Yes, but like that comment, his profile could probably do with some editing and a different form of publication, like in a proper site/blog article.
There's a whole paragraph duplicated in the profile, starting with "I'm founding director". If nobody has ever noticed that, the info is probably not in the best place to be read.
I realize the bamboo part is not the point of this post, but can anyone confirm that this is actually how (some) bamboo grows? The only references to it I've found all go back on Coelho's novel. As far as I know/knew, bamboo shoots reach most of their full length in their first year.
"This newer strategy...with fewer releases but more features and changes manifesting in each one...has held through to subsequent Firefox releases to date."
Well, Chrome cooked their goose with a totally different methodology. A little agility is never a bad thing when you're being out-competed by the same company who pays most of your bills.
"Our healthcare system actually is pretty great, if you do not believe me try getting a major surgery done in another country."
I'm amazed that on a website full of such thoughtful sensible people, an American would still have this world view of "there's America and there's the rest of the world, and ours is the best of possible countries".
To give a counter-example to your amazingly broad claim: in Belgium I can have surgery done, spend 4 days in hospital and have everything except 150 euros paid by our universal health-care.
Or were you implying that surgery elsewhere is of lesser quality? A lot of Americans don't seem to agree [1].
It is not my intention to insult any other countries, or put the US in competition with them. I am simply stating things as I see them -- I do not think America is great, we are actually a pretty idiotic country (at least our government is) and we need to get our act together. So long as it is private (probably not for long), our healthcare system will be "the best" -- in terms of quality, but not necessarily cost. Its like comparing a private school to a public school, or a private bathroom to a public bathroom. You get what you pay for - which is good and bad for US citizens (good in that we get an option, bad in that its not free). When you distribute something of a limited quantity (in this case, healthcare) to everyone for free, you have to make sacrifices -- or raise taxes even higher. Many countries in Europe pay over 50 percent income tax at the maximum rates. In Canada, doctors only make 42 percent of what US doctors do, so they come here. 800,000 Canadians are on waiting lists for longer than 18 weeks to see a doctor annually. Britain cancels about 100k operations annually because it does not have enough doctors to meet the demand. Many Americans do travel abroad for surgery because it is cheaper (not necessarily better) - for example here in San Diego it is not uncommon for people to get Dentistry done in Mexico. All of these numbers I pulled from Wikipedia, which may or may not be a good source but you can probably (in)validate the numbers elsewhere.
When I was just getting started, I did in-home computer "repair". Because of my location, I had the opportunity to work for many former executives of large companies; our zip code has one of the highest densities of former-CEOs in the nation. One of my customers was/is the former CEO of a pharmaceutical company that you'd find in the top 3 of the largest pharmaceutical companies in existence. I've become close (closer than one would expect for a "IT tech" relationship) with their family. We spend time talking about plenty of things that aren't computer related, so about a year ago, I was shocked to hear that he has Alzheimer's.
He is one of the most down-to-earth, most open-minded, most generous people I've ever met. I genuinely count him as one of the greatest people I've ever met. As you can imagine, he is well-liked and very well-connected in the medical industry. Guess where he's getting treatment? Not in the US.
So here is a man with more money than he could ever spend in a lifetime, and more connections than any average person has, yet he has to go outside the US to get "cutting edge" treatment for a disease that is far from a fringe case.
I recognize that this is just an anecdote, but it is a superlative one to be sure. His case is an amalgamation of every factor that one would believe could lead to a positive result within the healthcare system we have here in the US, yet that goal has not been reached. If you can't look at that example and recognize that what we have here is broken, then I don't know what to tell you.
Thanks, this is an interesting story. As I mentioned, I think there are plenty of things wrong with our healthcare system, and I only use the word "best" in a very broad sense - for example, the US has the highest rate of success for therapies and surgery (In Britain, for example, only half as many people survive colon cancer, although that could be related to any number of factors). I am sure there are many experimental areas of medicine where the US does not excel, because we have to wade through so much red tape to get anything approved.
A lot of people I know are choosing to have significant medical treatments performed in Singapore instead of the U.S. due to cost, quality of care and choice. Another anecdote, but I find it to be fascinating.
"So long as it is private (probably not for long), our healthcare system will be "the best" -- in terms of quality, but not necessarily cost"
And again a overly broad claim that you don't back up with facts.
Instead of keeping slapping each other over the head with anecdotes - which, to be fair, could only prove my point and not yours, since you made those unqualified claims - let's look at what comparative studies say.
A quick web search gives e.g. [1] and [2]. The general conclusion seems to be that the US health-care system is okay, but certainly not better than that in many other developed countries.
You brought up the "you get what you pay for" argument. In fact, the only thing that stands out for the US system, is its cost. See specifically the second page of [2]. Government costs for health care in the US are higher than in any of the compared countries, even though government spending covers a far smaller part of the total costs.
Wow, this could hardly be more different from how I type. I use only my middle and index fingers for all letters, moving them around as needed. I use left middle on 't' unless the next or previous letter is 'q', 'w', 'e', 'a' or 's', in which case I use left index for the 't'. It's not at all conscious, so I had to do some experimenting to figure that out.
I type very similarly, although I also tend to keep my arms angled in with index fingers on v and n, and do use ring fingers to type some letters, and pinky for modifiers. The main reason is to keep my wrists at a more comfortable angle. There is some overall greater movement of the hands vs. normal technique. I don't really see a problem with this.
I pretty much learned to type at a reasonable speed from MUDs, IRC, and other online chat. I'm >80wpm even using this nonstandard technique on QWERTY.
I type like this mainly on apple mba13/mbp keyboards (low travel, small); on a full-sized Das Keyboard at my desk, it's closer to conventional typing, although I still never hit a or l with pinky.
I've got a very similar style, using just my two index fingers for nearly everything (except from e.g. my left middle finger for Q and A, and my right thumb for space).
Like you say, it's not at all conscious. I think it's probably because I taught myself to type at a very young age, and never thought to do it any differently.
I can't speak how for graue, but I can offer my experience since I type almost the same way as graue does, except that I do use my ring fingers occasionally (mostly right ring finger, for stuff like "L") and my pinky for stuff like right shift and enter.
How and why? I started messing around with programming when I was a kid and I never learned typing or trained for it formally. When I started, I was just pecking with my index fingers, but since my mom and dad used a typewriter for their stuff, I was fully aware that pecking was suboptimal. They never offered any practical help with that, probably because they knew that I couldn't care less about how I type, as long as I could crank out my code. Long story short: I've developed my own technique, spontaneously. I'm aware that it's probably suboptimal, but it's good enough for me and I can't be bothered to retrain when there's so much more interesting stuff to do ;)
I have an interesting way of typing based on what I did as a kid too. Due to the large amounts of games I played, my left hand stays firmly over the wasd keys and my right hand moves a lot more than my left. I tend to type really loud and mostly use my index fingers, but also switch to using various other fingers when I'm typing quickly. I know its sub optimal, but I hit 80 wpm pretty consistently.
I propose a new law: An observation of the form "Maybe <counter-argument>, but <observation>" can probably be adequately dismissed with <counter-argument>.
From personal (European) experience, I can also recommend it. If moderately used, it's dirt cheap compared to owning a car. I spend about as much on it as just renting a garage would cost me in Brussels.
I was not a heavy car user even when I had a company car, but I do notice that I try to organize things even better so as to e.g. minimize shopping trips (do one trip for the big stuff every x weeks, use public transport or bike for the rest). And that's what the article completely misses: the system encourages behaviour that ultimately benefits the community, regardless of the individual user's noble or less noble intentions. (For the record, I certainly don't see car sharing as a temporary solution before getting my own car.)
There's a whole paragraph duplicated in the profile, starting with "I'm founding director". If nobody has ever noticed that, the info is probably not in the best place to be read.