An irony of facebook's situation.

Sheryl got her MBA at Harvard. One of the most famous cases (Extra Strength Tylenol) in one of the most famous classes (Business History) she took: in 1982, someone put cyanide in Extra Strength Tylenol capsules and killed 7 people in Chicago.

Java was first released in mid-1995, just 6 months before JS.

By 98, when I went to college, Java was already used for all the first level courses in the CS program.

How did it catch on so quickly (just 3 years) to shift university curriculum, which is usually so slow/behind?

I wonder why Java was so respected and JS was not? Why/how was Java already seen as such a stable and mature language?

Not just Java, other languages (like python) were also released around/near 95, and also seemed to get to "mature" respect status. much quicker.

I bring all this up because my impression of Java in 98 was that it had been around "forever" (as had C++ first developed in 79, but not standardized until 98!), but that's not. true at all. These were all new languages around the same time.

I'm sure the language designs had different merits, and the target applications meant a different perception and reception, but...

it sure seems like the industry (and academics) just decided Java and C++ were the stable mature ones and langs like JS were toys.

BTW, before you assume JS was nascent/immature b/c the web wasn't much of a thing yet, remember that JS was actually released as LiveScript on the server before it was released in a browser. So "server-side JS" was always part of the story, not just Node 15 years later in 2009.

Why did I leave Google? A thread.

This thread is going to include quotes from Wired's "Three Years of Misery Inside Google, the Happiest Company in Tech" because I'm not a professional writer

When I joined Google, I fell in love with the company immediately. I was excited to come to work, not just for the technical challenges, but because I really felt I was making a difference and working for the good guys.

I spent 20% of my week working on an app that helped people find lost loved ones after natural disasters. I spent more free time speaking to students about technology and diversity. For an entire school year, I taught CS classes twice a week at a local low income high school.

The company was open. We had a weekly meeting called TGIF where anyone in the company could ask questions of, and raise concerns with, the execs. We got real answers.

There are only 3 real challenges to free speech at the tech level a) the need for CDNs at scale b) distortions of net neutrality c) nation-state firewalls.

All other claims are about social governance on private sites, where applying free speech doctrine is a stretch at best

Baseline free speech has expanded modestly since 1776 or whatever your reference point is.

About 20% beyond core case of government-critical speech in formally public spaces and media I'd say.

You can (for example) have more kinds of conversations in a bar without getting punched or kicked out by other patrons or management. You can teach more things in colleges than 100 years ago.

That's a genuine de facto increase in practical, informal free speech/expression.

But online free "speech" is, as @reneed has pointed out, not an expansion of free speech at all, but an expansion of reach. It is like the secondary freedom of the press to print as many copies as they can afford, not primary freedom to say what they want

If a newspaper wants to print more copies it has buy more printing equipment and front more upfront costs. Reach for a paper publication is not "free", but a function of desired circulation, which in turn is a function of demand prediction etc. But that logic is obscured online.

How to make a "Briefcase" icon in @figmadesign.

🧵 thread 👇

In a 24 x 24 pixel artboard, use the rectangle tool (R) to draw a 18 x 10 pixel rectangle positioned horizontally centered and 6 pixels from the top of the artboard.

Using the ellipse tool (O), draw a 96 x 96 pixel circle and align the top to the center/top of the rectangle. Select both shapes and use the boolean tool to intersect the group.

Using the ellipse tool (O), draw a 48 x 48 pixel circle and align the bottom to the center/bottom of the rectangle. Select both shapes and use the boolean tool to intersect the group.

Flatten the shape (command + E) and double click it to make it editable. Select the top left and right points and give them a 2 pixel corner radius. Select the bottom left and right points and give them a 1 pixel corner radius.

Ever wondered how the JVM debugger 'Evaluate' feature works in IDEs? Long ago I thought that the Java debug interface (JDI) actually allows you to specify the expression and get back its value.

However, this is not quite possible: there's no Java language compiler inside the JVM. When the process is paused JDI allows you to read or write any variables and fields or even execute an existing method with given arguments. But nothing like addition or multiplication.

On the other hand, #IntelliJIDEA debugger allows you to evaluate even statements! You can write there `for`, `if`, `while`, `switch` - whatever. You can even declare local variables. So how this works?

The answer is simple: IDEA debugger has a built-in interpreter for Java! If you access an existing variable or a field, call a method or instantiate an object, it queries JDI. Otherwise, IDE itself does all the calculations.

The amusing thing is that debugger authors didn't bother to make it as strict as Java itself, so the language inside the interpreter is a much more permissive version of Java. For example, you don't need to initialize variables there! Default values like 0 are used automatically.