(no title)
hallnoates | 14 years ago
Umm, search is just fine thank you. I could not survive without Google currently. The only thing I don't like about them is the lack of good customer support and the way they tend to develop unintuitive things with poor documentation (appengine was hard as hell to develop to, Android is getting better, but still they don't have a Rails-style "get up to speed" doc- they have a long way to go) But search is not their problem or mine.
> 2. replace email
> inbox is a todo list.
No, it isn't. It's a method of asynchronous communication and file transfer. If you're using it as a TODO list, you're doing it wrong.
> powerful people are in pain because of email. that’s an opportunity.
B.S. Email has survived Facebook, Twitter, Google Wave (cough)...
> whatever you build, make it fast. gmail has become painfully slow.
Maybe on a Pentium III. It isn't slow for me though.
> 3. replace universities
Good idea, but won't happen. The problem is any business/institution that gets continuous revenue without having to be accountable. Universities suck because they don't have to provide what they are needed for, they only have to compete with each other. The service the universities should provide is the preparation of its students for the betterment of the world. However, what this means is debatable, and the hippies of the 60s that grew up in an environment where they didn't have to work their asses off (like the teenagers of the depression era) are the ones teaching our kids how to feel better about themselves by building a hut in a 3rd world country.
> 4. kill hollywood
The studios are the only ones that really know how to produce. Music, T.V. and movies are all about production. The YouTube era won't last forever. It is only a matter of time before they get a full handle on things again.
> 5. a new apple
Apple is still on top of the consumer market. Solve problems that need solving in the way you feel is best. Don't work hard to be something else. Apple didn't.
> 6. bring back the old moore’s law
>...it would be great if a startup could make a lot of cpus look to the developer like 1 cpu.
As an analogy, why don't we make Ruby look like 8086 programming? Parallel computing is different- you can't solve problems with the same mentality.
coffeemug|14 years ago
That means most business users of e-mail are doing it wrong. Take a sample of heavy e-mail users (managers, sales people, marketing, etc.) and ten out of ten will tell you that they're inundated by e-mail, and that it is a defacto todo list. E-mail is a giant problem for everyone who needs to communicate with a large number of people professionally, and "you're doing it wrong" is not the answer. Using e-mail as a todo list is the path of least resistance, so it's the only viable option for most people right now, and it sucks. It needs to (and will) get fixed.
In general, it's easy to go through any list of ideas and dismiss them. All of these ideas seem sensible to me. They're vague by design, many of them will likely take a very different shape, but it's a good list of general directions to explore.
TL;DR don't be a cynic, be a builder.
sgrove|14 years ago
Beautifully put.
unknown|14 years ago
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antoko|14 years ago
I don't think pg is asking for help with his email - for MANY people it IS a todo list. He's outlining opportunities for future startups - email IS an opportunity precisely because people are "doing it wrong" - you snarking like you disagree with him but it seems like you actually agree. He's saying there needs to be a better todo list system for EVERYONE email can still fill the role of asycn comms and file transfer.
>>gmail is slow >it isnt slow for me
Maybe I'm wrong but I assumed he was meaning this to be it takes a lot of time not it has poor performance - again seems like your are just trying to negative.
>> 5. a new apple
>Apple is still on top of the consumer market. Solve problems that need solving in the way you feel is best. Don't work hard to be something else. Apple didn't.
He's talking long term - he's talking about apple when they were in a garage - he's not saying they are dead - he's saying with Jobs no longer at the helm there is less likely to be next generation vision - so again there is an OPPORTUNITY - someone will be the next visionary - maybe it could be you.
>> 6. bring back the old moore’s law >>...it would be great if a startup could make a lot of cpus look to the developer like 1 cpu.
>As an analogy, why don't we make Ruby look like 8086 programming? Parallel computing is different- you can't solve problems with the same mentality.
I don't understand your logic here. PG is talking about abstracting the problem away from the developer - you think the future of CS is that we will no longer make things abstract?! I think PG mentions it because it would be HUGE if this could be done - it certainly is difficult - he's not advocating any kind of mentality - he's just saying there's an opportunity here.
hallnoates|14 years ago
I interpreted him as implying that writing code for parallel processing should happen in such a way that we don't have to think of it. But that is the whole problem. Developers are ignoring the complexity and opportunity that exists in understanding parallel computing. Development languages should evolve to embrace the opportunity that exists within understanding what is going on, not hide it. We didn't keep programming in BASIC since we were kids as our primary language, nor did we continue to use assembly. Things evolve, and, as developers, our thinking needs to evolve to support multiple CPUs and parallel computing; we don't need someone's help to wash over the fact that things have gotten more complex. We need to understand that complexity before attempting to abstract it.
hallnoates|14 years ago