jbl

I'd be interested in reading the original paper. It wasn't immediately obvious if the researchers had stratified surgeons by experience (either number of times procedure had been done or years in the field). I would imagine less experienced surgeons to still be developing their technique.

It could also be as simple as the bot selecting a feel better buddy from a circular queue and asking that person to send a nice tweet to someone who needs it. This could either be "handwritten" or via some web app that authenticates on Twitter and lets you manually send a canned tweet (not unlike a share button)

I love this idea.

Maybe the way around Twitter's bot policies is to use the bot as a coordination device rather than an auto-responder. How about @ing or DMing FeelBetterBot followers that person X could use a hug or helpful message?

I do this same thing, but in a variety of circumstances. I find it not only helps me to keep my place, but the act of writing out or diagramming ideas helps me think and reason through problems better than if I just try to work them out in my head.

I had a similar experience. When I was reassigned to a new team in a building a few miles down the road, my computer was supposed to move with me for some reason. It took about a month and a half for that to actually happen.

I also recall some union workers trying to move a full rack of equipment. This was a full height rack with some DEC Alphaservers and storage arrays. Rather than pull the systems, they tried to move the rack as a whole. The whole kit and kaboodle came crashing down.

I have a two arm Ergotron stand. One arm holds a 24" display, the other holds a laptop tray that I put my Macbook(s) on. I don't use a dock, just plug/unplug cables as I need them.

I use a program called Jettison that unmounts external disks on sleep or command. It comes in handy when you have drives hooked up via USB/thunderbolt.

I've started putting together a toolkit based around Evernote and Asana:

- All notes go into Evernote, no matter how small

- I drive my tasks (including responding to e-mail) from Asana

- I've written some Applescripts to pipe flagged mail (and eventually meetings) from Outlook to Asana

- I'm working on some Chrome extensions to help me track time on Asana tasks and also keep me on top of what's "in flight" or what I was working on when I got interrupted. The idea is to eventually build out some reporting so that I'll be able to look back on the week and see what I've accomplished and how long I've spent on various topics

This was my first reaction, as well. This goes especially for large datasets. If you are making linear passes over very large databases, I don't think I see much advantage in using a DB beyond possible benefits of shared storage.

My girlfriend lives in Rochester near the Ambrosia Software house. I remember delighting in seeing the sign for the first time as it brought back memories of countless hours of Maelstrom games.

Sometimes I wonder what the software job market is like in Rochester these days.

Former Sociology Ph.D. candidate here.

Yes, a lot of b-school research crosses fields. I've worked with b-school profs doing work across sociology, economics, law (to a lesser degree), computer science, and mathematics. The difference between research in those fields and b-school research seems to be that the b-school profs had more of an applied bent. The b-school research was more motivated by practical business problems.

Of course, much like programs within a discipline can be radically different from university to university, I imagine there's also a range of research styles across b-schools.

I think screenshots and screencasts would be awesome for this sort of thing. A lot of things get lost in the descriptions. I'm more interested in how people use their chosen stuff than I am in what precise gadget they use.

This is an excellent essay. This was one of the pieces I read when I was looking into making the jump from engineering to product management. I wanted to get a better feel for what would be expected (at a software driven company).

There's a lot in Ken Norton's post, but it's all worth taking to heart. Now, if someone could point me to a good article on interviewing PMs...

I love this idea! The question is, is the law written in such a way that you could delineate the geographic and contextual boundaries to which it applies?

I have a sneaking suspicion that it's not so clear. I'd love to be proven wrong, though!

One thing I've been thinking of lately is whether there are technologies that could fundamentally change the incentive structure of the US healthcare market to be more in line with patient interests. Are there technologies or attitudes or approaches that could make feasible new business models that would accomplish such a change?

I don't know, but it's something that's been on my mind.

Some do, some don't. Most of the racers I know (people who actually train to race and take competition at least a little seriously) would know what this data is telling them or would know someone who could help them (a trainer or coach).

I always wanted an HP-48 in place of my TI-83.... so much so that I ran an HP-48 emulator under Linux. If I was working from a campus lab, I would VNC into my own machine just to run the emulator.

I disagree re: steel frames. All of my bikes are steel, from my race bike (yes, actually raced... well, in the past) to my city bike. The race bike weighs in right around where the aluminum bike it replaced came in.

Steel rides great. Cheap steel will weigh more than cheap aluminum, but is not that much heavier once you factor in yourself and what you carry.

The nice thing about steel is that it's repairable, rides nicely, and fails gracefully (should it fail at all).

I probably wouldn't write "increment the total", but I think it makes sense to comment on what the total is/represents, or why the total is incremented in some particular way (if it's non-obvious).

My beef with "increment the total" comments is not that they are there, but rather that they don't help me get the big picture.

Does Kindle lending limit you, in some way, to lending to certain people, though?

It sounds like there were two objections:

1. OMG, this site is pirating my content! 2. I didn't want people to lend to anyone, just their friends and family

Case #1 is clearly an issue of authors being misinformed or technologically unsophisticated.

Case #2 is that authors probably thought that they were buying into a particular scenario, but the technology did not actually serve that scenario. The scenario I'm guessing the second camp thought they were buying into was one where lending would actually not be widespread --- where one would have to personally know someone in order to read a book without purchasing. It didn't limit who could be lent to by forcing users to declare "friends and family". I'm guessing that authors felt that LendInk was increasing the amount of lends actually happening above what would have happened had LendInk not been present.

Note: I'm not passing judgement on LendInk. Just that I don't think many people are able to make the technical distinctions that many HN readers or readers of tech sites are able to make.

I kind of get this... but without some technology behind it, I don't see how they'd expect some guarantee that eBook lending would be restricted to certain parties.

I'm surprised the AG has not come out against services like BookCrossing which allows individuals to trade physical books and works similarly to LendInk. (Maybe there was and I just didn't hear about it).

Yup, I have fond memories of my USRobotics Palm Pilot 5000.

I think another reason Graffiti worked so well is that it's just plain easier to train a human to use an alphabet that's similar to their native alphabet than it is to do full blown handwriting recognition. In other words, it wasn't just that the graffiti gesture set was easier to recognize by software, but also that people could learn a gesture set that could "help" the software along.

The IDEO approach is something that I like and look for in the people I work with. When I was teaching I grad school, I'd often exhort my students to think at least one level 'above' and one level 'below' whatever phenomena we were studying that week.

With software, I think it's important to see the forest for the trees, so that you can make the best tree for the forest... (apologies for the tortured analogy)

I just transitioned from an engineering role to a product management role. Product management means different things in different companies, but generally a product manager will interact directly with every other part of the company and "own" the product plan ---- what needs to get built and when. Engineering owns the how.

That said, I think project managers can really help things flow. If you've got a process you are sticking to, a project manager can help make sure things get done when they need to. This is especially important when lots of things are happening simultaneously (lots of clients and client requests, lots of business development effort, lots of growth, technical challenges).

The browns are still pretty noisy for a quiet office environment. My vote for a mechanical keyboard with good feel that won't disturb workmates is the Topre line.

Bicycles can promote emotional attachment. I take pride in my bicycles. There are personalizations that I've made that make my bikes unique in my eyes. One of my bikes would be difficult to replace if it were totalled. I know many other cyclists (athletes and otherwise) who are attached to their bikes.

Likewise, I know many people who could care less what kind of car they drive so long as it is clean and runs well.

Some people care about what they use, some people don't.

Not necessarily. This depends on the companies one is leaving and going to. Sure, if you are leaving an engineering position at Facebook or Google, this is probably true. Amongst young but not newborn startups, it could very well be a bump in pay depending on background and experience.

I made this transition a few months ago. To be honest, I was called up by a recruiter, but I think the following led up to that call:

- Be open to non-engineering roles, possibly to the point of actively seeking them out.

- Having and showing an interest in the industry I work in. Product managers are focused on solving customer and business problems in ways that create value and solve pain points for the customer and make money for the business.

- Developing a sense not only of the best technical solution to a problem, but also what business opportunities that solution opens up. Even when answering technical interview positions for my new job I would always back up a level and explore some other possibilities or motivations.

- Learn to communicate potentially technical information to non-technical people. By this I mean concisely expressing problems, hiding details that aren't immediately important, translating "side effects" into consequences.

- Demonstrate an ability to dig deeper into customer motivations and needs. They will often express what they want in terms of what is immediately visible. Sometimes you have to dig deeper so that you can come up with a design that solves their real underlying problem.

Best Buy certainly does. I believe they are also available at Target.

I think this point of the argument has been unfortunately lost in the kerfuffle over whether charging for apps (or app installs, to split hairs) is a viable business model.

It should be fine for a developer (or musician, or other creator of content) to charge for their wares. If the app being available really is valueless or if the prospective customer doesn't believe it's worth what's being asked, they are free to move along and select a different product or to develop their own. I'm not sure why this concept is so looked down upon.

The thing about Topres is that they're a bit rare. They're also quite pricey.

I did get one for use at work, though, and love it. I like it because it's a good combination of tactile and still quiet. Mine has variable weighting on the keys, which is a mixed bag. I guess some of my fingers are stronger than they otherwise would be - I find myself bottoming out keys with my left pinkie occasionally.