitely worth watching. http://www.ted.com/talks/rory_sutherland_sweat_the_small_stu...
409.
by zb 16y ago
Ironically, I got distracted about 3 paragraphs in when I had to go research a bunch of those tools they mentioned. Sigh.
410.
by zb 16y ago
What happens if you pass '\0' as the character to remove?
411.
by zb 16y ago
Ask Dostoevsky; it's not my idea. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1213770
412.
by zb 16y ago
Basically there are only two stories. I don't mean in Star Wars ; just in general. Let's call them The Iliad and The Odyssey . A New Hope was essentially just The Iliad In Space. So far, so good if you like that kind of thing (I per
413.
by zb 16y ago
And not only programming languages: http://www.ericsink.com/articles/Yours_Mine_Ours.html
414.
by zb 16y ago
Fair enough. But you haven't given us your definition of engineering yet. According to your wiki page: Traditionally, the term art was used to refer to any skill or mastery. This conception changed during the Romantic period, when art came
415.
by zb 16y ago
Actually, if you want my personal definition of art in one word it is this: art is life. Whether it is done "well" doesn't really come into it. In fact if there is an objective way of determining if something is done "well", it's probably n
416.
by zb 16y ago
But engineering is an art that makes extensive use of science.
417.
Not addiction; dependency(roughtype.com)
2 points by zb 16y ago|0 comments
418.
by zb 16y ago
I can assure you that Lang Lang is a seriously good pianist, something that nobody would claim about Liberace.
419.
by zb 16y ago
I don't think many people would consider simple 'tagging' (i.e. just scribbling your name) as art, and it's hardly comparable to Banksy's work.
420.
by zb 16y ago
I don't think you can underestimate the importance of having apps already available at launch time. Great article, though. I really enjoyed the Le Corbusier piece as well. Please write more!

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