Would love to see a screen at the back also -- dual screens, if you will. That way I can have one app running on the "front" screen and another on the "back" screen.
If I'm holding the phone in landscape with thumbs on front and fingers on the back, what I'd really like is buttons on the back so I'm not limited to just my thumbs. Shift, spacebar and an 'alternate layout' button (switches the onscreen keyboard to symbols/accents) come to mind. Maybe navigation buttons so you don't need to constantly shift your hand to reach the hardware buttons.
That said, many flip phones do actually have dual screens. Never seen them used simultaneously though. (Woz's solution for multitasking also comes to mind - just have two phones.)
Seems easier to long-press the home key than to lock my current screen, turn the phone over, and unlock that screen. I don't think you've really thought this through...
Mightn't that be a bit of a UX nightmare when you factor in a touchscreen? Yes, you could use orientation to decide to only take input from the 'topmost' screen, but you'll regret that when you're trying to set an alarm/check email while lying back in bed. Or, put another way: you know how annoying it is when auto-rotate doesn't get it right? Double that.
Your photo was probably small enough that different croppings didn't matter, or at least weren't different enough for you to notice. Thanks for the feedback.
Its equivalent in Chrome seems to be chrome.tabs.create. But when I tried that, I get this error: "chrome.tabs is not supported in content scripts". It seems that these "content scripts" aren't as powerful as extensions (http://code.google.com/chrome/extensions/content_scripts.htm...). Am I missing something here?
Yes. Chrome has different ways of extending the browser.
One is content scripts - which don't have access to certain parts of the Chrome api like opening tabs.
However, each extension can have what they call a background page. This is just an html page which is loaded in the background and there can be exactly one for every extension.
So you should be able to have your content script communicate with the background page (there is a mechanism for this) and let the background page open the tab.
For this, you'll have to write a fully-fledged extension though. The greasemonkey scripts probably don't generate a background page when they get converted into an extension at install-time.
I realize that this doesn't exactly address the root cause of your issue, but if you right click on selected text in Chrome, one of the menu entries will be to google for it in another tab.
ruby uses < (less than) for inheritance; also regular expressions start & end with / (slash). you have %W, %w for arrays and %q, %Q for string. things like "class << self ..." looks weird to those new to ruby. also stuff like "a ||= ...". and of course pre-pending '@' for instance variables and '@@' for class variables.
also when i use regexps in ruby i then say "/re(g)ex/ =~ 'string' && $1". in python that would be multiple statements: "m = re.match('re(g)ex', 'string'); m.group(1)"
in python existing syntax (or more familiar syntax) is used to accomplish all the above.
I never use %w for arrays and I never use %Q for strings. After years of schlepping through Python's regular expression support --- support not dissimilar from the regex support C++ has --- /regexes/ are a gift from god.
Also, your Ruby vs. Python regex examples aren't even equivalent.
Sigils on variables are a good point. This is an area where I think Python wins out. Dependence on "self" all over the place is irritating at first but ultimately quite comforting - especially when you wonder whether you're going to screw up your attributes when you use the same name for a local variable in your Ruby method ;-)
But on inheritance - you have to put the class name in round brackets in Python, no? That's 2 characters to Ruby's 1.
Stuff like a ||= shouldn't be considered Ruby-specific noise as Python also has the same idiom as in a += and a -=, just not with ||. || is arguably noise over "or" but it shouldn't seem like cryptic noise with any sort of experience of C, C++, Java, JavaScript, or almost any other mainstream language.
Further, that Ruby code of yours does seem more Perlish than Rubyish, but I suspect this is because Ruby style is gradually shifting away from Perl-like styles to more idiomatic approaches. For example, I'd probably choose 'string'[/re(g)ex/, 1] or if I was trying to be "proper" then something like m = string.match(/re(g)ex/); m[1] (or potentially use Regexp#match, but I far prefer String#match). I see those solutions more typically than those you present - and the latter is quite like your Python example - but.. TMTOWTDI and that's Ruby's greatest asset :)
Try something totally different. It could be a totally different technology: say Ruby on Rails or maybe Flex/Flash & Actionscript. How about becoming a designer? Something you have never considered before or never thought of as worthwhile. Something that brings back the "lightness" feeling you seem to be missing.
I think change is certainly key as the catalyst for a turn around your state of mind.
That said, from my experience, I wouldn't expect to ever have an immediate, deep psychological turn around in response to any particular change, even a radical one - it always takes time. But change is key.
Some common wisdom: It's easy to be scared of change - often easier to deal with a bad situation - not even really realize it's that bad - than face the unknown. But the unknown is almost always not as bad as you think.
I like the idea of seeking "lightness". Heaviness is exactly what burn out feels like, as if everything is 100 times more painful than it really is/should be/once was.
