I don't think that's exactly true of dot com and '08. In both cases the developing bubbles were identified and widely discussed in the years prior to the burst. The surprise in '08 was not that there was a bubble in real estate, but rather that a massive fraction of the financial system was built on leveraging that sector. To paraphrase Buffett, you don't know who's swimming naked until the tide goes out.
This is a pessimistic, anti-progress perspective. As you point out, there are plenty of other problems in the recycling chain. But this is a small step in the right direction. And the investment here is pretty small too. $1.2m probably covered a handful of engineers for around a year plus the cost of tooling. Given that Heinz sells a lot of ketchup, I would expect that the impact/dollar here is pretty high.
Also, I’d bet that the new cap is cheaper than the old one. I’m sure that helped justify the investment to management. Kudos to the engineers who made this happen for finding a solution that is palatable to management and also makes the packaging more sustainable.
I think that comment actually misses Susan Cain's point entirely. Here's a quote from Ms. Cain:
"Shyness and introversion are not the same thing. Shy people fear negative judgment, while introverts simply prefer less stimulation; shyness is inherently painful, and introversion is not." [1]
If you accept that definition of shyness, then it is necessarily bad. Living with fear and pain is bad. Missing opportunities to connect with people because of a remote possibility of being hurt is bad. Simply wanting more time to yourself is not.
Regarding fault, it doesn't really matter who's to blame (and I didn't see anything in the article about fault). As an example, some people are born with type 1 diabetes and have to constantly manage their blood sugar levels. It's not their fault that they were born with this disease, but it's their problem to manage it. The same goes for shyness. Your shyness may not be your fault, but you're the only one that's hurt by it.
This was an interesting point in the context of comparing YC to a large company:
Comparing himself to an air-traffic controller, Graham says much of his time is spend making introductions and helping the YC community solve problems within the network
Most of the large companies I've worked with are missing somebody in the "air-traffic controller" role. It can be very difficult for individual employees to understand all the resources that are available within the company, or who they should contact with a particular question. YC might actually have an advantage in this area.
Evolution, by definition, doesn't anticipate anything. It's disappointing to see a university professor writing on evolution who seemingly doesn't even understand the evolutionary process.
Can we please drop this hyperbolic platitude that "ideas are worthless." You need to have ideas. That's how you decide what to do. In the case that the author describes, your ideas will help you decide what type of "smart nerds" you need to find. After all, there are as many different types of nerds as there are topics to study in depth.
The real problem is thinking that you're just one big idea away from a successful company. A successful company is made up of thousands of ideas and many man-years of execution. The real value creation happens when you have infrastructure in place to separate the good ideas from the bad ones.
So it's true that a single untested idea isn't worth much, but a huge collection of validated ideas really is valuable.
And if cars are receiving 20 times more actual use, that would imply that there would be 20 times less cars sold
Actually, no it wouldn't. If cars are getting 20 times more use they will wear out much more quickly than they do now. That means cars will have to be replaced much more frequently. There would be fewer cars sold than there are now, but it wouldn't be 20x fewer.
The operating percent of a car will go from 4% to that 96%
This seems wildly optimistic to me. The driverless cars may be capable of driving around 96% of the time, but that doesn't mean they can be carrying people 96% of the time. No matter how efficient the system, if there are enough cars to handle peak traffic during the day, then a lot of those cars will be sitting around doing nothing at night.
It's interesting to look at these renderings in the context of the story from a couple of days ago about working out at the office (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3314922).
Treadmills in a conference room are certainly better than sitting all day. But instead of a treadmill, I'd rather just work in an office where I could go outside and take a walk. I hope more companies will start thinking about office design in the way that Apple has, even if they do it on a smaller scale.
At the risk of sounding overly snarky, I don't think that GM's leadership is in any position to make recommendations on how to run a car company
Despite the general level of incompetence among GM's leadership there were a few smart people there. Lutz was one of them. He has a strong track record of developing successful products and has never been shy about criticizing his bosses.
And to get to his point, it's fluff
It's not fluff. Perhaps this synopsis of his book didn't provide sufficient detail, but his point is broadly acknowledged as one of the major problems with the US auto industry. If you look at a US made car from the early 2000's, the level of cost optimization at the expense of all other factors is embarrassing. It's indisputable that as MBAs have gained prominence in the US auto industry, the products have become less compelling. Lutz is simply advocating that the people who love the product be the ones who have the final say.
I have a friend who owns a company that makes manufacturing equipment. I've often heard him say, usually in frustration, that if you make something in America you will eventually get sued. Sadly, it looks like his observation now extends to movies.
Knowing the business. If we ask a bunch of questions and they have the answers at their fingertips because they understand the domain really well, that's a good sign.
An old boss of mine is a design judge for a student engineering competition. Often times he will ask a team for a specific piece of information about their project, only to have the team pull out a giant binder and start shuffling through looking for the answer. At this point he tells them "If I ask you to tell me your girlfriends phone number and you pull out your phone book and start searching for it, you're probably not in love"
I'm seeing a bug in the drawing demo on the front page. I can draw the first line and it works as expected, but if I release the mouse and try to draw a second line it's not working correctly. It doesn't show the shape that I've drawn until I release the mouse and it connects the end of the first line to the start of the second.
- Apple is pushing the boundaries of minimalism with their industrial design (to absurd levels in cases like the control-free iPod Shuffle). This is not necessarily better design, but it is the currently fashionable design. I would argue that the single button interface on the iPhone/iPad is an example of moving too far towards minimalism (from a purely functional perspective). The same button now performs different functions depending on how many times you press it and where you are when you press it, yet there is plenty of room for a second button.
- In my opinion, Apple's software is a mixed bag. I love the user experience in iOS, and OSX is my favorite desktop operating system, but I think iTunes is among the worst commonly used desktop applications available.
- All of these devices will be judged on categories beyond hardware/software in the future. For example, I expect a phone's ability to connect with important services to become increasingly scrutinized. It seems like it will only be a matter of time before we're all using something like Google Voice to manage our phone numbers. A device's ability to interface with these types of critical services could very easily become the killer app.
- A small point, but I think the comparison between a MacBook Pro an a Lenovo is a bit odd. ThinkPads are not far off from Apple in terms of build quality and are certainly more durable.
To blindly give your faith to someone because of who they are?
Read my comment again. I never blindly gave him faith. I was pointing out that he's a well-known expert in this field, which is relevant when evaluating the substance of his argument.
Unsubstantiated? The OP is Don Norman (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Norman) and he's speaking from experience. The fact that he has more experience in this branch of design than pretty much anybody else should give his argument some weight.
we could have been writing about the elephant in the room: that functional design, like journalism and sensible politics, is a lost art.
I think he was addressing this point directly, but he happens to disagree with you. Take the following as an example:
Hurrah, I said, now the entire wash can be automatic, so there need be only two controls: one to chose between “hot and colored wash” and “easy-to-clean fabrics,” the other to start the machine. Nope, this washer had even more controls and buttons than the non-automatic one. “Why even more controls? I asked my contact at Siemens, “when you could make this machines with only one or two?”.
“Are you one of those people who wants to give up control, who thinks less is better?” asked this usability expert. “Don’t you want to be in control?”
Strange answer. Why the automation if it isn’t to be trusted? And, yes, actually I am one of those bizarre people who think that less is better.
It appears that marketing won the day. And I suspect marketing was right. Would you pay more money for a washing machine with less controls? In the abstract, maybe. At the store? Probably not.
Both Norman and his friend at Siemens understood that the interface to the washing machine could have been as simple as two switches. The problem is that they need to sell washing machines when they're sitting in a row of competitive products. In their experience, people in the market for a washer tend to buy on features. And Norman never claimed that everybody buys this way, just that most people do.