Bash is both probably the most popular shell for most Linux and Unix and similar systems, and also a scripting language that’s used with the shell. This set of videos focuses on the scripting part by taking you through all of the major topics that you need to write a Bash script.

You’ll have a much easier time of it if you already have some comfort with the basic principles of working on the command line. He touches very briefly on what regular shell commands do as they come up, but command line novices aren’t the target audience here and will probably be overwhelmed by how much information they would need to absorb.

The nice thing about these videos is that you’re hearing his explanations of why he’s doing everything as it happens along with the chance to see all of the interaction that’s happening with the shell and how it responds at each step. There are good written tutorials of Bash out there for free, so watching these definitely isn’t necessary for learning shell scripting. Still, if your learning style leans more toward the auditory and visual, Great Bash will be a great resource in making the topic understandable.

Google doesn’t have enough irrational people working there, and the rest of the world doesn’t have enough rational people occupying it.

The point that he comes around to is that, even if it isn’t strictly factually accurate that having Google automatically scan your email for keywords in order to choose the advertising it shows, people still feel like their privacy has been invaded. The unusually rational bunch of people who control a lot of the decision making at Google have difficulty grasping the fact that perception might as well be reality when it comes to how people react on an issue like this, and so they get themselves into trouble.

My mind went straight back to that article when I saw this claim today that half of the people who’ve used government social programs think they haven’t. There are some statistics about how many people who have benefited from different types of programs still think they’ve never gotten any social program benefits, but that’s not really the main thing that interested me here.

In the comments, you can see that people get into debating details like what constitutes a social program and what counts as getting benefits. Some of them actually are a little arguable, but the most interesting part to me is the stark line that people try to draw between the idea of the government sending you money and the government not taking the money to begin with (e.g. tax credits).

In the strictly mathematical and rational sense, whether I give someone $5 with an agreement that they were discounting it from $10 or I give them $10 and get $5 back afterward, we’re in effectively the same situation. The emotional nature of the exchange is very different in those two cases, though.

Facebook may be losing popularity in some areas without any help from Google. Meanwhile, people are apparently trying to sell the opportunity to access Google+ via eBay.

It may very well go this way, at least in some circles.

I’m not saying that it’s a meaningful comparison that Facebook is losing users for its free service while there’s a sort of black market developing for access to Google’s, but I bet there are some comedians out there who are playing this situation for humor value.

It looks like they’ve been working on this for a while, so it seems like they just got very lucky that they happened to hit their launch at a time when Facebook is already showing some weakness. If the service turns out to be as good as some reviews are saying, there could be a lot of entertainment value coming up in watching how Facebook reacts.

Once you get past the fact that it sounds silly, it’s very true. Many people aren’t very confident about their ability to write, and some of the people who are confident probably shouldn’t be.

These are both great features. I’m sure that a lot of people who need to reuse the same format repeatedly have already taken the step of creating a template for themselves that they could copy and paste, but the Copy A Post feature simplifies the process.

I think that the Request Feedback feature has a lot more potential to have an effect on the development of blogs. You were always able to email someone a copy of what you wrote and ask for feedback, but this makes it seem a lot more natural to do so. The best way to improve your writing is to get feedback on what currently isn’t working, so it’ll be interesting to see whether the little nudge of having a special button for the purpose encourages people to actually do so.

Considering the size of the event, it’s amazing that they manage to pull off the logistics. Bringing that many people into a city all at about the same time and arranging to have them park and get themselves to the right places so that they can do their various parts of the event must take a lot of work and a serious sense of organization.

If I ever go there again, I think I may have to try the timed run.

The review said that the story was basically good but there were a number of annoying errors that made it difficult to really settle in and enjoy the experience. I have no doubt that that’s not an easy thing to hear, but it seems that the author completely failed to grasp the fact that this is something of a best-case-scenario when it comes to criticism in a situation like this.

For writing, while issues like grammar are critical, they’re also the easy part. Writing that follows all of the rules perfectly to the point that it could literally be used as a textbook can’t make up for terrible organization or a bad plot. If the underlying content is good, the details can be fixed.

The reviewer actually did the author a great favor here by pointing out a pretty easy way to make big improvements to the books that she’s trying to sell. Instead of taking the information and using it, she threw a fit and cursed at people.

It’s possible that she’ll actually profit from it in the short term, since she’ll get a lot more publicity this way than she would have been likely to get otherwise. Perhaps once she cools off she’ll even realize how valuable this kind of honest feedback could be to turning her writing into something that more people would actually be willing to read.

As you’d expect from such a large collection of authors, the value of the result is mixed. Some of the essays will probably be arguing for ideas that you hadn’t really considered, while others are probably things that every remotely competent programmer already knows (at least in theory!).

In a weird way, it’s actually the latter case where the book might actually be most beneficial. Some of the ideas offered are obvious, but easily forgotten. For example, the focus of chapter 3 is “Ask, “What Would the User Do?” (You Are Not the User)”. While almost anyone who’s ever written a program would probably agree that the goal of a program is to be intuitive and easy for the users, I think we’ve all had the dubious pleasure of using programs where it seems as if the user was given no thought at all. Even if this kind of idea isn’t at all new to you, it doesn’t exactly hurt to be reminded of it.

The essays in the book are licensed under the creative commons, and available through a website run by O’Reilly, so you can take a look at a few essays if you like to get a sense of whether it would be of value to you or not personally. I actually worked from an electronic copy that O’Reilly provided for review purposes, but I had looked over some of the essays on the website beforehand.

O’Reilly let me use a copy of the 1.1 version of their HTML 4 & 5 reference app so that I could have a chance to review it, and I was really impressed by its quality. It has both search and browse options to make it easy to find a feature, and you have the option of limiting yourself to HTML 4.01 or HTML 5 if you have a special need to stick to a single version. It includes information about elements, attributes, and character sets.

In addition to the listings that you can search and browse, there are other interesting features. For example, there’s a section that breaks down the elements by the type of task that you’re trying to do. This should make it easy to find what you want even when you’re a novice who isn’t quite sure what you’re looking for. I could also see the other listings being useful for learning since they just show the name of the element until you tap on them, which could be a good way to quiz yourself.

If you’re doing web development and you want something that will help you learn and reference information quickly, this is a useful tool at a great price compared to what you’d have to pay for a book and a lot easier to use on a touch screen than your typical reference website. It works with iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad.

I have to say, it’s actually a really nice place so far. Everyone that I’ve had to talk to at all has been very friendly, and I’ve gone through all of their classes on how to use the equipment. It’s very cardio-centric with a ton of equipment out for that, but that’s not too much of a surprise since they go out of their way to cater to a demographic that’s more likely to focus on doing as much cardio as possible and mostly avoid strength training.

It’s also nice that, even though they’re obviously getting a significant January rush just like every gym out there, the crowding has really never been so bad that I couldn’t work around it so long as I was flexible about what I was going to be doing.

I still don’t do many of my workouts at the gym, but it’s good to know that the option is always there just in case I want to go use that equipment or I don’t feel like working out at home or outside.

[Note: I have no relationship other than as a customer/user to any of the companies I linked. They're just people who've made stuff I've enjoyed so far.]