“It doesn’t take special talents to reproduce—even plants can do it. On the other hand, contributing to a program like Emacs takes real skill. That is really something to be proud of. It helps more people, too.

“Partnerships have been crucial; the batsmen have clung on to each other dearly. Unlike in Australia, where they rattled off one masterpiece after another, none of these innings will be termed ‘great’. Yet they’ve made a collective statement. Like a swarm of bees, they’ve combined to make life hell for the opposition.

“Kumble has been the quintessential team man, the architect of far more Indian victories than the glory boys in the middle order.

“Scientists tend to ‘desist’ from scientific research upon marriage just like criminals desist from crime upon marriage.

“Give me a Linux desktop anywhere and I can tell you whether it has atime on or off, just by clicking around. That’s how I notice when I forget to turn off atime on a newly installed system: the system has weird desktop lags and unnecessary disk trashing.

“Consumer loyalty is directly linked to the amount the consumer invests out of pocket. Apple has a fiercely loyal base partly because they feel really stupid spending an extra $300 on a product that isn’t something special. With social networking sites the amount spent is zero - and the loyalty corresponds.

“Like mating season, VCs in the midst of fundraising season tend to behave a little strange, with a heightened sensitivity to M&A overtures.

“Gimmicky answers in college applications have their place, because they demonstrate a person’s willingness to do something trivial, stupid and creative, all at the same time. That’s a useful skill.

Publishing previous applications eliminates most gimmicks from reuse. This is why blogs and YouTube videos keep getting better.

“The params hash in Rails is a special kind of hash called a HashWithIndifferentAccess. This differs from the CGI::Session hash (a plain old Hash) in which the keys :foo and ‘foo’ do not point to the same values.

“The most productive people rarely have more than 6 hours or so of really concentrated work per day. If you can ensure you get that every day, you don’t need to economize on sleep.