doubleconfess | 13 years ago | on: An Open Letter To All Startup Founders
doubleconfess's comments
doubleconfess | 14 years ago | on: How people judge your intelligence and social skills based on your looks: Take 2
doubleconfess | 14 years ago | on: Google's Self-Driving Car Gets Mixed Reviews
For now, at least, the car only drives routes it's been trained to drive.
Google is pretty good at mapping things.
Since the Google car only just got its learner's permit, it drives accordingly
I think this is meant as a literal statement. The car is able to drive of its own accord, but needs an adult present who can take over if needed. But did you just say that the GOOGLE CAR HAS A LEARNER'S PERMIT?? That's amazing!
Then there was the jerking halt on a side street caused by a car that stopped a little abruptly almost two car lengths ahead.
If you don't think the software is going to err on the side of caution for YEARS after widespread usage, you are mistaken. Eventually we will be so used to trusting these cars that we will probably be napping on the way to work, so who cares that the car hits the brakes a few more times than it should?
And eventually I'm sure these cars will be a model of efficiency, with fast moving currents of cars zipping here and there. One step at a time.
Surprisingly, one thing the car can't do all on its own is use the turn signals.
Hey, how come when I click this button on my site does nothing happen??? THIS PROJECT IS A COMPLETE FAILURE!!!
If Google can get there before a major automaker beats them to it, I'll be really impressed.
The most preposterous statement of all. Please get the reporter on the line and let me place a bet of Google vs all the automakers combined on who will release this technology is first. Assuming that Google hasn't locked up all of the pertinent technologies, this wouldn't be a fair fight.
doubleconfess | 14 years ago | on: How Tim Cook is changing Apple
So much of the article seemed to point out the Tim Cook was friendlier in terms of investor relationships, but who cares about that (from a technologist point of view)? I mean, the biggest indicator of the shift in their priorities is that they took 100 billion dollars in cash and used it for stock buybacks and dividends. Can you imagine Google doing such a thing? They would never dream of this, because they are too busy re-investing their profits with their big-picture potentially world changing research projects.
But hey, kudos for Tim Cook for not trying to be someone he is not, he's a money and operations guy. So money and operations will get looked at at the expensive of innovation. But this is not good for those who are used to miracles from Apple:
"It looks like it has become a more conservative execution engine rather than a pushing-the-envelope engineering engine," says Max Paley, a former engineering vice president who worked at Apple for 14 years until late 2011.
"I've been told that any meeting of significance is now always populated by project management and global-supply management," he says. "When I was there, engineering decided what we wanted, and it was the job of product management and supply management to go get it. It shows a shift in priority."
Yuck. The geek inside dies a little at reading this.
doubleconfess | 14 years ago | on: How people judge your intelligence and social skills based on your looks: Take 2
doubleconfess | 14 years ago | on: Behind the scenes of Circle app design
doubleconfess | 14 years ago | on: Now That's What I Call Social Proof
And I will say that the design and interactions on thesixtyone.com were much much much nicer (which is especially notable for the two sites being so similar). But I did miss the ability to set up a preferred genre.
doubleconfess | 14 years ago | on: Show HN: My first web app, DailyDo.it
If you are building something to make money, then sure go with lean startup principles and A/B it to death. If you are building something as an act of creation, or as a tool that you want to use, and especially if you are building something that has been done 1000x before, trust your own insights and not those of strangers on a talk board.
Being different (not arbitrarily different mind you, but insightfully different) is a huge and uncommon differentiator, and can led you in amazing directions if you stay true to it.
GO WITH YOUR GUT!
doubleconfess | 14 years ago | on: *JS : Low-Level JavaScript
doubleconfess | 14 years ago | on: Poll: What text editors do you prefer?
I'm somebody that switched by the way, but I thought I was in the overwhelming minority.
doubleconfess | 14 years ago | on: Show HN: Tired of entering map directions on iPhone? I've streamlined it
doubleconfess | 14 years ago | on: Show HN: Meme generator for hipsters
doubleconfess | 14 years ago | on: Have a .com web address? Know the legal risks
> For years the Department of Justice had maintained that online gambling was illegal. In a spectacular about turn just before Christmas last year, it said that the law (the Wire Act) only applied to sports betting. They finally recognised the obvious- it takes some skill to win at poker and blackjack. So when it took action against Bodog, it wasn’t for its main activity of online gambling but the relatively smaller one of sports betting.
From someone who has the unique combination of having been a professional poker player for long periods, as well as having worked at Bodog as a software developer I can tell you two things that are very wrong about this paragraph.
1. There isn't any skill in playing blackjack online. The only skill component of playing live is in counting cards, and that doesn't translate online because you are getting a "new deck" with every hand.
2. Sports betting is far and away the most profitable part of their business. In fact, their poker room is nothing but a nuisance to them because it allows professional poker players to swoop in and extract money from the sports betters before Bodog is able to extract it. This is demonstrated by the recent changes to their poker software that make the site very very unattractive to play poker on for any thinking player (ie anonymizing the tables), not to mention their previous rules about limiting the number of tables played at a time.
And then the main point of taking action against the site for the minor crime of sports betting, which is "legal" in Canada. I'm not so sure about that, I know when I worked there that it was common knowledge that the founder of the company hadn't stepped foot in Canada since Bodog had launched. Also, what does it matter if sports betting is the main part of its business or not? If it's illegal to service US customers with an activity that the US government finds illegal, they are obviously going to take action.
Of course I believe online sports betting shouldn't be outlawed, but the US government has always been much more clear about this being illegal when compared to its sometimes wishy-washy stance on poker.
doubleconfess | 14 years ago | on: Show HN: We made an awesome way to browse and search your Chrome bookmarks.
But you really REALLY need to modify your icon. There are a million bookmarked shaped icons in this world, and for some reason no-one ever incorporates a mark with the bookmark icon so that it can be differentiated. So now on chrome I have 2 bookmark icons that look identical (the other is for 'read it later'), and two other ones that relate to bookmarks but are stars. Great.
doubleconfess | 14 years ago | on: Show HN: Flutter - Control Spotify or iTunes Using Gestures thru Webcam
doubleconfess | 14 years ago | on: Show HN: Our first iPhone app, built entirely in JavaScript
doubleconfess | 14 years ago | on: JavaScript Jabber: Backbone.js
doubleconfess | 14 years ago | on: Why Do Cells Age? Extremely Long-Lived Proteins
The downside to immortality is that the wealthy would just keep getting wealthier (since building wealth is at least partly a function of having wealth and having experience accumulating wealth) until eventually they are more important than governments. And the great War of 2188 will be of the nation of Zuckerberg vs the nation of the United States of Buffett, winner gets Earth, loser is expelled to roam space for all time.
Ok, I should drink less coffee. :)
doubleconfess | 14 years ago | on: A Word to the Resourceful
"Like real world resourcefulness, conversational resourcefulness often means doing things you don't want to. Chasing down all the implications of what's said to you can sometimes lead to uncomfortable conclusions."
"My feeling with the bad groups is that coming into office hours, they've already decided what they're going to do and everything I say is being put through an internal process in their heads, which either desperately tries to munge what I've said into something that conforms with their decision or just outright dismisses it and creates a rationalization for doing so."
This sounds like a testament to the lean-startup movement, where success is more dictated on the ability to iterate on user feedback rather than being stuck in one static idea of what your business is or is meant to be.
doubleconfess | 15 years ago | on: Ask HN: How much recurring income do you generate, and from what?
Sadly I am an American and that is no longer possible.
All men have been there, most men outgrow it.