BrainScraps

I would try to outsource a lot of the trite admin stuff to other sites such as yelp, opentable or a Google Places page (hours, parking, etc.) and have the page mostly defining the brand.

For a restaurant, more important than the information is the feeling. The style. The occasion that is evoked by the fonts, graphics, transitions, everything.

Best minimalist design would integrate some high-quality shots that define the ambiance of the erstaurant, show/tell about the chef / owner, and then link to other sites that had all of the admin data.

There are my $0.02 - enjoy.

The document linked below is easily the least important page on the whole site.

But without it, I would have never read the rest of it, so thank you. I think I just spend about 50 minutes getting schooled by Mr. Victor. Amazing concepts.

(everything I just typed feels trite after the sweeping visions imparted in the literature on that site. Seriously. I'm going to bed.)

I was similarly unimpressed by how siloed and corporate everything felt during the Q & A sessions.

I watched the Android fireside chat, and there was so much "we don't plan on supporting that" and "that's in the hands of our OEM partners" and "you'd have to talk to another team to get specific on that" or "we may look into that in the future"

Things felt so soul-less and uninspiring. You'd think that the Android team(s) would have no problem promoting excitement and optimism among the people who want to build on top of their work, but it was just lacking. ::sad panda::

I think that the main argument of this post is ridiculous.

"You should use an iPad to tranquilize your kids instead of a TV"

If you click through to the blog that he created while in the restaurant, you'll notice that the kids weren't learning or drawing or playing games, they were actually just WATCHING MOVIES.

A more detailed (if quick) response here: http://isaacelias.posterous.com/every-child-in-america-needs...

Everybody remember this thread from a couple of weeks ago about their "naughty" antics and the good that came of them ?

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2479757

Some applications that might be able to make use of that kind of bandwidth... You could do a lot of high-fidelity virtualization with HD Video editing, image editing, even 3D modeling.

Telepresence is an obvious application.

Oh gosh, if you combined this kind of bandwidth with a bunch of Kinect sensors, things could get REAL. :-D

The Rails community is serious about outreach. Good on ya!

All of the non-tech readers are drooling, thinking

'Oh, don't worry about learning all of that business strategy, customer acquisition and marketing stuff, you can take on a friendly MBA to help you out with it!'

How do I know that they're thinking this? Hmmm.....

If you don't have a designer on your team, use this as a guide.

STEAL THIS PRESENTATION! http://slidesha.re/eFyqgS

After seeing a few amazing decks from design-focused companies, I made a resolve to never make an ugly boring slideshow again.

It took me a while to get this, so I made a helpful graph for everyone else as slow as I am.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/22926250/pgResponse.png

This is what I'm saying. Everyone who is worth anything has got a ton of irons in the fire. Probably projects from people in their network. It'll be a long shot to get someone to take your project on without some serious incentive. You may be chasing devs for a long while and have nothing to show for your effort.

Learning to code may not pay off for this particular project, but it just might come in handy later. I'm just sayin'.

If you don't know anyone who can code already, you might be better off learning to code.

Rather than spending the next 6 months trying to impress some iOS dev enough for them to give you the time of day, spend that time learning a valuable skill. If you have the funds, just outsource it.

I predict: sausage party of non-hackers.

Other credentials: Big brass balls.

Good on ya.

I was actually in the process of building a service like this, but the kicker on this model is of course the hardware. No matter who keeps the hardware on their inventory, it's not a negligible cost, especially when you account for maintenance, replacement, all of that.

I started working on this project because I work as a waiter. And because of that background, I think that this concept a little risky. There are too many old-school types who won't dig this. But there are a TON of young folks who love to interact with anything touchscreen-y.

But the real value in this system is of course the data. This could be a huge "Voice of the Customer" platform because it can do what other VoC vendors cannot do: provide a high response rate for customer feedback attempts. Receipt surveys, e-mail surveys and all the rest are terrible at getting an accurate readout of customer sentiment.

If this company is smart about the kind of database it keeps (creating a customer profile across different restaurants/ retail locations) it could be a tremendously powerful. These devices could be used in so many other locations for feedback. Restaurants are just the gateway.

Oh, and if anyone from E la Carte is reading, I'm available for a summer internship. :-)

Good use of what otherwise would have been a waste of time!

It's really quite amazing all of the different initiatives being pushed by one company. Amazing.

The other day I thought there should be a "Wall of Shame" site for photos of the d-bags who abuse handicapped spots.

This video picks up where Steve Blank's secret history of Silicon Valley left off: http://steveblank.com/category/secret-history-of-silicon-val...

I enjoyed Blank's very thorough description of the military / government agency technology that originated in the Valley and this clip helps to tie it very nicely to recent times.

I've always loved the math of rhythm. I also always loved the logic of the different rythmic notations - whole notes, quarter notes, 16th notes.... So orderly.

Okay, I've given this a little bit of thought and think that like many problems, game mechanics can be applied to control human behavior here.

HN Karma can be retooled to give people a certain number up/downvotes as well as a rate of regeneration. Perhaps new users will get 3 upvotes a day and no downvotes. Upvotes need to be rebranded so that users understand that they are not the mechanisms of popularity contests or flame wars.

This is my vision, feel free to take from it what you will: "HN tokens are for you to use to make this is most intelligently crowd-curated site known to the English language.If you find a post or comment that helps you to solve a problem, see another point of view, or expand your thinking, drop a token in to promote it. However, if you are found among those using your tokens to add fire to flame wars or to reward comments that have no creative or intellectual value, your token regeneration rate will be reduced. Choose wisely."

Brilliant!

I'm doing Python the Hard Way and I think it's a great book. Dive into Python is good as well.

If you're slightly off-kilter like I am, you might enjoy a delicious combination of Why's Poignant guide to Ruby and Rails for Zombies. Good stuff, although Rails for Zombies can be a bit maddening if you're a beginner.

Cheers!

#actuallyWINNING Which is pretty much the opposite of Charlie Sheen #WINNING

Good start, had an issue after I completed my team though.

I would totally share this on my wall - no Share button!!!

Edit: Oh I see what you did there. It automatically put stuff on my friends' walls without confirmation from me.... no likey.

I would have preferred to do one post on MY wall that tagged all of my friends.

One thing that I thought might make your app more engaging: perhaps you could provide different categories for team members (I am way overthinking this, sorry I was in the Army)

- Medic - Engineer - Sniper - Melee Beast - Driver

Just some thoughts - it might lure in additional visibility when ppl would say "Hey, I am totally NOT the driver - make me the sniper!"

Right now I'm using the "Sam's ... in 24 Hours" series - even though the title's promise is slightly misleading. The Java and Android Dev books from this series are pretty good, and I get electronic access to them for free through my university! Huzzah!

You've got a built-in distribution network in restaurateurs.

Consider some signage that restaurants can post in some high-vis locations telling the customer to review on your app.

Oh and your search box is broken on the main page. And I hope that you have some deals in the works to give your users gift cards.... I hope it's true.

Although the title is a bit of a lie, I'm liking the Sam's Teach Yourself Java in 24 Hours book right now.

http://amzn.to/hleb3g

It may be a bit late for this, but maybe you should implement a separate invite code for HN readers. Just so that you can measure who is coming directly from HN and who is coming from Twitter activity. A thought, take it or leave it.

I really don't want to start pulling you guys toward "feature-creep", but maybe you could run a couple of "code dojos." Different pathways to Nirvana, as it were. (I'll elaborate)

I started learning from scratch a couple of weeks ago. I'm using this book http://www.amazon.com/Sams-Teach-Yourself-Hours-ebook/dp/B00... to help me learn Java. I chose Java because at the outset, I'm going to be working in the Android universe. Maybe some people want to cut their teeth on some Python, PHP or Ruby.

I know that resources are limited, but it's an idea. Anyhoo - I think the best thing about this is the potential for community-building. Kind of a "kiddie-pool" version of Stack Overflow where a n00b can be a n00b.

I like the sentiment. I too think that anyone who has an entrepreneurial spark should give it a go (with proper preparation of course.) It also seems folly that if someone isn't predisposed to certain attributes, they shouldn't attempt the launch.

However, if you're going to throw down a gauntlet with a linkbait title like that, don't wuss out like this: "Okay, maybe I should say “I disagree” with Mark on this issue"