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patrick-james

211 karma · joined February 1, 2013

@patrick_boocock
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patrick-james··on We Can Do Better
I'm not sure what your expectations are of a PR piece...do you want to see EA's KPI dashboard and development roadmap? Shareholders don't even see that, so why should you? And to be fair, I think a specific thing they mentioned was giving away SimCity for free to 900k users, that's not trivial.

I actually really appreciated the honesty of this piece because I think it shows some integrity on EA's part to be willing to admit fault. How many companies have driven themselves into irrelevance and destruction by thinking they were right every time?

I don't think it's worth talking down their numbers either, consumers vote with their wallets. If you really though a product was crap, you'd find something else, otherwise there's clearly something of quality there that keeps you coming back.

I work in the newer side of the games industry and see in painful detail how far EA has to go to catch up with recent trends and regain their dominance in the marketplace, but as someone who's also had my fair share of memorable experiences from EA games, I'm pulling for them.

patrick-james··on Daily chart: Costly calamities
To me this says one thing and one thing only: get ready for climate change.
patrick-james··on Coffee - The Wine of Islam
Really interesting article on the history of coffee in Muslim culture. Needless to say, I don't think any of us would be awake right now if it weren't for the consistently revered reputation of this humble seed.
patrick-james··on $10,000 Raised for PyLadies at PyCon 2013
I'm glad for this piece to have come out of Pycon. After all the damage to the community, it's great to see how much good still came out of this event.
patrick-james··on Pinterest Completes $200M Funding at $2.5B Valuation
At this point the data points coming out are almost conjecture. Here's something more recent that says almost the opposite: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/222740

I know they're also making a new push specifically for brands to be able to manage content and traffic more easily: http://business.pinterest.com/

Given the new focus on businesses and the scale at which Pinterest already operates, the $2.5B isn't so hard to believe.

patrick-james··on White House Considering Response to Chinese Cyberattacks
It seems like the pace of cyberattacks is accelerating...will be interesting to see how the US responds, and especially if it's even possible for massive government organizations to adapt quickly enough.