stpe

You could discuss the viability of how and if the app would work in a real setting. But maybe the app already set out to do what it was meant to do - to raise awareness about pregnant commuters (check - they got covered by the BBC), or (cynical, but more realistic) - the innovation agency got to show off how innovative they are and can use some nice "featured by the BBC" in their marketing communication.

In the comments, Oren addressed exactly that particular question:

"We didn't scrap the models, but yes, we scrapped almost all the animation and almost all the layout and all the lighting. And it was worth it.

Changing the script saved the film, which in turn allowed Buzz and Woody to carry on for future generation (see ToyStory3 for how awesome that universe continues to be - well done to everyone who worked on the lastest installment!) and, in some ways, set a major cornerstone in the culture of Pixar. You may have heard John or Steve or Ed mention "Quality is a good business model" over the years. Well, that moment in Pixar's history was when we tested that, and it was hard, but thankfully I think we passed the test. Toy Story 2 went on to became one of the most successful films we ever made by almost any measure.

So, suffice it to say that yes, the 2nd version (which you saw in theatres and is now on the BluRay) is about a bagillion times better than the film we were working on. The story talent at the studio came together in a pretty incredible way and reworked everything. When they came back from the winter holidays in January '99, their pitch, and Steve Jobs's rallying cry that we could in fact get it done by the deadline later that year, are a few of the most vivid and moving memories I have of my 20 years at the studio."

https://www.quora.com/Did-Pixar-accidentally-delete-Toy-Stor...

> IIRC I could not buy a SIM in Sweden as a non-resident though.

You can definitely buy a SIM-card in Sweden without any kind of identification. However, if it is a SIM-card with a (non prepaid) subscription, THEN you have to ID yourself and be credit worthy (since you can potentially run up a huge bill that is invoiced afterwards).

Not sure what's the best find, the data center article or the author's boy band-esque photo: http://www.detritus.org/mike/pics/inpark.jpg

The thoughts behind this is published in an article on their site (https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/1405/airbnb-s-nondiscrim...), also the the external review and report (http://blog.airbnb.com/fighting-discrimination-and-creating-... ) is worth a read.

Believe it or not, but back in 2000-2001 WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) was "the future" of mobile internet.

I worked at a startup doing mobile games but often business people needed very basic landing pages - so I did the point-and-click Wap Prototype Maker! Screenshot still available here: http://www.stefan-pettersson.nu/site/wpm/

I remember I was happy drawing the toolbar icons, because it reminded me of working in Deluxe Paint.

This might be a little bit outside Blueprint, but, I cannot not take the opportunity to ask - how is the reactions internally at Palantir now when the chairman and co-founder now also is part of the Trump transition team?

They cite strong community but bad sales. However, at least in the Nordics they have only employed community managers but no one dedicated to sales. No wonder why sales is not working...

I love how he is still coding the major part of the day. That is an inspiration - that you can stick to what you love even though you are starting companies left, right and center throughout your years.

Same here. Looks like a JavaScript error is triggering something causing the 404 to Intercept (look what I did there!). The actual text is there if you View Source.

At least our apps are now up and running again after being down.

Finally I can start focusing on the talks instead...

I'm currently at the Nordic.js conference http://nordicjs.com/ (which... is down right now). Suddenly half the audience started to looking at mobile phones, unpacking laptops.

Poor timing for the current speaker...

I still have some old Windows shareware games from the 90'ies that as late as just a few weeks ago generated a sale through Kagi (even if there has been no updates to the games for more than 10 years!).

So even if I'm not financially dependent on Kagi, I still have the account since then and this shutdown really came out of nowhere. Very little communication received from their part.

Besides the actual sequencing this is what LifeGene http://lifegene.ki.se/ does. I.e. long study with check ups every 10 years, lots of tests and lots of data about person's environment, living conditions, etc.

Isn't all implementations of AI a combination of "a simple xyz"?

The perception of Artificial Intelligence being some kind of magic is common. However, as with all magic, when you know how it is done it is "just" a combination of techniques skillfully performed. And with AI it is a combination of algorithms, data structures and computational power with an output that make sense for whatever the application is.

Love that the stub in the url says "3-lessons" and the article title says "4 Lessons". I wonder which one is the afterthought...

Looking forward to the upcoming documentary COPYGATE - A documentary about Copyswede that is addressing this. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/danielbramme/copygate

The article says the issue, discussed with Yle (the content provider), was fixed mid-flight - it doesn't say anything about a fix being pushed. For all with know it might not even be the code, maybe it was a property in the JSON-data of a news article that was changed from left-aligned to right-aligned?

Also - no matter if it is relevant or not in the case - being able to deploy and update fixes to a system in production without anyone noticing is a testament to good system design - and even a requirement in many cases.

Updated title on original source: "Jack Dorsey is giving up at least 50% of his stake in Square to help underserved communities"

Update: This post has been updated to correct that Dorsey will commit 10 percent of the entire company, not just his equity as previously stated. In addition, our calculations were off and I regret the error.

This is commendable. Actually intending to making the world a better place (in the non HBO-Silicon-Valley-Show-way).

I've seen a live performer in Stockholm, Sweden (where I live and I haven't had cash in my wallet for a few years, although I guess most people have some "just in case") accepting Swish [1], the instant mobile cash transfer solution (no fees).

I believe it is more about cash being more physical and thereby more immediately noticeable to the perfomer who can give the donator acknowledgement that is the major issue, not the technical transfer aspect.

I guess next step is to have performers carry a small LCD screen and an Arduino to instantly acknowledge received transfers to make it more "physical". (Wooah..! YC, here I come! (jk)).

[1] https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swish_(mobilapplikation) (Swedish)

UN's IPCC assessment reports - the fifth published last year - may give you some perspective on science's view of climate change (which is the commonly used term).

At the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Stockholm a tool was developed called KATTIS (https://kth.kattis.com/) that not only check submitted code for plagiarism but also verifies it with test input/output as well as measuring execution time/memory usage.

There is a paper with more details "Five Years with Kattis - Using an Automated Assessment System in Teaching", https://www.csc.kth.se/~gkreitz/kattis-fie11/

The system is still developed and there is now an open version of it with a huge problem archive (competitive programming style) used by several universities: https://open.kattis.com/

Trivia: KATTIS was originally very much developed by KTH's successful competitive programming team "Three-headed monkey", consisting of some PhD students (https://www.csc.kth.se/~gkreitz/) that did their thesis on stuff like streaming and encryption which in turn resulted in the company... Spotify.

Sure, Apple may have reasons to do this to hit Google where it may sting some and also seemingly putting more effort in their own search. Additionally, it may be a reason to increase the incentive of getting products off web ads and more into their own eco systems of apps.

All this while getting applauses from end users who reap the benefit of ultimately getting a better user experience.

Apple is in a position to pull this off. Is it evil? Well...

No matter what - this has the potential of forcing more innovation around ad related business models. Especially since so many products (especially news/journalism) rely on a business model (ads) that is largely in conflict with their product (getting people to consume news). More innovation around "native advertisement" where the ad offer is actually something adding value to the end user rather than distracting from the core product. Hopefully...

Not sure if this is relevant in your situation, but you say this "obviously had a negative affect on morale".

Sometimes tough decisions must be made, so before resigning (possibly out of frustration/disappointment) get the facts and the actual reason - and base your decision on that instead.

(of course, if senior management actually didn't inform about the reason - that might be reason itself to leave anyway...)

I've been in a very similar situation myself. Being the lead developer from a very early stage, working with shaping the product and the business itself as well as actually making it happen by coding as well as heading the development team.

However, in my case, a larger company group was the sole owner of the company and a significant part of the vision and goal went out the window after launch due to internal politics in the company group. This was demotivating because frankly, a large part of my purpose of getting on board disappeared. So this is one part to ask yourself, in terms of organisation/vision/company goals - has anything changed?

In terms of tasks, I'm motivated by actually creating value - shipping things that made sense business wise. During the first 1-2 years this was the case, but when strategy was changed to cut costs (yet again due to internal company group politics of the owner) I felt I didn't really contribute on the level I wanted (e.g. architecting/developing large scale, heavy traffic modern web application versus copy/paste the nth banner network JavaScript code for yet another ad).

Also, does the person have a niche in their role they particularly excel in and enjoy? Has it changed? In my case I very much was the bridge between business development and technical development. Getting tech people to understand business value of what to do, and work with business developers to leverage technology. When the company cut down on more or less all development and went into maintenance mode this opportunity kind of disappeared. Another take on this is that people may enjoy and thrive during different phases of a company.

In the end I asked myself - in the end of the year, would I feel I've made the most out of it in terms of personal development, experience and pure happiness if I continued with this - or would it be better to leave.

Just because you rarely change ecosystem, I don't believe it is the biggest selling point.

To me, it is that the Pebble simply works, and does it well. I've tried wearing an Android-based smartwatch - while great hardware (except battery time) - it simply didn't work that well. I think that is the biggest selling point.

On the other hand, I remember having my Pebble in a drawer for most of the first year. But once SDK 2 was released, things started to happen and it became really useful in itself and the apps/watchfaces available.

On this topic, check what was done (and still is, to some extent on the homebrew scene) on the Atari 2600 with 128 bytes of RAM and no framebuffer.

For background, this is Mark Russinovich's original blog post from 2006 about Microsoft acquisition of Sysinternals/Winternals.

http://blogs.technet.com/b/markrussinovich/archive/2006/07/1...

"I’m joining Microsoft as a technical fellow in the Platform and Services Division, which is the division that includes the Core Operating Systems Division, Windows Client and Windows Live, and Windows Server and Tools. I’ll therefore be working on challenging projects that span the entire Windows product line and directly influence subsequent generations of the most important operating system on the planet. From security to virtualization to performance to a more manageable application model, there’s no end of interesting areas to explore and innovate."

Do you follow up the candidates that drop out of inactivity? Is the reason that they feel they're not up to the task, lack of time or do they pursue other opportunities?

Personally I find the a technical assignment really necessary as part of an recruitment process to really get down to the candidate's "coding personality". Weakness, strengths, interesting, motivation, etc. When doing recruiting I've found that more "open answered" technical assignment are better than "solve this very specific problem".

A solution that could be discussed and put in different perspectives ("what would be the first thing you do if traffic suddenly jumped by a factor 1000", "...if the amount of data was much larger", "...if you had to support feature x...") generally reveal more skills than something more focused on specific algorithms or even syntax.