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Drive competes with lots of SAAS companies!!

Not spammy. I want more tools like this. I use domaintumbler all the time. I do wish the tools would support different languages and more extensions. I live in Europe.

I stopped paying for a 6 letter .cn domain, and the Chinese got in touch with me, they snatched it up, thinking I was going to pay them some money for it.

I once asked how much a .com domain name was worth. They replied by email, it was about $ 3,000 and I didn't email them back. They had my phone number so they made an international phonecall asking me what I was willing to pay. A few hundred bucks, tops. They didn't sell it to me.

Oh, they're excluding mobile ? That explains it. I was wondering how that was possible considering the fact that the iPad is 1024 x 768.

They had it coming, considering how the Greens (in the EU) were flip flopping on ACTA. Do you happen to know what German parties ALDE http://www.alde.eu/ is linked to ? They are pro ACTA, so it would be interesting to know whether they lost a few percentage points as well ?

Two questions: 1. When a country limits capital flow, it sometimes becomes impossible to move your money out of that country. Doesn't Bitcoin solve that problem? 2. I have very little knowledge about how it actually works and how secure it is. How secure is Bitcoin ? Are governments via ISPs able to recognize packets that contain Bitcoins ? Or do you need to use ssh ?

You can say that about the gold market as well, no ? It takes you back a hundred years and you can corner and squeeze it.

AR looks interesting, but for this to work internationally, it needs to support other languages.

I worked for a company where they had a student (internship) set up the LAN, among other things. He got the job done, they liked to boss him around and pretty much everyone agreed the guy was lazy and there was no way they were going to hire him, blah blah. Truth be told, you could see he didn't like it there. But they couldn't have been more wrong about that guy. And I've seen this over and over again: it has nothing to do with technology. It has everything to do with the people you work for and how big of an influence your job has on whatever it is a company is trying to sell. It's very discouraging to a lot of people when they're in a situation like that guy was. Fortunately, he only stayed there for like 6 - 9 months (too long, imo, but he had no choice), so when his time was up I asked him where he was going. He was going to work for a company that offered network solutions, he figured that was a better choice than to go work for a company similar to the one he just interned for. And he was right. I happened to know the company and the owner, so I assured him he made the right choice. I checked up on him a few months in and all I can say is: time to move on when you're in a situation like he was.

OP says he never has any ideas of his own. And the title suggests he doesn't even have ideas that are worth shit.

I don't want any more ideas, I got plenty, good ones and lots of bad ones as well. Ideas are a dime a dozen. Sometimes I really need to write them down because it's too damn hard to focus, especially when one of those ideas appears to hold a lot of promise.

I'm not sure others can relate to this but ideas usually come when you don't want them, it's almost like there's a trojan in your head waiting to release ideas in an attempt to get you all excited and distract you from whatever it is you're doing or need to do.

Can we give him some feedback and advice on Upverter so he can take it to the next level?

I think it's an interesting site. But I'm not sure a subscription model is the way to go. I do know R&D teams are gonna have a hard time getting permission to use it. They have all the tools they need, their projects are secret, it's not going to fly with upper management.

I do like the fact that you can search for components and buy them. I'm sure there's some affiliate revenue in there. Although I have to say, it's probably not that easy, because companies usually have long-term agreements in place with suppliers, there's a lot of bureaucracy, you have to get a purchase order before you're allowed to buy something. I'm not saying that's good or bad, but that's usually the way it is. And it's a problem for Upverter.

Getting PCBs manufactured is a good idea as well, especially for people who use Kickstarter and want to build a prototype. The companies I know might be hesitant to use it. Especially for R&D projects, they will use their own equipment or outsource it to a local supplier they know they can trust. And this guy is going to say it's gonna cost you x, but I can do it cheaper if you let me manufacture the first 10,000 units. And it gets really tricky when you're working on a cutting edge product, because you can't always buy every component off the shelf. The manufacturer is gonna say ok, I'm gonna help you but I can't buy component x cheap enough, or I'm gonna help you but you have to ship me component a,b,c before day x.

The design of your site looks really good but you need photographs of products that have been build. You may not care about that but if you're going after the Kickstarter market, then you're in the business of making dreams come through. You need to appeal to the senses.

I worked for a company where lots of managers and executives wanted to have their say. Product managers, purchasing department, sales, finance and of course the top-executives. They got the product ready more or less on time. When it was introduced on the market, demand exploded and in a positive way. They made hundreds of millions of dollars. Based on that, the endless meetings, the revisions, the compromises had all been worth it, right ? Not really. The writing had been on the wall from day one. The product looked ok on the outside. However, they had been using cheap and low quality electronic components that stopped working after xxx hours. And they had problems with the grounding, due to a low-cost design decision. That made matters worse because it damaged other components. They ended up replacing the components of the circuit boards and rewriting the software. They did up to 3 retakes. It was crazy expensive. And don't think for a second that was the end of it. The customers were leasing the product and they had a purchase option after 3 years. Guess what they ended up doing ? Some no longer wanted the product and some negotiated the price down.

The entire company took a huge loss, a restructuring took place, the division was shut down, people were fired, some were moved to another division, the CEO was replaced and yeah, fast forward : it's not done yet ...

Lesson learned: Cross-team communication is necessary and productive, but you've got to know who to listen to.

I live in the Benelux, so Cologne would be a lot better. But more importantly, those who would consider going to a Hackernews Meetup, where do they live?

I didn't mean to imply that Apple competes with Corning.

My question is how will Apple deal with the disruptive potential of cross-platform ? It's hard to believe Apple will not be challenged by it.

And somewhat related. What's the input language going to be? Or will it be a tool that converts to one language?

Dr Christensen wrote in his book that you have to compete with your own products before someone else comes along and disrupts your market & profits. It's a no brainer but it's a difficult decision for most companies because most incentives aren't aligned with destroying revenue, making your products obsolete, ... Dr Christensen explains the dilemma and he offers solutions. Nothing's perfect but Steve Jobs may have solved the dilemma. Steve's decision was to basically kill the iPod with the iPhone and to kill the Mac with the iPad. You can still buy iPods and Macs so you could say nothing got killed, but you probably wouldn't be able to pull off decisions like that in big companies because they have well-embedded risk-averse corporate cultures. Note: I don't mean to imply it's all about the culture.

I'm looking at Corning's Day of Glass video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Cf7IL_eZ38 and once again, I'm being reminded of Apple's biggest weakness. There's no cross-platform functionality and that's going to be Apple's biggest problem within a decade.

Any idea how Apple might handle a dilemma like that ?

I've been thinking about systems like this because I met way too many pretentious docs and on top of that lots of docs misdiagnose and the older they get, the less motivated they are to stay up to date on new drugs.

One word of advice though. Hating on docs might be a good idea PR-wise, but only if you're going after patients who hate on their docs, but that's not your market, your market is the docs. This industry is always going to be regulated and that's a good thing. So, don't try to fight them, join them and help them make money. It doesn't take a brain surgeon to know this could be a money maker for them.

You also need all the data you can get. Data on symptoms, diseases, drugs, side effects, off label usage, ... You need the FDA, you need the docs and you need the patients. While docs are all about sharing data, they only do so within their community. That's the part that needs to open up. And stay open. The patients are the easy part, they know sharing data is going to help them.

Docs aren't against systems like what you're trying to build. Systems like this are already being used when you get PET scans. There're hundreds, if not thousands of spots on the photos and an algorithm helps them narrow down the results. It's a huge time saver and it obviously helps the patient. The money's in making sense of all the data and offering solutions.

You will also be dealing with companies like GE. An example. The docs are your friend, so let's say they measure your bone density and they're willing to give you the results, what do you think GE is going to do about that? You're in their market and they will fight you with package deals! You'll be up against Google as well because they will offer the docs a free version of your product, ad supported.

Your system needs more data. I tried it but the diagnosis was wrong, stayed wrong and eventually no diagnosis was given. You need photos. You need all the help and data you can get.

It's always going to be a pyramid. But you have to value and trust those whose daily decisions have the biggest impact on the customer's experience. Whether that's in product design, tech support, customer service or sales. It's de-motivating when you're working for managers who don't understand what that means. Joel is right but he's a bit harsh on Steve Jobs. I'm sure Steve Jobs was a pain in the *ss to work for but Steve did value designers more than any other company and he did value the people at the Genius bar more than any other retail company ever did. And I think that's exactly what Joel's article is about.

Just think how many inventions aren't seeing the light of day because of existing monopolies, political legislation, ...

We should probably stop calling them pirates and instead call them freedom fighters. They fought for free radio, they fought for freedom. The Arab Spring, Wikileaks, Occupy and Anonymous, they're all fighting for democracy and freedom.

The establishment, the politicians, the media, they are fighting back. The movement ain't winning at all.

An attack on the Wikileaks' offshore structure is probably what Julian Assange is going for. I say that because when the 'pirates' in the sixties were attacked, the movement became popular. The establishment knows this very well, and they will be firing on all cylinders to make sure no-one sets foot on this offshore structure.

I'm no expert in it but it sure reminds me of the offshore radio stations.

Offshore pirate radio stations were wildly popular in the 60s, they were considered illegal because they didn't have permission to broadcast the content. They couldn't get a license so they went offshore. What made the content illegal wasn't clear, it was somewhat of a legal grey area that allowed for the governments to do whatever they wanted.

The governments wanted control so they were fighting it with legislation, they jammed the broadcasts, they made it illegal to receive the content and they raided the artificial islands. I'm not sure whether the government raided the ships as well.

This video was the first thing I thought of when I read the article!

I once worked for someone who refused to pay me for my work and at first I didn't want to sue him because of several BS excuses: - I never sued anyone before. - He seemed like a nice guy. - It was the first time I worked for him but he wasn't a total stranger to me - He had offered me work before so I figured he's someone who's probably going to ask for my services again some time in the future. - I knew he had worked with other people and I never heard them say bad things about the guy. - It wasn't a lot of money.

Turns out this guy did it to everyone I talked to! How did they get paid ? By taking a haircut! One guy didn't take a haircut but he did for a future project. He needed the money.

I'm not here to tell others what they should do but have some self-respect. I sued him and I'm glad I did. He didn't get a discount at all. My lawyer doesn't come cheap, nor do interest payments.

Would I put that guy's name online? No.

Invest your time in a good contract. Ask a percentage upfront. Watch the video.

Thanks for the link to Jennifer's site, where the conversation started.

What's the cost per kg to get a satellite into space and how do you solve that problem, knowing there's no financial ROI ?

Countries & institutions that weren't mentioned :

Greece 22% of the people in Greece work for the government. That's unsustainable. They paid very little taxes and the government's debt ballooned to a point where the market said enough. Greece asked the EU for a bailout & they got it. There were no real austerity measures. Now they want the debt holders to cut the debt in half.

Belgium's problems. Belgium's debt is ballooning out of proportion & bigger than Greece's. Close to 10% of the people work for the government. Savings are high and can be used to revive the economy. Instead, the government asked everyone to buy up their bonds at prices lower than what's available on the market. Crazy & stupid but real. 50% of all goods are export, even though labour costs are twice as high as Spain's. The Netherlands is in a similar situation. How is that possible? They just work harder. I don't know why that isn't mentioned in the article as a possible solution.

The Netherlands They were able to handle the world economic slowdown that started in 08. They came prepared, they paid down their debt with every surplus they had. Exports have been holding up quite well, although the slowdown is catching up. Savings are high and that's another bullet you can use to revive the economy. Housing prices are a bit high though. Also, those who work after age 62 can earn a bonus for every year they remain employed.

ECB & IMF The ECB says they aren't allowed to buy government debt. That's correct but it's BS as well. They found a way around it. They gave money to the IMF and the IMF gave it to Italy. With Germany & France's permission. Last week the IMF tried to raise money from its members. They failed at it. Both the IMF & the ECB are sitting on gold reserves. Not enough to bail everyone out but perhaps enough for some quantitative easing. Not that I'm in favor of it. Quite the contrary.

Inflation When everyone wants a bailout and the ECB blows through all reserves, then they will have no other option than to do what Ben Bernanke is secretly doing in the US. He's buying up all the debt and he's probably doing it by printing more dollars.

Don't worry, don't feel sorry, there're other solutions.

1) Governments need to be smaller & more efficient.

2) Lack of discipline & brass balls In some EU countries you get paid $ 1,000 per month to take time off. You get to ride on the bus for free. You don't have to pay taxes on your house. The list goes on and on. It's a luxury problem. It's easy to stop. It's political suicide but it has to stop.

3) Retirement age. The worldwide average is 64 if I'm not mistaken. In Europe it's something like 60 - 62. In Germany it's 65 to 67, so they already shot that bullet. It used to be 50 something in Greece ...

I'm all for austerity programs because I want the craziness to stop. I want our politicians to stop getting deeper in debt. Now !