Hacker News Reader

concretecodeon Like chat roulette but with 8 random people at once and less wieners

"Login with your facebook account"

Yeah. That's not going to happen.

concretecodeon Kiwi entrepreneurs announce international cable for New Zealand and Australia

Things are somewhat better, but far from the speeds we see in the more developed parts of Asia. I'm in Wellington, and get 3.5 M.bits/second downstream, with a 50 GB monthly usage cap.

concretecodeon How Software Engineers and Designers Can Increase Their Focus

I'm disheartened by the trend towards tea over the last few years. The solid kick in the pants that a cup of coffee brings is something I'm reluctant to live without.

concretecodeon Why Speakers Earn $30,000 an Hour - Confessions of a Public Speaker

I enjoyed your Django and OpenID talks at Webstock in 2008 - they fit the conference and audience perfectly. However Webstock is a 400 person conference hosted in a remote part of the world. I'm not convinced that the niche of conferences that want speakers for such technical topics is large enough to support an agency you described.

concretecodeon Don Dodge is Leaving Microsoft

He didn’t have a bad word to say about Microsoft. He was more concerned that I not write anything negative about the company than anything else.

This guy's a class act. That level of professionalism is something we don't see often enough in this industry, and it'll reflect well on him while he looks for his next job.

concretecodeon The Hacker Survey

OK. You've gotten that out of your system.

Now go read this: http://xkcd.com/322/ and go back to Reddit.

concretecodeon TED Talk: A kinder, gentler philosophy of success

Interesting. I'd tie de Botton's with Liz Gilbert's talk (http://www.ted.com/talks/elizabeth_gilbert_on_genius.html) for first.

For those that haven't seen it, it's really worth your time. Her speech skims across the surface of several ideas, and in the last few minutes comes together into an elegant and cohesive whole. I wish I could speak like that.

concretecodeon iPhone development emergency guide

I'd like to see more of this type of thing. When learning a new language, I don't need an introduction to the if statement or while loops, yet in the interests of completeness many programming books include a thorough (and mind-numbing) guide to them. For some readers that's called for, but many of us are stuck reading about concepts we're already comfortable with. I'm concerned that if I don't read everything, I'll miss out of some bizarre quirk of the language, so I'm reluctant to skim, but this gets in the way of what I'm really trying to achieve - using the language to make cool stuff.

Writers of programming language books take note: I'm generally not interested in the tool. Tools are boring. No really, they are. Making cool stuff and solving hard problems is interesting and fun. Get the tool out of the way so I can get things done.

concretecodeon Fruity treats, customization, and supersonics: FogBugz 7 is here

Short answer: Yes.

Throw me into a fresh install propagated with dummy data for a fake company. Make starting the demo a one click operation. When getting people to try things, you really need as few barriers to entry as possible.

What I'm suggesting comes from the same school of thought that motivates Wikipedia to allow edits without signing in, or StackOverflow to allow questions without an associated account.

See Twiddla's sandbox http://www.twiddla.com/ for an example of what I mean.

concretecodeon Fake Steve Jobs on Chrome OS

It always amazes me how the best social commentary comes from those who have the least to lose. Without the artificial constraint of professionalism (or, I guess, the need to be factually accurate), Lyons somehow manages to be more honest and credible, not less.

Take his Fake Steve piece on the Microsoft-Yahoo merger: http://fakesteve.blogspot.com/2008/02/ballmer-im-completely-... which I felt was the most succinct and insightful piece on the subject from any journalist.

concretecodeon Better

I've become a fan of Merlin's writing since he posted this last December.

If you enjoyed this, go read Real Advice Hurts http://www.43folders.com/2008/12/03/real-advice-hurts which speaks to some of the same issues, and struck a chord with me. I've re-read it at least half a dozen times.

concretecodeon How to discourage your employees

It's a reaction to the Erlang overload earlier this week. Just the universe balancing itself out.

concretecodeon Microsoft Office Labs vision 2019

I hate to sound cynical, but we've all seen this before. Anyone can inspire and captivate with a flashy video, but these prototypes rarely get brought to market.

The automotive industry is famous for this. Anyone remember the concept-car version of the Chevy Volt? Picture here: http://photos.webridestv.com/datastore/images/user/2551617c1...

The concept car was gorgeous, aggressive, and appealing to a section of the market that traditionally ignores hybrids. Now look at the model that will actually get released: http://www.chevrolet.com/electriccar/

It's a glorified Honda Civic.

They don't have a product here, and I doubt we'll ever see any of the ideas introduced in this video (at least not from Microsoft).

If in ten years time, Microsoft can shut me down with a virtual newspaper, a classroom video-wall with built in translations, and an interactive wallet, then more power to them. But if instead, we're forced to endure another decade of watching a company that helped found the industry, spend its time copying Apple and Google, we might finally come to understand the phrase "real artists ship."