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My knee-jerk response was equally cynical. Something about saying, "Look at this 'good thing' I'm about to do!"... Why not do the thing and see what happens first before making an announcement? It's good clickbait either way; just then the article would have some substance and not be so cliche feel-goody. Am I a bad person for thinking this??

Nice!

Pet peeve: Default z-index makes elements farther down in the code display on top of elements higher up in the code. With multiple backgrounds, the first listed has the highest z-index.

Agree.

This reminded me of Miso Media (http://techcrunch.com/2011/09/14/miso-media-raises-another-2...), though at a glance I see that they're pretty different.

I appreciate that your app is web-based, personally. And to have done it all in canvas is crazy impressive-- especially considering the slickness of the interface. Kudos!

This is true for some industries and not others, I think...

What "monopoly on knowledge" brings to my mind is academic journals. Have you ever tried to search them online? On the cheap end, it's like $40 a pop, before you even know how useful it is. Some cost a fortune, such that many people in certain industries can't justify keeping up with all the developments in their still-very-academia-centric field (where one's singular goal in life is to be published in as many expensive journals as possible).

I love papers and studies, and my husband worked in industry as a mathematician, so this is something that I've come upon a lot. It really baffles me.

This is the problem exactly. As a woman, I never felt that I was welcomed and struggled to "belong" among the typical coders/programmers. There are too many contributing factors to even begin to list here, but I've spoken to enough other women about their feelings regarding tech and the tech space to know they were never individual to me.

But then I never felt quite right about chick groups either, if only because it isn't the REAL tech scene. It's just another subculture with its own idiosyncrasies. You can stay there as long as you want, and still be intimidated by the larger tech space where all the big stuff is happening, thus making no substantial dent in anything.

So I do believe the problem they're trying to address is a real and important one; this way of dealing with it just doesn't seem ideal to me.

I wonder if this is more a matter of would-be participants being turned off or of a higher volume of readers giving individuals the sense that the site doesn't need them. (Probably an equal amount of both.)

I can't remember if there's a formal psychological term for the latter, but it's like how a person in trouble is better off being seen by one person than many (the many assume someone else is helping).

While I don't mean to sound ungrateful to the Wikipedia team and community for providing such a great resource, I've personally been turned off by all the calls for donations because they won't implement a few measly ads. It just seems kind of stubborn to me-- shifting the problem onto each individual user when money could be generated so painlessly. Even a little ironic considering the calls for donations get in the way of the user experience more than regular ads would.

Awesome!

Right? Are they purposely trying to come off like a Disney villain? Absolutely everything they do is ruthless and aggressive. If you sign up for an account now, they email everyone you know. It just happens; even if you try to avoid it. Then they ask for a second email address.. you know, in case the first.. goes inactive suddenly? People fall for that, thinking LinkedIn is legit enough to be trustworthy.

I deleted my account forever ago, but I get emails constantly saying so-and-so wants to connect with me. After the first 3-5, I looked into it. Nope-- no one's trying to contact me through LinkedIn at all. Just LinkedIn doing its thing.

100% agree with #1! I would have written the heading as something like "Be relevant," though-- a little more focused on what you were saying about using real tools.

I remember thinking this while watching a TED talk by a guy who created one of the programming-for-kids websites. Like, cute game and all... and I suppose it ingrains concepts like variables and "for" loops and whatnot, but how intimidated will these kids be when they see real code files in an IDE? That's the real barrier to learning to code, I think-- especially for little girls.

Yes, exactly. Also pointing to the fact that "this is how college campuses and Silicon Valley work" is not proof of anything, unfortunately. I worked in a huge open office before, as is fashionable at tech companies right now, and it was the ultimate worst. I've read research saying it wasn't just me, either; people are really hindered in overly-collaborative open office environments. Especially introverts-- which many of us are.

Ugh. I've heard the bestsellers list is nothing but jumping through hoops and hacking loopholes anymore.

Danielle Laporte's book, The Fire Starter Sessions, sold more than many of the "bestsellers" at the time, but because the majority were sold online, she lost out on the ability to call it what it was. It's gross.

I would argue that there's a difference between "overly optimistic" and "overly confident."

VCs may find overly optimistic people suspicious, but I think overly confident is met with boundless praise in most spaces.

The first is about the project and the latter is about the person. Someone can say, "Oh you know, we have x, y, and z obstacles, but I know we're going to beat them." That's admitting there's problems. But if they said a word about doubting themselves, well, no one ever applauds that. And the inability to be truly open and vulnerable as a human being seems to be the stuff that leads to desperate loneliness and suicide.

Hmmm... yeah, I agree with some of the other sentiments here.

I personally don't find Lorem Ipsum distracting, and like others have said, think it would be quicker and easier to troubleshoot design issues using real copy. (The no descenders thing especially gets to me.)

If Lorem Ipsum is genuinely distracting to other people, though, then to each his own! Glad there's options out there for everyone.