@John re SEO - the project's been public for 12 hours now. You need to Google some time to pick up on it, it's a new site.

> do you really think keyboards are the be-all/end-all of text input? I have yet to see something better. Writing with the iPad and a bluetooth keyboard are the most fulfilling experience I've had with a computer so far. - Handwriting recognition: sucks, because my handwriting is way slower than my typing - Speech recognition: still makes too many mistakes and fails totally under some conditions (on the train, in the park....) the natural next step is probably speech recognition, but it isn't there yet.

> @codinghorror When you tell me to jump, should I ask “How high?” Gah. I think the guy's original authorship has been paid enough respect now. Screw it - let the forking and name-finding commence!

I love the term "to-do bankruptcy". It's brilliant. It's an ongoing process, though - you need to declare it every day. Or at least every couple of weeks, when the next list has crept up on a piece of paper. Or in Notepad. Or in your Inbox. Another blogger I follow wrote about a very similar topic yesterday - claiming that there is the need for capitulation, an acknowledgement that there is always more stuff we need to do than we will ever be able to do, at any given time. She wrote, paraphrasing from German: "Say 'I didn't get around to doing that' aloud. Make it your mantra. Repeat it until you don't feel even the slighest trace of discomfort or guilt any more when saying it." I'm still working on that, and don't feel like I'm there yet.

I like the idea and wish you as many sales as possible, but I wonder what added value the book has that goes beyond the blog posts that one can read for free, including the comments that often bring additional insight as well? Does it contain new, previously unpublished material? Or is purchasing the eBook simply a way for dedicated readers of the blog to show their appreciation?

As has been said previously - an Open Source ecosystem that can compete with PHP in ease of use, but without its faults, sounds terribly promising. Where and when can we find details?

One thing I like about learning to write code is that it makes you understand how computers solve problems. When you code, you have to break up your problem into dozens, hundreds, or thousands of sub-problems. Different from other fields, if you don't have a crystal clear definition of these sub-problems, you will drown instantly. A task as seemingly simple as recognizing a face - something our brain does in an instant - takes decades of research to approach, and consists of millions of sub-problems that brilliant minds have worked years solving. Programming forces you to take apart everything. What is it that actually makes up a face? What do all human faces have in common? How can I detect one face in a crowd of hundreds? How do I detect a pattern in an image? How can I tell a face apart from a balloon with a face painted on it? et cetera et cetera. Actually writing your own code makes you appreciate how much effort it takes to do the seemingly simplest things, and it takes away the impression that computers do magic. And seeing as how scary, hairy, and HUGE the rise of all this insanely complex technology is, understanding it a little bit can't be a bad thing. But I guess it's not certain how much real insight a little bit of coding can get you in this respect. Plus the idea of having some basic knowledge applies to other fields as well, I'd say most notably economics. Anyway, this feels a bit like a non-discussion. If some people want to learn to code, why not let them? Most of them will pull out quicly, and the few who persevere will bore us at parties with their coding knowledge. That's not a pleasant idea, but worse things happen.

It's a really, really beautiful post, which I fully grasped only on the second read.

So Welbog was right and you *are* a vampire! Oh well. Congratulations!