No, the point I was trying to make has nothing to do with communication. Molenbeek has been known to host radicalized Islamists for twenty years, I've heard on French TV this weekend. Encrypted communication or not, as long as governments sleep on such facts, we will see further attacks.
I don't know why people are considering these terrorists to be so smart. They arrived at the Stade de France and were naively thinking they'd be able to come inside with explosives tied to them. In January, they didn't even know where the Charlie Hebdo meeting room was, they had to ask for directions and were even sent the wrong way (at first). Really, I'm far from worrying about their communication's encryption as much as I worry about the lax government.
@icebraining: I never said that idea was new, all I said was that apparently everybody hasn't been exposed to it. There are a few different opinions in this documentary, from this arrogant writer who got famous with the old model and is now in love with the new one because he can deal directly with his audience, to art lovers who are humbly searching for new ways, in theory or in practice. But this isn't the subject here, and you don't provide much to support your point of view yourself, so I'll stop replying.
I can understand that somebody being exposed to this idea for the first time would be dubious. If you'd rather hear it from some of the world's top creators, check out presspauseplay.com.
In the music industry, technology and economy have worked hand in hand to 'let record companies die'. The result is that most projects nowadays are home-made, resulting in a generalized cacophony where it's so hard to find quality content that people are giving up. This is what's going to happen here as well. There is no such thing as a free lunch. Hopefully this will make people go back to real-world local structures, which are going to be profitable again.
What's that quote again, 'while in his 30s Julius Caesar once cried because he felt he hadn't done a tenth of what Alexander the Great had done at the same age'? Don't worry about people being faster than you. Build simple sites/apps (read Pat Flynn's blog rather than HN), see which one sticks, and improve it over time. Don't hope for a massive success, build something simple but useful to a limited audience. That's what I did when I was 22 and that site is about to turn into a business + the skills I learnt got me a freelancing gig which eventually got me hired. It's not an easy path, but it's meaningful. Easy paths such as marrying your high school sweetheart and getting hired at a top company in your 20s do look great, but they aren't making these people any more acquainted with the lengthy process of building great things.
And yet another app that would rather become an OS on its own rather than stick to one thing but 'do it well'. 1Password.app has already been taking ages to load since the shiny/pointless redesign a year ago, and now we're getting even more features…
Glad to know I'm not alone there. I had an interview with this company where I was told technical skills weren't the most important, personality was. Luckily for me, they really liked me. Ten days later, I go to a second interview where they ask me pretty advanced technical questions. I don't panic and I end up doing extremely well. So at this point they've told me my personality was good for the position, and also saw I happened to be a solid programmer. The day after that second interview, they call me:
- hey, we're not going to give you that position because you didn't learn the [completely minor] framework by yourself since the last interview.
- yeah, I have a job. Also, you didn't ask me to?
- we do that on purpose to see if you're independent enough.
- OK, I definitely think I am, what should I do?
- I can't help you there, spend a week on this, come up with something and we'll see how we like it.
- a week?! Also, don't you have a client request example or anything?
- nope.
Eventually they decided that even if I were to do that, the disappointment on their side had been too huge… The funniest in this is that 'agile' is part of their corporate identity, the word's everywhere on their website, they even criticized the way I'm working with my current employer because he's not 'agile' enough (which is true, but I have no power over this). But then they want to hire somebody and not even have to give him a few pointers, because that's too vulgar for them? What the fuck is this?
Right now I don't see karma being particularly generous to me, that's what makes me bitter the most I think, more than these guys being unrespectful. I mean in terms of material life I know this freelance guy is making a fortune and constantly on vacation at luxurious places. I don't care much about money and abroad holiday, all I'm looking for is the money to afford a small studio where I wouldn't have to deal with relatives or roommates, and even something as simple as that is too much to ask :\
Ahah, your friend is fun in the way he's passionate about this. But I agree with him on absolutely everything he said. Thanks for sharing your story, too, at least now I know my interviews were pretty short compared to what I may have been through!
Well I'm sorry but some of those people are paid by companies to handle HR, professionalism doesn't look like an option to me. It is true though that I have nothing to gain in this. I'm a web dev with experience in front-end, back-end and system administration. I'm looking for any first job that will allow me to specialize in any of those fields.
Yes, this is something I've been telling myself. Somebody who's disrespectful at this point will be painful to work with. However, I nevertheless need a job so that I can get on with my life, you know? Being on pause and watching time go by without knowing where I'll live in one month's time sucks.
Friends are overrated. If you worked that much on those projects, you must have felt like this was more interesting to you than going out. And honestly, if you're an introvert, going out sucks, working alone is much more interesting. Also, have you heard about Julius Caesar who was crying at 30 because he hadn't done what Alexander the Great had done at that age? You still have room to grow. I can't be of help as far as business is concerned because I've failed a lot too. All I know is that my most successful project is the simplest in terms of technology, but that there's an evergreen flow of people looking for what I offer.
What puzzles me is that most of the articles I've written for this site are working quite well in terms of CTR, and I never did A/B testing for them. Right now I have two images on my home page linking to my lessons, one is a beach and the other is a crowded live concert (they're relevant to the lessons). 20% of the 1% who clicked on the beach image have spent some time learning the song, whereas my crowded venue image has about 0% CTR. Perhaps I could find a better image for the 2nd lesson, sure, but if 6 people are interested in the 1st lesson when it's free, how many will want to buy it? I feel I'm losing my time. PS: Would you want to help me by doing some consulting for me? I really need somebody to see if I'm doing something stupid.
If I were a music beginner and I saw an experienced player offering me an insight into his playing and his email address to help me, I'd become a fan. I actually follow some rather mediocre people online just because they put stuff out there on a regular basis. They're all less shy than me when it comes to promotion, that's for sure. To me a plain-text site like HN is great but I may need to stop thinking like me when it comes to content promotion.
My AdSense CTR is actually much better (3%-5%), that's what I don't understand. But I've just deployed a new version and I put some sexy unsplash.com images in my CTA and content. It's only been a few minutes but it's already looking much better. It still puzzles me how much you have to dress your content to make it attractive on the Internet, though. You could write articles in thirty seconds and get away with it as long as you put boobs and kitten pictures it seems.
I said my tools because it was shorter, but yeah, they're not really. One is by me but didn't involve coding so I don't really consider it a tool. Two of them I bought on some CodeCanyon like website. Another's development was sponsored by me. The last one is credited to its author through a deal we made.
A quick look at the author's tweets reveals this is not as innocent as you seem to say it is. Plato once said something along the lines of: "those who mix art with politics must be either unsure of their art or of their political positions, if not both". We had engaged musicians, now we have engaged developers. This is all the same trash to me.