regardless of whether it is the right thing to do, what he is trying to do could be improved by being more like pagerank. i don't have an opinion on whether it is the right thing to do; i haven't given that much thought.
this is almost pagerank for academic publications, and would probably be improved by being more like pagerank (where it also took into account how often citing papers were cited)
if it is AGPL (notice the A), then you must provide source to to your users, whereas with GPL it's when you distribute the code (can't send precompiled webapp)
they're still useful. they provide a good exercise for the designer, and although it may not be something that can be implemented/will be implemented they can experiment with ideas and present new patterns or just a particular arrangement of them. design theory work, i suppose, as opposed to designing for implementation.
if it's important, like a bank site, there's a way to unlock your account if you did ever lose your password. i see this as using features they didn't know that they had; specifically: "disable password hints" and "disable password alternatives"
that and buffett has been outspoken against quants. he has also been accused of 'being in the right place at the right time' or 'lucky' quite a few times, but this is not the case.
another good book on buffett which has some sections dedicated to buffett vs quants and buffett vs 'its all luck' ppl is "The making of an American Capitalist" (http://www.amazon.com/Buffett-American-Capitalist-Roger-Lowe...) -- first book I got on him, perhaps the best (got snowball, haven't read it yet).
Eurocentric some? Thanks for the sagan quote, though, and the thoughts about euclid, ramanunjan, siddartha, bodhidharma, proudhon, and the vague admiration for people's names that i don't know, people who comprehended before there were equations, people who saw that all of life is emergent transformation, recognized not only introverted and extroverted states, but what people are today calling 'flow' and what some ended up calling 'zazen', and 3000 years ago they said was the third state, oh - and the fourth state, i supposed we don't have that here yet....but oh, still, love for arabic mathematicians and mayans obsessed with time. before we get to 'greatest' the question arises, greatest at what? if efficiency is the game, perhaps another read of brave new world and a reminder about The Ford is in order. if ability is the game, perhaps we should smile again at oppenheimer yelling that he is shiva. if the quality of human experience, the joy of living is the game, then is it really the internet, or is that just a medium through which we can share the real wealth? i got my gitosis working, made me smile, gotta love the internet - was walking to my car when she smiled and made small talk, gotta love the internet, but true wealth is somewhere between wisdom and that girl's smile.
You're onto something, and crash diets/extremes are no good, but there is a lot of value in giving it all up for periods of time. I wish I had opportunities to do this more frequently, once a year for a month would be very nice. I don't mean vacation - I mean disconnect.
There is so much going on, so much information coming in, so many interactions in our lives that many of our perspectives are on autopilot and if we get too buried, outside influences have too much influence on our perspectives.
I have taken time out a number of times in life, ranging from a month to two months. No friends, no family, no things to do, no internet, picked up a newspaper a few times (if you added up all of them I'd say 3 or 4) - spent most of my time outdoors, occasionally with music, and interaction with people I came across, and with no intention of keeping in touch. Works best out of country; first time was in the Himalayas, but one year I was poor and so I just went to a city a few hundred miles from anyone who knew me. The results are simple: various things that have been jumping around in your head settle, things that would have taken a year to figure out become crystal clear by week two, your life in so many ways becomes very clear, and you come out of all this with an incredible focus, energy, and just freshness.
You could do studies I suppose that figure out if this increases your overall efficiency, if it leads to better ideas, but such a study would only feed my curiosities because the value in this is more than just increasing efficiency, or improving products -- its about increasing the quality of life.
Reflection, pausing, meta-cognition, wandering into an alternate mindset are good to integrate into ones overall lifestyle, but sky diving for a weekend, or chilling out for 30 minutes a day - it seems with a busy life, as I'm guessing yours is as well - it's often like swimming against the current. It's nice to pause the current, enjoy your thoughts, paddle around some without worrying about it. It's very nice. I don't think it's going to happen this year for me, and that's unfortunate.
currently have 3 screens, and i thought about adding a 30" (for the continous document, then vertical stack two of the 22" screens next to it), but at the moment i have to turn my head to see the left monitor. i mostly work on the two right monitors, and use the left for ongoing IM conversations/etc. Beyond this, minimizing windows and just having many open seems just as productive as having to look around physically (instead of using switcher). anything im missing?
so far i like everything about it. key points (1) found all the info about the service i was looking for real fast, and my patience level is low for the review my site stuff (2) fast and simple registration (3) encouraged me to try it out since i didnt even have to pay (4) the privacy policy was easy to find and understand [first question was if you were watching my browsing beyond what i want to highlight] and you don't -- i'm going to use this app for a bit and see how it goes.
i also like how clear you made the advantages of the app, the testimonials, and just the overall how much information i get easily.
look into "INTP" personality type if you haven't already.
the way i see it is that between people, we want to communicate ideas. in order to communicate we have to meet at a shared context, and shared semiotics. the way i'm writing this is not how i would talk to someone at work. the way i talk at work is not how i would talk to my mom. the way i talk to my mom is not how i would talk with my housemate. the way i talk about a problem with a designer is not the way i talk about a problem with an engineer. the way i talk about a problem with an engineer is not the way i talk when discussing philosophy.
if you value comprehension, and you value growth, then you are in the minority of our society - especially when it comes to comprehension. it's easier to find people trying to win than to find people trying to comprehend. since you value learning and growing, you will accelerate as will others like you, beyond the understandings common in our society. your context will diverge more so from shared contexts, simply because you are internally growing. don't fret - just communicate what needs to be communicated. some people may not be interested in some of the things your interested in, and others will be. run into brilliant people with shared interests, sure it might be exciting, but you'll still need to communicate - you'll still need to meet with words, body language, and smiles - you're experience is entirely your own. we are all alone, together.
found this article interesting for its insight on why some people enjoy meetings for the sake of meetings.
summary: Those people who like meetings for sake of meetings: "emotional drama-conflict, blaming, flirting, one-upsmanship, random outbursts, anger, and so forth. For these happy people heading for meetings, it's those the soap-opera aspects of meetings are the most exciting parts of their jobs...On the other hand, all this drama - the stuff we contemptuously call "politics" seems to be the bread and butter of the non-techies. Indeed, these people are often upset if I show them how to conduct well-run meetings, because I've taken all the joy out of their lives.
im amused that the highscalability.com domain being linked to is not responding to my web request. timed out too many times. i'll heed ulf's comment and move on. if it's that good, i'm sure it'll come up 20 more times....
in a previous post about marketing, i placed a quote from bill hicks that if your in advertising, kill yourself.
i like this guy, though. he's not marketing scum.
this leads to my question: are there terms that distinguish between what this article is promoting, this idea of marketing and the more common ideas: 'public relations'/edward bernays/manipulation? Something other than 'being cool' vs 'being a jerk'?
if not, if both are just 'marketing' - then a terms should be made to distinguish the paradigm difference.
yes, but not everyone in the world currently has this set of things: [1] shelter,[2] food, [3] water. there are some things that are basic to our survival and experience, and from there we build the 'more.' when i think post scarcity, i think post-scarcity of life essentials. the quest to explore and build new things is infinite.
"profound views but never let it out" - sounds like an intp to me (http://www.intp.org/faq.html). there's a chance there's a lot of intps around these places. intps like to hack, i know i do. probably some intjs as well - they get more stuff done. being business and such, there's probably some entjs around here too - who wouldn't fit that description at all. sprinkles of other types is my guess, but im guessing a lot of 'engineering' and 'executive' types.