Forums on Internet should balance things automatically. PG (or anyone) has no obligation to reply any question on any forum. Should someone ask a personal question? I don't know. Celebrities are always asked such question- I would not ask same question to someone like me.
Exact? No. Its about similar - like affecting same amount of people - may be totally in different field. Personally I am not concerned about money (after a certain threshold)- but other people may be interested.
If I had an option I would ask on the bottom of his essays. What PG is doing is little different than other successful entrepreneurs. It seems to me what he is doing is doing repetitively. But its just a question- it could be bad one though.
Like minded people - yes- that would help. Sometimes it helps when people thinks about computer startup process instead of shoes when you use the word "boot".
I have not shared anything on blog yet. The idea is actually very simple - not much thing to hide - but it is not easy to implement without at least basic knowledge in telecom and electronics. Here are the ideas- A video phone system attached to a TV + webcam that can be operated with only a remote control. As a side effect we have Netflix, Hulu-Plus, youtube etc. on it for free. I use arduino for remote control part using a infra-red sensor and it is connected to a beagle bone black. BBB controls the communication. I use SIP for signaling. It will to be sub 40$ I guess when custom built and manufactured as a single device. A media capable home phone - nothing new or special but hopefully easier to use than existing ones. Still need to answer why someone use it instead of Skype. I am mostly depending on its design rather than cutting edge technology.
All the parts work separately but need to make a solid device that does not fail. I have talked to my friends in here, Europe, Australia and Asia- it works (https://www.facebook.com/w3voice has some video call photo) - they don't have the device yet- but my system works from browser with webrtc as well (no plugin required for firefox and chrome). The ssl certificate has expired (was using a 3 month trial) so can not share the site now. But prototype to product seems harder than I thought while doing weekends only. I even needed to buy a wooden box for this. This is frustrating because I am sure I will need to change things before people finds it interesting. So, need to build one as soon as possible. As it is now it may be actually a bad idea.
And yes, I live in Seattle area in Washington (west one). I did not think YC or anyone would be interested to find a solo guy working from living room with probably a bad idea in the first place (I have not applied to any yet- including YC). I was planning to complete it in a few months and go for them. I got few people interested to buy, so will have some customers as well.
Thanks for your thoughts. Its not the glorious part that is interesting- but to create something that helps people. Right now I am working on a hardware device that will make communication easy specially for older and challenged people. But if it works it should crate more than a few jobs (one of which can be mine).
Thanks. CAPTCHA/CSRF is not an option since it is meant to be an API called from applications. As a precaution make a phone call to verify the user. That guy went through all the things and theoretically we can actually track him down(costly though). I have blacklisted the phone- question is how many phone numbers do he have :). Added a per day free call limit to stop this for future attempts.
But, have you think of the fact that when you load images on various sites they can only track your IP and similar information. But when you open an email and if the image is from internet location it can be used to personally (through your email address)identify you and know that you opened the email.
Rephrase your question- What problem a lot of people tried to solve but is still not perfect (almost all of them) - Then pick one you want to work on and make that better-
In our lifetime - No!
Beyond that- I am not sure of the limitation of light.
Consider this- There is a lake which is 50 meters wide but 500 km long. You want to cross the lake. You are at the middle of one side of the lake. Now to cross you need to travel aproximately 500km if you follow the bank.
Now if your maximum speed is 6 km per hour yo need more than 80 hours.
Now you get a great idea to create a bridge on the lake- Time to cross is reduced to a minute or so. Now what you are doing is instead of walking one dimension following the bank you just bridged the two places using second dimension.
I do not know if it is possible to create a bridge among two places using another dimension or not- but it is alwaws a possibility and you can do it by travelling less than speed of light.
I use hard copy and do not carry them with me- For most non critical site I use a simple algorithm to get the password on the fly. For sites that support openid, I use 2 factor auth enabled two factor I have created-.