Interesting Links for 05-01-2012

[andrewducker]

• Why "vi" works the way it does.
  (tags: unix software vi history )
• How To Be More Interesting (In 10 Simple Steps)
  (tags: interesting life advice )
• Loch Ness is a giant spirit level that shows Scotland bending with the tides
  (tags: tides scotland LochNess )
• You can't run people at 100% efficiency 100% of the time.
  (tags: efficiency management )
• Childhood in the UK - better than every before.
  (tags: children uk happiness )
• A Man. A Van. A Surprising Business Plan.
  (tags: china bureaucracy usa business )
• Google+ Is Going To Mess Up The Internet
  (tags: google plus internet search )
• Not everyone is happy to see cenobites
  (tags: hellraiser comics funny CliveBarker )
• This is pretty much how I feel about Tom Cruise
  (tags: TomCruise scientology funny comic )
• The People's Front of Scientology are not happy with the Scientologist People's Front.
  (tags: Scientology )
• If you asked Calvin's Dad about periods...
  (tags: menstruation comic funny )
• The Name of My Next Band
  (tags: music names JohnScalzi )
• Social Care Services to be merged into the NHS
  (tags: health care welfare nhs uk )
• How to graduate from MIT (or get through pretty-much any challenging situation)
  (tags: education inspiration )
• Prozac increases neuroplasticity - which is why it increases the effect of counselling
  (tags: prozac PTSD mentalhealth psychology )

Comments

[dalglir]

Scientology stuff always makes me LOL.

[andrewducker]

Looks like yesterday was a good day for comics.

[bohemiancoast.livejournal.com]

I noticed a sort of lower-tech version of the visa help outside the Indian High Commission in London (which I walk past from time to time and which invariably has massive queues) -- friendly young men standing under golf umbrellas advertising VISA HELP.

[channelpenguin.livejournal.com]

oh my, the "How to get into MIT/ do hard stuff" post? SPOT ON. I realised the same thing in my own at uni in first year, but in my case I *really* genuinely, couldn't be actually @rsed to do the necessary work - other things were FAR more compelling than computing at that point.

Music and sport are other obvious examples of where this all holds true.

(MUST DO PROPER SINGING PRACTICE TODAY)
(MUST PICK UP GUITAR)

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Hm. I applaud the initiative and usefulness of the visa-advice guys, but I'm surprised just anyone can dispense it, I thought it would be like legal advice and be illegal or impractical for Joe Random to set up a business around.

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

> It was a world that is now extinct. People don't know that vi was written for a world that doesn't exist anymore

Yes, and that's why people should STOP THE FUCK USING vi.

[calum]

If youve ever looked at vi source code, you'll find some really interesting quirks in there too. vi uses ESC to terminate current interactive command, but also supports arrow keys etc during commands (which send ESC + some other keys on a terminal).. So there are all sorts of funky timers to tell the difference, on a slow line, between a user pressing escape, and a user pressing a function key or arrow key.

[daveon.livejournal.com]

After a decade or of working in services, I've come to the conclusion that anything more than 80-85% utilization as a services operation (assuming it's more than 2 or 3 of you, where I've found you can run at about 150% ;) ) - is going to kill you.

Unless you have downtime and bandwidth in the engineering group you can't get bids done properly, which soon moves you from 100% utilization to zero.

[ckd]

The 'vi' article doesn't explain why hjkl are the movement keys, though.

It's because of the Lear Siegler ADM-3A.

(Joy alludes to these a bit in the "we finally got lower case" bit; they shipped UC-only and there was a replacement ROM, but I've heard stories of places that ordered "ADM-3A lower case kits" and got shipped the lower half of the terminal casing.)

I've even used one; my dorm was "connected" by having an ADM-3A in the basement attached to a 1200bps modem. I only used it when I couldn't use the phone in my room, since my Mac and its 1200bps modem worked better as a terminal.

(I also remap Caps Lock to Ctrl, but that habit comes from VT-220s and not from the ADM-3A.)

[snarlish.livejournal.com]

i'm kinda blown away by the Loch Ness thing. Yay science!

[undeadbydawn.livejournal.com]

Integration of NHS & SCS

this, from a Scottish perspective, is a little puzzling, as the two are already very closely interwoven in Scotland. It is, in fact, damned near impossible to run social care without NHS staff.

which makes me wonder what England has been doing all this time.

[apostle-of-eris.livejournal.com]

An especially good day.

Happy kiddies

[0olong.livejournal.com]

It's interesting to note that just four years ago UNICEF rated Britain's kids the most miserable among developed countries. I've not had time to read this in depth yet, but in light of that it seems a little odd for Paul Flatters to talk as if things getting better implies that they are now not bad.

It's good to highlight the positive, but talking about 'this negative myth-making' like this seems... well, a little dismissive of what seem to be actually quite good reasons to think that British kids have been doing unusually badly in terms of subjective and material well-being. It's very nice that they're doing better in various ways now, but I'm always wary of people lauding the fact that things are now in some ways better-than-awful.