broot | 14 years ago | on: "They're Made out of Meat?" Short first contact sci-fi story
I read this a long time ago but was never able to find it again. Thank you so much for the link! It's such a powerful short story.
broot's comments
broot | 14 years ago | on: Speed-of-light experiments yield baffling result at LHC
Haha, I can't be the only one that got that.
broot | 14 years ago | on: Google+ Opens to All
I think you're right, the invite window doesn't matter, but like the first 100 days of a presidency, it's a solid enough chunk of time to think about what Google+ has accomplished, and I would argue that the answer is "not much."
The invite window won't kill G+, but apathy will. About a fifth of my Facebook friends are on it, but only 3 out of a hundred post anything. A successful competitor would need to stand for something other than "well, it's not Facebook."
It may find a niche as a long-form twitter (which is something I can't believe Facebook waited so long to do) but the initial excitement has run its course.
broot | 14 years ago | on: NASA Announces Design for New Deep Space Exploration System
I'm worried they'll build half of this and then cancel it.
broot | 14 years ago | on: Ask HN: How would you save Yahoo and bring it back to top place ?
There's a scene I really like in The Wire in which one of the major drug kingpins realizes that his product (heroin in this case) was inferior and expensive compared to the other stuff on the market, so he asks his community college professor what to do.
Rebrand it.
If they want to survive they need to hire a bunch of really, really great designers and consolidate their properties so that it looks nice, because their homepage looks like a screencap from 10 years ago. Allow people to assemble their home pages like iGoogle. Better integrate Delicious and Flickr into their other properties. Partner with Facebook to add a social component. Decide what they stand for it and make it contrast with Google. Maybe privacy. Then make that the drumbeat of everything they do.
broot | 14 years ago | on: With Help From Jodie Foster, SETI Resumes Search for Alien Life
I think Jodie Foster's character in Contact (who is based on Jill Tarter, the real-life director of SETI research) says it best.
"Look, all I'm asking, is for you to just have the tiniest bit of vision. You know, to just sit back for one minute and look at the big picture. To take a chance on something that just might end up being the most profoundly impactful moment for humanity, for the history... of history."
broot | 14 years ago | on: The future Firefox UI
I'm glad they finally got rid of that extra search bar, it was ugly and clunky and useless. Any word on when this changes happens for real? I would love a better looking firebug delivery device.
broot | 14 years ago | on: Show HN: Monster Coloring Book, my first App just launched. What do you think?
Site design is really great, really well done Zarprey!
broot | 14 years ago | on: Why aren't the oldest living people getting any older?
But W1ntermute, wont William Gibson be mad that you're cheating on Neuromancer with Ghost in the Shell?
broot | 14 years ago | on: Where are my rounded corners?
This is something I've intentionally started to do with my start-up. As long as the design looks intentional, it's really not worth the stress and the bloat. Make it fast, make it good, don't make it an OCD nightmare
broot | 14 years ago | on: Ask HN: What is the first thing you do before starting a new project?
I turn on my Boards of Canada Pandora station and do a bunch of research. Jot some ideas down. Think about who would use it.
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