gordonc's comments

We at http://views.fm completely agree

Seconded. This book has made me rethink all of my behaviors and professional practices – from the gym, to food, drinking, and my UX design recommendations and reasoning. It provides a framework for how we make decisions, a truly phenomenal and amazing accomplishment, when you consider it.

I am hanging out on a team product meeting with peeps in Paris, Philly, NYC, and SF as I type this.

For me, this makes G+ 100x more valuable than FB.

Uhh, does anyone know what the location for this is? I RSVPed 'coming' and never got any info on where this is happening.

Dropbox's GUI does need some work for presentation, which is why me and a friend built an app on top of Dropbox precisely for that: views.fm Actually just released a new slideshow feature to present photos!

With every new OSX version update I just assume it's gonna take a solid 8 hours to get rails running properly again...

If Foursquare is a sign of things to come for NYC, I need to get the fuck out of here asap.

Seems like this is gonna be fun competitive space.

I've seen http://vhx.tv, http://shelby.tv, and now WatchLater.

Am I missing anything?

For designers: good for practice, bad for business

For businesses: good for unimportant stuff that needs a bit of design, bad for serious stuff

As a designer/business owner, I'm past the point of using this service and since my product is UX/design focused, I wouldn't dream of outsourcing design work in this way.

Oddly enough, the more I read the more I become convinced that this may actually not be the case. Technology and our ability to effectively process information is growing at an exponential rate – of course, so is the amount of information.

But logically, there will be a point in the future where the output of humanity in an hour will be greater than the sum total of all human knowledge prior to 2012. Some fans of the Mayan calendar say this date is December 21st, 2012. Kurzweil says more like 2045. Really hard to say, IMO. But still, if we have the power to create that kind of information then we'll have to be able to take in a lot more, so I'm not too worried about missing everything. I'm just concerned about the information pertinent to my health, career, and loved ones, which is quite readily available thanks to sites like this.

Fuck startup events (and startup "incubators" for that matter.) Everybody wants to 'play startup' these days.

Valuable non-programming skills include, in order of immediate product utility: user experience design, visual design, customer support, business development, marketing. And, more importantly, and much rarer, the ability to find all those people that fit with the team and to create a working environment of mutual respect.

I dunno, I'm 26 and equally baffled by every new mobile/social fad. I think technology and late stage capitalism does something strange to culture, leaving a void where religion, music, or some sort of dialog traditionally exist, so young people are following the logic of consumerism, going to whatever gives instant gratification and a semblance of meaning.

That's the best explanation I can come up with the success of things like foursquare, instagram, etc. and the rise of online gaming.

There were probably assholes like us saying the same shit back in the 50s though - why do these people stay inside and watch TV when they could see ART at the Cinema!?

Hi Cody!

Color is the foursquare of photo apps. Which is to say: novel, silly, and, ultimately rather useless.

For group photo sharing, which I think is an awesome idea, there's an app/site in private beta called Chute (getchute.com) which does the same thing with less emphasis on users nearby.

"Playing startup." Most apt description I've heard of the New York 'tech' scene yet.

This site is a poor copy of flavors.me. I once took the liberty of illustrating that idea: http://grdn.cc/post/1171539069/flavors-me-vs-about-me-in-tod...

Reading this book The Possibility of an Island which postulates the same, though through a more socio-religious angle rather than technological.

The Black Swan (unrelated to the Natalie Portman movie)

A great look behind some of the pseudo-science and psychological principles behind decision-making, rationality, and markets.

Finally! Some mainstream tech criticism in contrast to the overwhelming din of cargo-cult social network startups.

When did "startup" become synonymous with social internet site that will take years to make any money? I know I'm on HN; my point is that there are startups in all kinds of fucking fields for which this advice is absolutely useless.

That said, not enough CEOs/product people have an understanding of programming and what it means for business.

The Tao te Ching – Lao Tzu. Classic and calming.

Also Design Patterns in Ruby, which is rather entertaining for a programming book.