sheri

I'm suitably impressed that Fastmail has been around since 1999. At first glance I would have dismissed it as a service which I wouldn't expect to outlive Gmail (and thus be leery about moving to it). It still may not outlive Gmail, but its history seems that its been pretty solid so far.

I think it was a sacrifice of quality for the convenience of digital cameras. It was a great joy to be able to download and view photos immediately after taking them, rather than send the film to be developed. It was also extremely liberating when I realized I could buy a 1GB card and store photos taken over an entire trip. The freedom to not worry and keep clicking was a huge departure from the experience with standard 24 shot film rolls. I remember trips with my family where we'd spend lots of time just looking for shops selling film.

I agree. I don't think the author has been to India. I lived in Hyderabad, and the mosquito's there were super fast and super aggressive. Fans? Hah.

Before sleeping, I'd close all the windows and doors and spray the toxic anti-mosquito product. After half an hour, I'd go in and find all the fallen mosquito's and squish them, since they weren't actually dead, just stunned. After a while they would just get up and fly away if I didn't do anything. Then, I'd use an electric zapper to find the remaining ones which were unaffected by the spray. Then, before sleeping I'd light a mosquito repellent, and also apply a mosquito repellent to my hands and feet to keep them away.

Only the above regimen worked. Skipping any of the above meant I'd be slapping away angry buzzing mosquito's the rest of the night.

Fans wouldn't do jack to slow them down. The only other thing which was semi-effective was cooling down the room with an AC. They seemed to get a bit slow then.

Patrick Smith (a former pilot and now author) also criticized Gladwell here:http://www.salon.com/2008/12/05/askthepilot301/

I worked for a short while in a national lab. They used to call this "air-gap" security. i.e., there would be computers which would have no internet connection and no usb/harddrive inputs etc. If they needed data in there, they would have one person read data from one computer and type it into the secure one. Essentially there would be a literal air-gap between the secure computer and the non-secure ones.

Does acquiring companies for injecting 'young blood' actually work? I feel an acquisition means the founders and early employees would want to kick back and relax in the comfort of a big company job for a while. The examples I've seen are where they wait out their vesting period, and then quit and start their own company.

Because Bolivia is 'nothing' from a US POV, doesn't make it any less wrong. Apart from right and wrong, there are several examples where countries which were 'nothing', are creating several problems for the US. Most of the middle-east, Afghanistan, Pakistan etc are countries which at some point were 'nothing'. It is because of this heavy-handed approach that he was being downvoted.

"Bonesaw"?? Really? That sounds like a McBain movie from the Simpsons.

> 4. America despite its many faults has been an overwhelming force for freedom and wealth throughout the world.

America has been an overwhelming force for its own self interests. These are the kinds of statements that show why so many people in the rest of the world are mad about US foreign policy.

> 2) He ran a red light (there's always a reason for this: alcohol, bad judgment, being chased by someone, etc.)

This is the most interesting part of the story to me. Even if he was drunk, I'm finding it hard to believe he would race through a light at that speed.

I think Michael Pollan described it well when he said food in America was undergoing a process of 'nutrification', i.e., breaking it down into its nutrients, and trying to create supplements with those nutrients. The studies in the book, though, say that we haven't yet cracked the code. I.e., taking the equivalent of one apple's nutrients isn't the same as eating an apple. The reasons weren't quite known yet. I read the book a long while back, so my recollection may be spotty.

Your comment adds nothing other than expose your bias. Do you have any constructive criticism of the article itself?

> The implication that there is some central figure behind this giving these companies scripts to read meets the most common flaw of governmental conspiracy theories.

Isn't that the definition of a government conspiracy?

> refusing the job only means someone else will take it,

Isn't that true for almost any moral stance? Should I stop being a vegetarian because someone else will eat the meat anyway?

Isn't it presumptuous to say that this isn't a 'normal' reaction? I have no idea what a normal reaction to being told you have 30 days to live is. Even if you have seen real (non-movie) instances of this, I would assume different people would have different reactions.

Beautiful pictures! Thanks for sharing.

A16Z gets touted as an order of magnitude smarter than the rest of the VC's out there, and my opinion of them has dropped after looking at their portfolio's recent performance. Yes, they have made lots of money, but that firm specifically was supposed to be about recognizing long term opportunities, and not just following growth and fads. Of course, its always easy to comment with the benefit of hindsight.

I had visited the Zynga office a few years back, and was super impressed. Free food/drinks everywhere, and the office looked really nice. They even had Zynga branded water. I had not played any Zynga games until then, but came back thinking these guys must be on to something.

That evening I went back and signed up for Mafia wars. After a few minutes of repeatedly clicking buttons to watch an 'experience meter' rise, I knew this couldn't last. There is of course more to it than just that, but it just wasn't fun or engaging to play. I read a lot about how their analytics gives them an advantage, but I just didn't see the appeal of that game. That bubble had to burst.

Do you have any context about the Turkish republic's history? I would suggest you read up a bit before condemning his views. The people view the Military as preserving the secular ideals of the country. The military is held in a very positive light, and is generally considered non-corrupt and honest. The governments on the other hand have been anything but. The current government has been curtailing military power, and at the same time severely limiting freedom of press. It also has been pushing an Islamic agenda, slowly and surely moving the country away from its secular roots. Turkish secularists are seeing this as a move away from democracy, rather than towards. People are being jailed for having any kind of anti-government views. For example, recently someone was jailed for re-tweeting a tweet which criticized the current administration. So yes, people do view the military as a savior for democracy.

Taking a step back, I find it really cool that these days a drastic visual and interaction overhaul is possible without changing the physical device. Just updating the software is almost tantamount to waking up with a brand new phone in ones pocket.

Let me offer a different opinion. There was a series of bomb blasts in Mumbai in 1993. Thirteen different explosions in the span of a few hours across the city's landmarks. 250 people died. One of the blasts was in the Bombay stock exchange. This was on a Friday, and the stock exchange opened for business on Monday. This was a huge PR win for Mumbai, as the media talked about the resilience of the residents and the manner in which they moved on and didn't let it impact their lives.

It's now 20 years and several terrorist attacks and bomb-blasts have gone by. Mumbai still carries on, but there is no pride in doing that anymore. Everyone just wants it to stop. It's been easy for the government to quickly clean up and talk about how terrorism doesn't impact us. The Mumbai residents keep calm, but no one wants to move on like this.

> We don't even "work with" each other. If you don't learn anything else from this, get this: we work alone.

I don't get this. I like working in a team, and like working with people. I can't imagine working alone all the time. I am more productive when I am with the team, and interacting with the team than when I am alone in a room.

I know everyone works differently, but almost no one seemingly is willing to discuss an alternate version of this. I'm tired of the old 'meetings suck, PM's suck' cliches. When I was working for a large internet company, we got a lot of work done in meetings and lots of PM's were respected.

How is this a first world problem? Air traffic is growing means of transport in lots of developing countries. India's air traffic has been growing at 17-20% per year. Smartphone ownership is also growing in developing countries.

Now think of the fuel and productivity costs of airport pickups. Usually if I'm early I end up driving around the airport, or worse, spending lots of money on parking. In India people typically wait at the side of the road with their AC on. If this app works perfectly, there is a lot of real gain to be had, and not just in the US.

We're lamenting the fact that billionaires are not like cartoon characters?

This is ridiculous. Bill Gates is creating real impact to people's lives with his money and charity, and the author just dismisses that as being not cool enough.

Instead of applauding responsible and charitable behavior, we want them to be playboy types?

What is the Real Googlers Line? This is the first I'm hearing of it. I don't work at Google though, so maybe this is well known.

It does help getting an interview, but can also help tilt the balance in tight interview decisions. I presume it would be easier to make the case for folks with degrees from elite schools.

> These are partners at venture firms who are 3-5 years into investing their fund, don’t have very strong results so far, and are struggling to raise new funds.

The post is manipulative because it defines zombie VC's as above. However, the data used to arrive at the list does not hold up to the above definition.

I also feel its the modern day version of 'keeping up with the jones's'. I have my startup, which I've been working on for the past few years. After being inundated with images of new babies, houses, cars etc, its hard to resist trying to show my life in a better light.

>The supply chain worked this way for a year. Then one day, the tropical supplier went to his jellyfish catching spot and couldn’t catch a single one. All of them were gone. Every week he checked out the same spot, but every week he went home empty-handed.

This is simply unacceptable. His achievement at the expense of local fauna is not to be applauded, but condemned. Regardless of whether jellyfish feel pain, exploiting nature is such destructive ways is simply ridiculous in this day and age.

Sad that so many comments here completely overlooked this, and focused solely on success at any cost.

The Atlantic has a series of photo's to mark the 10 year anniversary. These photos just highlight the tragic scenario that unfolded in Iraq after the invasion. It's just unfair that Bush and his cronies will not be held accountable for this disaster. http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2013/03/iraq-wars-10th-an...