frederickcook

Investors aren't buying stock in Facebook or pretty much any software startup (save yours) because they expect to someday get paid by the company. To make money off that kind of investment, they need liquidity. They all expect to see another financing round at a higher valuation, and with the size of Facebook these days, it'll probably have to be an IPO.

Regarding "Fashions change," I agree that that's the risky part, and from the amount of Farmville bullshit I see on my wall these days, it's a significant risk.

Only a black page for both my Mac Chrome 4.0.249.30 and Safari 4.0.3, but works on my Firefox 3.6.3 (OS X 10.6.2).

"We believe that if our platform creates value for a large number of users, we will have opportunities to make money."

That doesn't sound like a new business model, it sounds like wishful thinking.

Is this the same group of guys who built an EEG headset that shocked the shit out of the user if they started thinking too hard? If so, that was only a few weeks ago, they're making some pretty quick progress.

Don't people hike the PCT because they've taken a break from the "scream into a lake" lifestyle?

Summary:

"If you pay a kid to read books, their grades go up higher than if you actually pay a kid for grades, like we did in Chicago," Fryer says. "Isn't that cool?"

"Kids may respond better to rewards for specific actions because there is less risk of failure. They can control their attendance; they cannot necessarily control their test scores. The key, then, may be to teach kids to control more overall — to encourage them to act as if they can indeed control everything, and reward that effort above and beyond the actual outcome."

Agreed, terrible. The last one didn't have a place to close it, so I bounced. Too bad, since the discussion looks like it was an interesting article.

The author hints that apps built on third-party compilers are of lower quality, without explaining how/why.

This blog is a commentary on the high number of apps in the app store and Apple's desire to try to maintain quality, with a few opening sentences about the current TOS changes as link-bait.

To comment on that, Twitter has been promising a "version 2" of their API since around the time they went from 12 employees to 150 and took that $150M, and we haven't seen anything.

A glaring example of how little Twitter has done to support developers since their original API is this support ticket that has been open for about 15 months: http://code.google.com/p/twitter-api/issues/detail?id=214

Obviously, those 150 people have been working hard on something for the last year, and providing the best tools for developers (let alone filling huge holes in their API) doesn't seem to be the top priority.

I could be totally wrong on this and API V2 will be out in a few weeks and blow all of our socks off.

"I'd like it if the Air was about half the size. I don't know why Apple won't make something in between the Air and an iPhone."

I'd have thought this was a joke if it was published a couple months ago, but I'm pretty sure March 2009 was before the iSlate rumors ever started. Good call, pg.

Agreed. There is an "ignore accidental trackpad input" option in my MacBook's system preferences that I turned off for the first time a couple months ago, thinking "I'm a pro with this thing, I'm sure I don't accidentally touch it."

Boy was I wrong, and I was really surprised at how sensitive the thing was. After a couple minutes of the pointer jumping all over the place, I turned it back on, impressed with the algorithm that had been ignoring those accidental touches all along.

Completely agree. It is terribly annoying being linked to a website, looking up at the url, and seeing some bullshit aggregator or other url-forwarder. I feel like I'm being taken advantage of, and immediately bounce.

Exactly what I was thinking while reading this article. Taking advantage of control of one market to push it's own products in favor of competitors in another market.

Meta: can we change the title? It is different than the title of the actual article, and "does evil" is a pretty subjective term.

The built-in camera on this thing is a great feature, and could be a phenomenal marketing tool for them to differentiate this from the iPad for the next year or so. Surely, the second-gen iPad will have a camera.

I realize this site is more of a commentary than a complaint, but I'd like to point out that the original pad, the one made of a hundred sheets of paper, is also somewhat awkward to hold and write on, and works best while you're hunched over one on a table in front of you. Millions of people still use them.

In fact, writing at all while standing or sitting without a stable surface in front of you is pretty awkward, and with a normal notebook/laptop, it's damn near impossible because of the bulk of the thing.

jedberg, I'd first like to say thanks for weighing in on these conversations. It adds a great deal to these discussions having an insider to clarify things and offer a unique perspective.

> "If we could afford it, we would just turn the ads off, but sadly, we have to pay the bills somehow."

This comment, however, isn't helpful, and obviously isn't true. Reddit built a really cool, useful site for sharing and discussing interesting things, and nobody begrudges them for trying to turn a profit. Reddit wasn't acquired by Condé Nast because they are interested in having a cool service, it was acquired because they intend to make a lot of money off of it.

The fact that Reddit has found a way to do this while keeping the ads relevant and non-annoying definitely impressive, but we're kidding ourselves if we call these ads a necessary evil instead of the core of the business model.

There is nothing wrong with niche and small when you're dealing with an affluent populations such as recreational dog breeders. There are people that may pay hundreds of dollars per year for a high-quality service.

I've got to say, thinking back on my own K-12 education, almost the entirety of which I had access to a computer at home, I don't think I did a whole lot of homework on it, and I definitely played a lot of computer games. Additionally, if the teachers weren't giving out assignments that required the use of the computer, which seems unlikely if not everyone has access to a computer, then the computer won't be used for homework. Obviously, that wasn't the goal of the program, and I"d be interested in hearing more about the "increase in computer proficiency and perhaps some improvement in a cognitive test."

Personally, I know that access to computers and computer science classes in high school probably had a much larger impact on my interest and aptitude in computer science.

Perhaps the program would be more effective by bringing computers into school at an earlier age (combined with useful curriculum). I remember playing Oregon Trail in computer class in elementary school (early nineties) and thinking back, I really wish the instructor had shown us (me) a command prompt and some Fortran or BASIC.

Which Coke created, if I remember correctly.

Without a constant stream of sugar-water, there is no way I'll be able to keep up my hip, high-paced lifestyle!

A couple of notes there: first the item at the top of the list has more than an order of magnitude more ratings than the rest. For most ordered lists, this is probably an edge case that may have to be dealt with separately.

Finally, I've got to say, 26 reviews (for the #2 item) doesn't seem insignificant, and the #2 item seems to have something like a 15% higher _average_ rating. Also, on another trending rating (http://www.rateitall.com/t-3239938-2010-ncaa-tournament-team...), the #2 has a significantly higher rating (17-18% it looks like), but only one less review: 4 vs. 3. I think if I were sorting either of these based on the average rating and the # of ratings, I would have done both differently.

Based on this, it seems that the Wilson score probably _over-emphasizes_ sample size, especially on things like ratings on high-traffic internet sites that may have orders of magnitude swings in the number of ratings.

It seems like the Amazon method of average works just fine, except for items with very few ratings possibly receiving disproportionately high ratings. Again, edge cases, which should probably just be penalized manually.

But you have to wonder how much of it really is spiders crawling over old pages with links or people actually clicking on links from old pages. Probably many more of the former, and that wouldn't be hard to test for.

Andrew is definitely guilty of frequent link-bait headlines, but that doesn't mean the videos are low quality. There are a lot of real gems in that stuff, and it is mainly because Andrew pushes past the unsupported assertions that the grandparent is complaining about and pries for details.

I'm not sure I understand what is going on here. Is there something more to this than a bunch of guys (of questionably sound state-of-mind) pitching the kind of crap that you end up with at the end of a conference?

I may be way off here, in which case I kind of feel like I'm on the outside of some exclusive club.

It even has location-based technology: it lets you know when your friends are near!

Along the same lines here, I would say just don't make mistakes or large commitments in general that will tie you down. Don't get arrested for underage drinking (or DUI), don't risk having kids, don't take stupid chances with your life or health, don't screw up your credit, don't take on lots of college loans if you can avoid it, etc. Being able to live anywhere and on almost no money will make it a lot easier.

Additionally, do talk to a potential long-term partners about the entrepreneur lifestyle (and not having a high-paying job for a few years), do read as many blogs and books on entrepreneurship as you can (you won't have time once you actually start a company), do go out of your way to meet as many people as possible, and stay in touch with the smart ones.

Also, TAKE PROGRAMMING CLASSES.

Very simple, aesthetically pleasing interface. My only complaint is that I don't immediately see how this is any better than the alternatives (sending an email which gets sucked in by Google calendar, Outlook, etc.). Also, I'm asked to start putting information before I have a chance to find out.

Didn't investors have a saying 10 years ago, YAC (Yet Another Calendar)? What makes this clearly different?

“You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else.”

This one is essential. Goes right along with recent HN discussions on "effort shock" - not understanding how hard things really are, or what it takes to be successful. The "game" that we are shown as kids isn't an accurate representation of real life, and oftentimes we must learn the real rules for ourselves.

Well, whatever it takes to get kids more interested in science... right? How many folks at SpaceX do you think started their careers as Star Wars junkies?

Social media (straight from the source) trumps traditional media once again.