There is a lot of discussion in tech circles recently on the sorry state of US immigration and the dire need for more qualified engineers, computer scientists, matheticians, etc., but much of it misses the bigger picture. The big picture is that the dominant socioeconomic dynamic of the 21st century will be the competition between the US system and China’s massive population (and India’s to a lesser extent) for global economic ascendance.

The US population is ~300 million, China’s is ~1.2 billion, 4x our size. (India’s is over 1 billion and the EU is ~400 million, for comparison). For every engineer, scientist, genius, etc in the US, there are ~4 in China. Over the long term the US has no hope whatsoever of competing against that without significant structural changes.

Google+ got a redesign two months ago. It’s nice, I have no major complaints about the new look (except for the huge whitespace beneath the aside portrait/info, but that’s more aestetic than usability).

However, I do have a major complaint about the fundamental functionality. The problem with G+ is that you can’t fine-tune the signal:noise ratio enough.

If you use both Google Chrome browser and its upstream development version, Chromium, on the same machine, you may, like me, want a way to sync your Bookmarks between the two locally, without using some third party cloud sync/backup service.

Well there’s an easy way to do this with a software version control control system like Git, Mercurial, Subversion, etc. I use Linux and Git, but this technique should work on any operating system with any version control system.

Sun/Oracle Java was removed from Linux distros in 2011 due to licensing issues.
It can only be downloaded directly from Oracle’s website now and installed manually. There are many different ways of doing that, but for Debian and Debian-derivatives, I prefer using Debian’s excellent update-alternatives tool.

Racket, formerly PLT Scheme, is one of the easiest Scheme programming environments to set up, making it a convenient environment for learners to use to work through all the problems in The Little Schemer. It only needs two modifications after installation:

1. Start DrRacket

2. Change the language to Module. In the Language menu at the top (or the bottom left):

   Language -> Choose Language -> Module -> OK

3. DrRacket lacks the primitive atom? used extensively in The Little Schemer, so you have to define it yourself. atom? simply returns true if the input is an atom, false if not. In the top window, the Definitions window, add:

1

(define atom? (lambda (a)  (not (list? a))))

That’s all, you’re ready to start.

I played soccer from when I was about 9 years old through high school, and have remained a lifelong fan, but despite that I never realized the extent and depth of tactics employed in the game, especially at the highest levels (World Cup, European and English league championships, South America). Thanks to Zonal Marking, I do now.

The ways in which Linux > Windows:

1. More stable
2. Less virus, trojan, & security risk
3. Security through transparency and (for now)minority vs Security through obscurity
4. free
5. Free
6. Update all your software, not just the OS, with one-click
7. Tens of thousands ofeasy-to-getf/Free software packages available in the online, repositories
8. Next-generation desktops (Compiz Fusion, etc.)
9. Never defragment your hard drive again
10. Your system never slows down over months and years of useage
11. Theme your desktop (with more than just 3 themes)
12. Less ecological impact - no boxed software, no CDs, download everything online.
13. Be part of an emerging global community
14. More…

Paul Graham on the profession of programming.

Noted computer scientist Philip Greenspun on the comparative value of college, and an interesting discussion among hacker entrepreneurs.

Oldie but goodie on the value of polyglot programming.