57 karma · joined April 4, 2011
First place: Inventory Second place: virtual perspective Third place: Webtube
Quora gives your full attention to an answer. It collapses the comments. It lets you downvote unpopular opinions.
Branch limits the most that anyone can say at a time (to something like 800 characters--which is enough for an explanation but not enough for a tirade). And it gives equal weight to each comment that someone makes.
Quora is for monologues. Branch is for dialogues.
I'd like to see more women in tech. I'd also like to see more men in tech.
My only gripe is that when I clicked on my profile it said, "This guy hasn't written anything yet." which was slightly off-putting as I am not actually a "guy."
That may be true--or, at least, it may be true that that is the sort of diversity which is important in a conference. But what Mr. Rutledge fails to acknowledge is that the "how people look" diversity (e.g. race or gender) can deeply influence how people think.
And so it's still important to press for "how you look" diversity and encourage people of all genders, ethnicities, sexual orientations and ages to take leadership roles in the tech community.
I was mostly impressed by parts like point 18:
>> 18. You will mess up. I will take away your phone. We will sit down and talk about it. We will start over again. You & I, we are always learning. I am on your team. We are in this together.
That kind of learning is important.
(You might want to change the line where you describe the smell of Seattle as "sweat" to "sweet," which is what I think you intended.)
I was 14 when I joined Facebook, in 2008. My dad, who is no dummy, laid out a series of rules for my Facebook use (he had been on the site for a year or so already).
One of those conditions was that he had my password and could look at my behavior on the site at any time. Occasionally I'd post something that he thought was inappropriate, and we'd talk about it, and I'd get embarrassed.
But in retrospect, I'm grateful. Everyone needs guidance as a teenager, and this is especially true for behavior online. Online behavior is at least as permanent as IRL behavior, and the consequences are often more public or serious.
I think it's really important to guide your kids online. Though your 13 year old may not appreciate it at the time, s/he will when s/he's 20 and has only half as much embarrassing teenage material floating around on their Facebook timeline (or Twitter account).
Instagram's user experience is/was great--it lets people feel like they're doing something significant and artistic in only a few seconds. I think that's the most important aspect behind Instagram's growth.
Is a strong product a "hack?"
I can't imagine why you'd want a truly secret group otherwise. Not just closed, where non-members can't see the content, but secret, where non-members don't know the group exists.
If you're passionate about helping CA stay the course ahead, you really should check out some of the resources for talking to administrators at http://www.csedweek.org/ or even get in touch with the CSEdWeek organizers.