Would be awesome to hear from a Rails developer how Cake compares to what we have in Ruby land.
I still have to build and maintain the odd PHP app now and again. Is cake worth my while to learn? Or would I be better off with something like Zend Framework if I had to choose?
I'd say definitely give Cake a serious look. It was a steep learning curve for me at the beginning. The documentation leaves much to be desired compared to other PHP frameworks, but it's getting better. I've never had any major complaints about CakePHP and have been using it for multiple personal and school (scientific research) projects. Recently the lead developer and the project manager left the project and started the Li3 project (http://li3.rad-dev.org/). I did not perceive a change in the rate and quality of CakePHP's core development as a result of that.
Seriously. You simply won't want to eat, and if you think you want to eat, you'll be surprised at how untasty that delicious looking candy bar or pasta is once it hits your lips. It's almost as if your body conspires against your best efforts to gain weight, which is a nice reversal for once.
In conjunction, take a high-quality multivitamin like SuperNutrition or Alive and you'll also find yourself with enough energy that you'll go crazy if you don't exercise. Yeah, it helps you want to exercise. That is key for me.
It's so much easier to take your daily olive oil and find yourself automatically disgusted at the sight of heavy food than to rely on sheer discipline, which is probably why you're overweight to begin with. And besides, olive oil is good for preventing disease.
It also helps that you'll feel the effects working on the same day you start, and you should see an encouraging difference on the scale a week later (I lost 5 pounds on the first week with no exercise - almost scary).
You win, like, 3 times on Shangri-La + high-quality multivitamin, and you don't have to have much discipline to get started.
It's free (unlike iDisk), and in my experience Dropbox sync on the desktop is a hell of a lot faster and smoother.
Obviously it doesn't provide the other features MobileMe does, like syncing Preferences, KeyChains etc. But I'd be a very happy customer of MobileMe if iDisk worked as well as Dropbox does.
INTPs have these constant internal battles. We're good at concentrating and love working in the realm of ideas. However, we're often an impractical lot and procrastination is pretty rampant among the other INTPs I know. The biggest problem, I think, is that we just really suck at perceiving the passage of time, and the daydreaming, writing, or discussion of ideas is often rewarding enough just to stop there.
INTJs are supposed to have many of the same qualities of INTPs but tend to be more sure of themselves, and therefore, more productive (or more capable of delivering 'products' within 'deadlines'). They seem to live in the moment a bit more, and I would venture to guess that they make better entrepreneurs.
As an INTP, I feel I can relate to your situation. I too often wonder if my problem relates to a personality temperament, and truly can be changed. It really bothers me that I have little to show for all the work I do in my head, and this frustration has helped motivate me, but I still don't feel like I've been truly 'unlocked'.
To compound the problem, INTPs make up about 1% to 3% of the population, which means not many people can relate to the INTP mindset and are more likely just to call you a whiner without attempting to appreciate where you are strong, and why that strength makes you weaker in other areas.
Any INTPs out there who feel they've overcome their temperament's negative traits? How did you do it?
My basic conclusion about the "personality" issues regarding INTPs is that INTPs think way too much about personality. Once I stopped over-analyzing everything as it related to my "personality traits" and how I felt so weird and different from the general population, life got so much easier. Isn't there a saying something like . . .
"Humility isn't thinking less of yourself, it's thinking of yourself less."
That said, the MBTI can be a useful tool to help in communicating with others (understanding how they see the world, for example), but over-analysis on the personal psych issues can easily escalate into a big, bleak black hole of self-perpetuating discontent. Sometimes you just have to kick yourself out of your own rut by doing something drastic. Get out of your comfort zone. Put yourself into extremely uncomfortable zones. For the INTP, this usually involves being around people.
I'd like to second this. Obsessive self-analysis can be a real problem. Over the years, I've learned to take myself less seriously, and my life has definitely improved because of that. People are still tedious, but my tolerance has improved.
I managed to overcome the slacker lifestyle. However, this was forced upon me. I found myself without a home for a short while, then living with two roommates who were 10 years older than me. They were mildly dysfunctional slackers, and much worse off than myself. I think having a visceral reminder of what could be your future is a pretty solid motivator.
I'm on the border between INTP/J. Was definitely an INTP as a kid, then have gradually moved towards the J, such that I'd probably test as INTJ if I took it now.
For me, it helped being exposed to people who Got Things Done. My high school was a startup, my teachers were a bunch of go-getter early-20-somethings, and one of the school's founders was an experienced entrepreneur. That started my shift towards the dark side of the force.
Then when I got to college (still very much an INTP), I volunteered to rewrite a major Harry Potter fanfiction archive and couldn't exactly back out without disappointing 100k users or so. I think the experience of pushing through on that and finishing it was a major portion of what led me to believe I could finish other stuff as well.
It also helped that I can now concentrate on stuff I like doing and avoid much of the stuff I hate. I used to always procrastinate on writing papers - now, I just don't have to, because I went into computers. (Ironically, I still sorta write fiction as a hobby, but I'm as unproductive with it as I ever was with my school papers.)
Ay, you're perfectly right, I can identify myself with that too. Also, if I cannot find myself in what I have to do today, I simply won't do it, no matter what I believe or tell others about what I'm going to do, thats a hard learned experience and there seems to be nothing I can do against not not doing stuff that bores me.
If you're an architect you need to do these kinds of things, you will just not be happy doing something else, no matter what's best for someone else or what others tell you is best for you.
What helped me was to set me goals to achieve one thing after the other as well as an exit time. At that time I'm looking forward to simply do something else (as an example - while currently being employed and having all the luxury I could imagine (big pay, nice collegues, nice boss), I still need the perspective that I'm out of all that after 2 years of full work - otherwise I'd suffer from boredom).
"The biggest problem, I think, is...just to stop there" - i am ashamed to admit it, but yes that is me. everything you wrote is me. Actually, I know that if I take up a task, I do it completely(unless there is something that incites me,which usually happens when I am half way done with my task,but not completed - my visualization has come true, but not tested,incomplete functionality etc.) I didn't know there was a word for it. thanks!
Anti-aging/life-extension stuff is all very interesting, but I fail to see how such technology would ever become accessible to the public at large. For that to happen, I'd think that there would have to be a significant economic benefit.
As it stands now, we have an overpopulation problem. We also live in a world where, whether we like it or not, segments of the population can be considered either a drag on society or a benefit. Who decides?
I have little doubt that someone will crack the code to indefinite lifespans within my lifetime, whether or not this breakthrough is publicized. But do we have any reason to believe that life-extension technology, even adding 10-15 years to the average lifespan, would be accessible to anyone but the super rich?
I just don't see how regular joes would be allowed to have this, but I'd like to be convinced otherwise.
ALSO: If you're going to downmod me, can you please explain why? This is a serious question, and people seem to want to shy away from it whenever it is brought up.
Depending on the rate of globalization and how sustainable our use of natural resources are by then, we may indeed be facing a population decline by the time life extension comes out. This seems incredible, but rich countries have much lower birthrates than poor countries. So if globalization turns poor countries into rich countries, it will solve the overpopulation problem and move the world below replacement rate.
The economic benefit to life extension is that you can work longer. If life extension works the way we think it will (by reducing the aging process), then it will also extend physical youth, giving us more productive years without the loss of productivity over time that comes with age (but with the gain in productivity over time that comes with experience and wisdom!)
Finally, it won't mean immortality, because it'll only fix old age. People will still die from suicide, homicide, and accident. Since there is a non-zero probability of these things happening to someone, the life expectancy will be more of an expected value than an expiration date, with some people dying at 1, some at 100, and some at 1000. It'll still be possible for people to have kids.
This will probably lead people to adopt an extremely risk-averse culture, and things like casual sex and automobiles will be the first to go. (The risk of dying in childbirth may be high enough to reduce birth rate in such a culture.) That, combined with a slower rate of generational replacement, will cause a very conservative culture in total.
> I just don't see how regular joes would be allowed to have this
I don't think it is a question of 'allowed'. Governments have tried to stop people taking certain harmful drugs without much success. So how do you think they will be able to stop people from from taking drugs that keep them alive?
Even if a nation could ban it effectively other nations would allow it for a fee. How many intelligent people would stay in a nation that tried to enforce their death?
Initially the cost of any really effective life-extension technology is likely to be high. But the costs should rapidly fall like most other technologies. The ongoing costs of living for the 'immortals' would of course have to be self funded.
It's a reasonable question and I haven't downmodded you. I think you're right that whenever the solutions become available they will be expensive. However, I also think these solutions are so sought after that they will likely be quickly copied, not necessarily legitimately, and widespread access will be possible/inevitable.
I still have to build and maintain the odd PHP app now and again. Is cake worth my while to learn? Or would I be better off with something like Zend Framework if I had to choose?