Link Dump 2

• A fault in our design by +Colin Dickey: Even a quick round-up of the technological advances of the past few decades suggests that we’re steadily moving forward along an axis of progress in which old concerns are eliminated one by one...the same technologies that are making our lives easier are also bringing new, often unexpected problems.
• What I Wish I Knew When I Started My Career as a Software Developer by +Michael O. Church: Let me bat out a few suggestions based on my experience and observations. This list is not all-inclusive—because it can't be. Your experience will be unique.
• 7 questions to ask any open source project by +Simon Phipps: Do you truly have permission granted in advance to benefit from and innovate upon an open source project? These questions will help you find out
• On The Origin of Circuits by +Alan Bellows: Dr. Thompson dabbled with computer circuits in order to determine whether survival-of-the-fittest principles might provide hints for improved microchip designs...what he found inside was baffling. The plucky chip was utilizing only thirty-seven of its one hundred logic gates, and most of them were arranged in a curious collection of feedback loops. Five individual logic cells were functionally disconnected from the rest-- with no pathways that would allow them to influence the output-- yet when the researcher disabled any one of them the chip lost its ability to discriminate the tones. Furthermore, the final program did not work reliably when it was loaded onto other FPGAs of the same type.
• Here's What Would Happen If You Asked Ayn Rand To Loan You Money by +Lauren Davis: Naturally, Rand couldn't resist answer a request for a loan with a dissertation on fiscal responsibility. While there is some sensible stuff in here (and hey, at least she admits that Connie doesn't have to agree with her personal philosophy), most communications with teenage girls don't turn into a miniature version of Atlas Shrugged, paired with threats of viewing them as embezzlers.
• The Subtle Art of Not Giving A Fuck by +Mark Manson: In my life, I have given a fuck about many people and many things. I have also not given a fuck about many people and many things. And those fucks I have not given have made all the difference.
• Lost in the Meritocracy by +walter kirn: Someday we'll be screened and then separated...Four years ago my SAT scores set me on a trajectory...I knew only one direction: forward, onward. I lived for prizes, praise, distinctions, and I gave no thought to any goal higher or broader than my next report card. Learning was secondary; promotion was primary. No one had ever told me what the point was, except to keep on accumulating points, and this struck me as sufficient. What else was there?
• Decentralized Autonomous Organization: sometimes referred to as a Fully Automated Business Entity or Distributed Autonomous Corporation/Distributed Autonomous Company...It can be thought of as a corporation run without any human involvement under the control of an incorruptible set of business rules. These rules are typically implemented as publicly auditable open-source software distributed across the computers of their stakeholders. A human becomes a stakeholder by buying stock in the company or being paid in that stock to provide services for the company. This stock may entitle its owner to a share of the profits of the DAO, participation in its growth, and/or a say in how it is run.