What a waste of time that was! I felt greatly cheated by the ending. It was exactly as if I had met a friendly, neatly dressed, smiling person on the street who, after 5 minutes, turned out to be peddling his religion after all.
Honestly, I have thought of much better stories myself. I remember GREATLY enjoying Asimov as a teenager, and I am pretty sure this is not his best story.
The ending was a powerful metaphor of what it may mean to know all and how such an all knowing entity may act when there is no one else around to share this existence.
This story isn't about religion wherein the origin of life and all that exists is explained on the basis of faith. This is a story on how such an origin can take place in a setting of speculative fiction that doesn't push faith at all. I feel sorry for you that you couldn't enjoy the ending or understand Asimov for that matter.
The mention of that particular metaphor "Let there be light" is quite significant and is the thing that repulses me. I felt me that even the subtle negation of God by introducing a Deus Ex Machina (literally) is rooted in the notion of his particular Christian God that he is negating. It only gives strength to the other fiction by trying to negate it.
The wow-isnt-the-ending-"clever" negation of an ending actually fell flat for me. It really is a trite device if you think about it.
I feel sorry for you and all others who think they feel sorry for me because I have a differing opinion which you presume is inferior. In reality, I believe your opinion is probably just conforming rather than well thought-out : you you you think it's awesome, but I question whether you are even thinking and just think it's awesome because it's Asimov. That's no different from the premium a shopper pays for Prada because, duh, it's Prada.
Since this is going the same pattern as all other internet discussions (and since you assume an awful lot about people who disagree with you) I'll just refer you to the wisdom of The Dude: "Well, that's like your opinion, man."
You have _thought_ of better stories yourself, but have you ever _written_ a better story. I'm pretty incredulous of anyone who claims to write better than Isaac Asimov. Strikes me the same way people who never built anything go around ripping on other people's products. Truly classic internet delusions of grandeur.
The delusion is yours : you don't know who you are talking to on the Internet, and you have assumed that the other anonymous writer is as mundane as you are. Says something about you, not me.
The irony of thinking, "Since I think Asimov / Steve Jobs / Linus / whoever is awesome, and so many other people agree, it MUST mean that the dissenting commentor is a troll or having 'delusions of grandeur'" is that when these people started out, I'm pretty sure self-appointed X Factor judges of the world future such as yourself told them exactly the same thing. "How deluded to think you can write an Operating System, you puny mortal, you Linus?!"
You are a follower, not a leader.
Edit : the person who wrote, "Asimov was an atheist. You misunderstood the story" is the one you have to learn from.
It's clear that something like what we call The Big Bang happened. But we can only trace back time and space to the origin. What happened "before" the origin is probably unknowable to us on this side of the origin. The best we can do is speculate, in scientific or literary terms.
So think of this as speculative fiction, expressed in terms of the author's time.
Personally I thought the progression of man through the ages was the most interesting part of the story.
> Whatever she says on her own personal twitter feed is wholly unrelated to what happens at a professional event.
And why doesn't that logic hold for the two people who were joking amongst themselves? The parallel is : just as her twitter feed is public, and other people can "hear" her speak, these guys were making private jokes at a public event, and that is none of her business.
Again, the top comment on an HN thread involving Apple is one that supports Apple by digging up some "fact" or the other that makes Apple look OK. This has always been this ridiculous.
At least AAPL investors are pricing in a future loss of earnings as everyone except the hardcore fanboys move to more open platforms that are priced at 75% to 50% of Apple products and allow you to plug in USB and play along well with other manufacturer's hardware by implementing open protocols like DLNA.
Anecdote : I bought an LG TV and discovered without doing any additional setup, my Samsung phone now shows a TV icon on the photos, and when I clicked it, I was surprised to find the photo pop up on the TV. As I swipe my finger on the phone, the photos scroll on the TV. Voila! I honestly don't know whether this is some kind of PnP broadcast, DLNA, WiDi, or what!
Next : my HP laptop has an Intel WiDi app on it and the TV has a "Wifi Screen Share". Hmm, let's see...bang! Laptop screen now wirelessly mirrored on the TV. LG TV, Samsung phone, HP laptop. I bet Apple products would not work with anything other than Apple this way.
TSLA Puts seem to be priced with higher IV than Calls at the same distance for both near and far expiries (Calls at 120% vs. Puts at 80% of spot). I see Puts at strike $27 priced at 200% to 166% of the Calls at strike $41.
Yeh that's why I said ~15-20% - it varies with IV, I just take a different spread than exactly +/- 20%. Fundamentally I don't want to be exposed to black swan downside, and black swan upside is statistically rare - so I don't mind losing that (things don't move up 30-40% in a month too often - manias/booms are slow - but they have moved down 30-40% crashes/panics -> bull markets are slow, bear markets are fast - and that is the asymmetry I'm exploiting to cap my risk without negatively effecting my return - selling covered calls is effectively free money most of the time, and buying puts covers my ass from Enron like events and the asymmetrical movement between booms/busts/disclosure negative information like bankruptcy).
The point is that even his father who is not familiar with Lady Gaga, another famous pop icon, is familiar with Psy and comfortable using the meme created by his song.
His father interpreted his free upgrade as "Gangnam style".
He knew the meme well enough to know that "Gangnam style" meant "living large" more or less.
For someone who usually takes a pass on all things pop culture, this was unexpected to say the least and speaks to the enormity of the influence this music video has had on all layers of society.
Gangnam is the part of Seoul known for the number of rich people who live there. It's associated with luxury. Getting to fly first class is definitely Gangnam style.
> often that's the least important resource that your program is managing
I think you're right but wrong here : it may be the least important in a technical sense, but the sheer amount of developer productivity lost in manual memory management is very expensive (for both the mental resources of the programmer and the firm), and this makes automated memory management a key positive.
Honestly, my eyes glazed over to avoid traumatic memories of C++ and Windows DOM internals as I read the article. I have a LIFE since I moved to Java.
> I packed up what was left, put all but necessities into storage. Sold my car.
(Not directly related to the article, but) : In the West, is it always the husband that has to leave the house? I once saw a movie in which the husband comes home and discovers that he being offered a divorce, and the wife says, "Leave my home". She was a stay-at-home wife, and he was working. I found it odd that she refers to it "my home" rather than "our home" or "the home" or "I think it is better if we both live apart", which is more civil.
If so, it's a cultural dictum, rather than a legal one, right?
(I am from India and I don't know many divorced people).
He says near the beginning that they were planning to move and the house was already on the market - both of them had to leave the house. It is not always true that the husband has to leave the house.
1. sometimes only one partner could afford the house on their own. It
makes sense for them to be the one that stays.
2. if there are children, then where possible it can make life easier on
them if the parent who gets custody stays in the house
so the children don't have to move. This is more frequently the mother.
3. if the divorce is seen as one person's "fault" then they are expected
to take on most of the inconvenience, which includes moving out.
4. depending on your state and any pre-nuptial agreements and niche
circumstances like living in a house owned by the parents of one person,
sometimes the house straight up belongs to one member of the couple and
they get to stay there.
If you own the house together, you can't force the other person to leave (unless it's a matter of safety and you involve the police.)
As long as things aren't TOO nasty, couples usually figure something out so that nobody goes homeless. If your wife was a stay-at-home wife with no income, and no place to go, you might let her stay in the house.
It goes either way, depending on circumstances. For example, if someone has a new lover, the adulterer usually moves out.
It's actually rare for someone to evict the other, since it's entirely illegal and usually undesired by the evictee. If the separation is very much ill-willed, the person who wants the divorce usually leaves (often as a surprise).
Firstly, it's not that "Reddit is a bastion of some fairly horrible groups", but that humanity happens to contain some fairly horrible groups. Reddit is just software. The same groups would otherwise use vBulletin, Usenet, or whatever other forum software to band together. You're conveniently forgetting that the same software + website are host to /r/fitness, /r/mensrights, /r/GetMotivated, and other very positive groups.
Basically, reddit is the early-21st century's Usenet. That's all there is to it.
Why not generalize a bit further and say, "The Internet is a bastion of some fairly horrible groups"?
Thats where the question of morality enters. Vbulletin could choose not to sell their software to racist hate groups, the same way a newspaper chooses not to publish a racist screed in their editorial section, the same way a hosting company can choose not to host pro-anorexia sites.
Reddit could choose not to allow the horrible side of humanity to use their platform. Even tumblr has standards. There will always be awful parts of human nature, but through our moral choices we minimize or promote them.
Neither. Path or something similar on the mobile will quietly take over because the distance between the camera and the upload button will be smaller, and tablets, and more importantly, 5" to 7" phablets, will become the ubiquitous perfect middle ground between telephony and browser and video game console.
FB will be forced to provide a comprehensive export feature by law, which will make the jump easier.
FB knows this.
This is, of course, a personal, subjective viewpoint / projection of the path of least resistance ahead.
Honestly, I have thought of much better stories myself. I remember GREATLY enjoying Asimov as a teenager, and I am pretty sure this is not his best story.