Counterpoint: I love that you wore it, I think the content of the article makes it hard to come to a negative conclusion (especially the comments about stopping development), and most anything that supports dieselsweeties.com is a good thing!
Donald Sobol is probably, apart from my parents, a big reason I have a mind that works. R.I.P. Encyclopedia Brown. Your 25¢ per day + expenses brought justice to those who had little other hope. And bravo for expensing an occasional sundae to the adults, too.
And of course how could they call it the FIRST Battle of Bull Run when there hadn't been a SECOND ONE YET?
Encyclopedia Brown Boy Detective was one of the first books I actually owned as a child (I lived close to a library), actually getting it from my school's Reading is Fundamental Days. I must have read that book over and over again, always forcing myself to try and "forget" how the mystery was solved so I could reread them and try to pick up the "clues"
I always wondered why that boy behind Bugs Meanie had only a floating head with no body. But it's still way better than the red cover they have for it now.
According to Amazon and Wikipedia, "The Case of the Civil War Sword" was part of the very first Encyclopedia Brown book, which probably explains why we remember it.
Well, World War I was referred to as "the first world war" as early as 1914 [1] and the term was fairly popular even before World War II, so there is some precedent.
Wow that live stream update is a nightmare - I keep trying to read what's happened and things get pushed down almost immediately. A clickable (or w/e) "18 new posts" would make it usable.
To save you the trouble, it's a stream of content free fanboyism and witless photoshoppery. Every single comment would be downvoted to oblivion if it were posted here.
> Every single comment would be downvoted to oblivion if it were posted here.
Well, after reading the comments in this thread here, and some of the comments over on Google+, I'm gonna have to say you got that prediction wrong. =)
If you actually used Reddit you would notice that most ignorant and outright trollish comments are downvoted into oblivion. You see a lot more awful comments, but that's only because Reddit is larger. They're treated the same.
Comments like that usually come after a long, dumb tree that started out with good intentions. It happens on HN too. The difference is that I can collapse those threads on Reddit, or hide the story completely.
Collapsible comments on HN would be awesome. Too often I get deep into a huge comment thread that has gone off topic and close the tab after I lose interest and forget what the topic was supposed to be about.
The resistance to it probably comes from the belief that it would hasten HN's decline. Once you can collapse subthreads, what's the motivation to not contribute to the subthreads?
But Reddit at levels 1-5 is almost indistinguishable from HN at levels 1-5. The only differences between HN and Reddit are topic diversity, collapsing, and limiting comment display to the top 100 or 500 comments.
That has me using HN less in recent months. It failed to account for the inevitable with display tools, so a thread that would be perfectly navigable on Reddit is unreadable on HN.
Every single site that has a live stream starts off thinking: "we're going to be cooler than the competition, our live stream will actually update in real time," then realizes "uh-oh, maybe there's a reason other sites don't actually pull the updates and show them in real time"
Facebook, twitter, stackoverflow, et. al. have all previously used the constantly-updating stream technique only to switch away to the "x new posts, click to view"
~ Because the pause button doesn't show up until a new entry is added to the list. Which happens after you've already scrolled down the page, so the pause button isn't even visible when it is rendered.
~ Because the pause button is light gray on white.
~ Because scrolling down the page, which in almost every other scrolling interface prevents any updates from affecting your scroll position (terminal, chat, twitter, etc.) didn't help.
~ Because the page just moves in weird, small jumps and feels like it's broken not like new content is rolling in. (They're actually accounting for huge jumps! and chose instead of move it in tiny glitches...)
Could be a browser thing. On chrome I can see pause button as black on light gray. When I scroll down the auto add affect reduces, scrolling down further the content is pretty much stable. I think its a pretty good reading experience on Chrome..
It "hops" every couple of seconds in a jarring fashion. It's really rather annoying.
The button is black text on light grey background, yes. I think the parent poster is more pointing out that the light-grey-on-white-background, which isn't very noticeable.
(I didn't know there was a pause button until read this thread.)
"We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face is that, in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is more meaningful than our criticism designating it so."
You should never have to press a button to take a page out of an unusable default state, but if that's going to be, the button needs to not be lost in a pile of clutter.
The pause button appears after the first time the posts refresh so it won't be there until a few seconds have passed. Look for it top-right over the posts column.
For what it's worth, I use Cardio Trainer for tracking + social sharing. Friends "cheer" me on via Facebook, and I can progress my workouts using a myriad of tools they have. It's unclear what this does beyond that.
For what it's worth, if there were an app that helped me know WTF to do when it comes to building muscle tone/size, I'd happily pay for that. To an averagely fit guy (5.5 miles in 60 minutes or so, 2-3 times a week), the weights side of thing is infinitely more complex than the cardio side of things (which amounts to "keep your heart rate within this range for a long time").
I'm a similar type chap (running, biking, squash) but the weight side isn't too complex once you realise that a lot of the books over complicate things for the sake of getting the book published and the magazines regurgitate the same stuff on an annual basis.
Stick to the good old 3 sets of 8 reps 2 - 3 times a week and give each muscle group a 7 day rest. No more than 6 exercises per session (keep it under 1 hour)
If you just want to do one weights session a week stick to dead lifts, chest press, squats, overhead press and pull ups and you'll see improvements. Dan Shipper wrote a decent article on this recently, just keep it simple and build it up slow and don't worry about all the complex sounding regimes.
Where you should take advice is on how to do the movements but that's what the gym attendants are for ... and if you already have a membership then 5 minutes of their time a few times a week comes for free
With respect, you're over simplifying it. Achieving and maintaining good proportions (the usual goal of those starting out) is going to take more than Olympic lifts + pullups. Similarly 3x8 on one muscle group once a week isn't a catch all; it's my opinion that a work out should tailor to your ability and goals.
That's before we even get into diet. Planning exercise without diet (or vice versa) is a recipe for no progress.
I can empathize with you. I run, walk and play racket sports, but for me and a lot of my friends, weights are kinda scary.
Since the dynamics of weightlifting are infinitely more complex(you need to do it right to not hurt yourself, you need to push yourself a certain amount etc), trainers are probably a better option than an algorithm.
One of the ideas we are considering is building a feature in the app that lets you hire an online trainer for say x dollars a month who'd guide you and oversee your progress. It'd obviously be much cheaper than hiring a trainer in the gym by an hour. Would such an option appeal to you?
I guess this app so far cover the need for average folks like me who needs motivation to keep average health! For the kind of limited consumers who wants to build muscles, it has to be purely paid model as the market size is limited.
salon.com used to have T.S. Eliot reading "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" but the web page that references the audio (http://www.salon.com/2000/10/05/eliot/) no longer has a link to the audio. One of those sad losses to website redesign, I assume.
It was a pleasant reading and of my favorite things to listen to from time to time...I post the comment hoping someone can help me find the link somewhere. So far, I've not had luck.
"The paper advocates adjusting the mirrors so far outward that the viewing angle of the side mirrors just overlaps that of the cabin’s rearview mirror." I've been driving this way for a long time, and it's great. You can already see behind you: you don't need 2 more mirrors showing you the same thing.
I don't know about others, but here's an extract from the article you linked that explains why I have blind spots:
Those who have switched to the SAE's approach swear by it, however, some drivers can't adjust to not using the outside mirrors to see directly behind the car and miss being able to see their own car in the side mirrors.
The reason I need to see a bit of my car in the side mirror is because I need to know not only what is behind me, but also where it is in relation to my car.
True, but as you get used to seeing the vehicle cross from your center mirror to your side mirror, you get a sense of where it is. Your point of reference just changes from your car in the side mirror to the combination of the location of the vehicle in the side mirror and the center mirror. You really just have to get used to it. I swear by this technique now.
For a similar experience: I row, and occasionally use a cycling mirror to keep track of what's behind me -- that is, what's in front of the boat. When rowing (sculling) you face backwards. This occasionally presents navigational issues.
The mirror is almost completely useless. It's rather less useful on water than it would be on a bike.
The problem is orientation.
With a fixed mirror, you know where things are in relation to your vehicle (car, boat, bike, etc.).
With a head-mounted mirror, on a bike, you still have a generally fixed landmark to orient off of: the road, which over short distances exhibits to a good first-order approximation a high degree of linearity. That is: it goes before you, it goes behind you, you can draw a line between two points, and you have a pretty good idea of where things are relative to your position.
In a boat (dingy or rowing shell), there is no road (a straight marked rowing course might be different). Without a mirror, you generally navigate by occasionally checking over your shoulder to see if your dead reckoning is about right, then line up your stern (the back of the boat, but directly in front of your line of site). And you hope that nothing pops up suddenly in front of your bow (a buoy, a fixed marker, a swimmer, driftwood or debris, another boat, a breakwater, a dock, a pier, a sea lion, a cruise ship, a seagull, a submarine, a pelican, a whale .... and yes, I've encountered pretty much all of these at one point or another). You check over your shoulder at reasonably frequent intervals (every 10-20 strokes -- about 100-200 yards).
The mirror gives you some sense that there's something somewhere behind you.
It does a really crap job of telling you just where that something is.
If the field of view is large enough, you might be able to orient off the bow of the boat, but generally it's not and you're not fully stable enough to take advantage of that.
I generally row without the mirror.
And I keep my car's side-view mirrors adjusted so I can just see the sides of my car on the far inside of the mirror, to better judge positions of other vehicles relative to mine, blind spot (US flat mirror standards) be damned.
Having a bit of own-car in the side mirror allows for verification that the mirror is oriented as intended. Is there an orientation test for the SAE recommendation?
Yes, while driving, use cars in the lanes beside you. As a car passes you can adjust your side mirror so it catches the car just as it leaves your rear view mirror. With this setting, the passing car will enter your peripheral vision before it leaves your side mirror.
Once set you can find a head position that allows you see your own car, and you can use that position to reset your mirrors after the wife drives your car.
I've done this for a few years, but the one use case it's worse is when you are in a slow/stopped lane and want/need to switch to a lane that's moving faster, and you need to see far back in that adjacent lane to see approaching cars. In those cases I'll actually move my mirror in, then readjust it out later.
When I explain this to people they think that I am crazy. There is absolutely no need to see the same thing in the side mirrors and the rearview. It should be a seamless transition between them, like a multi-monitor setup.
Not sure why this is news. They've existed in Europe for over a decade. i've had them on my VW Golf almost since I bought it (Mirrors: http://www.ecstuning.com/Volkswagen-Golf_VI--TDI/Exterior/Mi...) they're convex, and variable radius. They're great. MUCH better than the "Car and Driver" technique.
The problem is, as usual, regulator - DOT requires carmakers to sell new cars with a flat drivers side mirror.
I thought that was how you were supposed to adjust the mirrors!
Though I think on some cars this arrangement can leave a blind spot one more lane over (the one next to the one next to you) which isn't as big of a deal since they won't normally be able to cause a problem or even exist on most roads. I haven't finished reading the article but if his mirror solves that issue too it's still an improvement.
I use this mirror set up, but generally without over-the-shoulder checks. I can say that I've nearly hit people while changing lanes on multiple (but infrequent) occasions, when they were originally two lanes away from me, not visible in my mirrors, going slightly faster than me, and then changed lanes to the one beside me. They seem to sneak in during the second or two between when I first look in the mirror and begin the maneuver. It's a rare occurrence, but not rare enough for my comfort. I have my turn signal on the entire time (I start signalling when I intend to turn), and this still happens to me. I'm definitely going to start using over-the-shoulder checks again.
