Shows that you really got Statistics. With so many people who go through the hiring process of Google every day, there just must be a good number of very bad and strange experiences, resulting from even a small and very unlikely set of coincidences.
We for sure don't know enough about the data to confidently say Googles hiring process is good or bad.
Isn't it Golang that becomes stable? Go is quite stable since, I don't know, over a hundred years... Here and there they tinker a little with the rules. Yes, sometimes they change the komi or find an awesome new joseki, but basically it's quite stable since a long time.
I also play KGS under the name asdfman[4k] (at the moment). I like that game because of its simplicity. In Chess u can get nowhere without learning ur openings very deep. In Go u just need to understand how ur stones influence each other. Add some exercise in L&D and u can become a tough player without learning all those Opening Moves from scrappy, old books. I love it.
I am one of the disappointed people. The reason is, that they think a lot about making that "chat mechanics" work. But the plan of Diaspora is not to write a software, but to offer a social connection service that does not take away the control over my data. That is quite a difference. And I think even a prototype should be concerned about that, not about making that chat like message system work. (And even that does not work at the moment)
I think this happens every day. If you own stock in that big company you can talk to the other stock holders at stock holder meetings, learn to know them, build relationships and in the end can influence decisions in that company. Of course all that depends on the control you have over all the stock. That does not mean you have to own a lot of stock (because as somebody said earlier, there are still some protection rules in this situation that will be used by unpleased stock holders). But when you use a little stock to gain some relationship-like influence, they might be able to pressure the CEO to change his decision from a 'maybe' to a 'yes'. Of course all that is a tough call for a small business person, because a big company of course has a lot of stock holders and the most influential ones are probably pretty rich and don't really care about you or want to make friends with you. But when you can change your chances for a successfull deal from 0.1% to 0.5% it may not seem much, but actually it increases your chances five times! That is why I would answer your question with a 'yes'. You can not really force them but increase your chances dramatically. And I think that many people and companies already do this on a daily basis.
So, actually he is saying that real estate and having your own beamer instead of renting one has no cost? He doesn't pay for buying it? There will be no problems after using it for some years that need some further investment?
I admit that I have no idea about effectively running a real estate business. But when somebody talks like that, it seems he knows so little about it, that he probably would get better results with renting from somebody who knows how to run this kind of business.
I agree with you. It is very important in a discussion to show everybody, that you still respect each other and emphasize how important that 'working together' point is to every body.
What happens in that company, will happen to every company earlier or later. Surviving this situation shows that the company really has some fundament to stand and live on.
Every company needs a lightning rot. Some person who is able, to end unproductive discussions without anybody losing face. Maybe you, gogy, are up to that task. Maybe not. If you feel as overwhelmed with the situation as I guess, then maybe you should find some body else to take that job. And you don't need to hire somebody for that. Maybe you find an older, more experienced person to be you advisor. Somebody all of you 3 can trust in and that maybe has some business experience himself. Older people are often good at recognising arguments that are not real arguments but just a way to let out some air. And because as an advisor he does not have to work full time on your projects, he can look more clearly on the big picture and maybe even help to make better strategical decisions for the company at all.
btw. why do you guys overload yourself with more customer projects and stopped trying to build something yourself?
People want privacy, but don't want to be troubled with managing it. It sucks, but this is the reality. How comes, that the people at Facebook need so much time to learn this? I mean, everybody sad at least once in his life in front of a WinXP machine, with a administrator user (without password of course) surfing the net. Everybody knows that (nearly) nobody bothers to manage user groups.
It is obviously not your concern if somebody else wants to donate for a startup or not. If you don't want to, you will not be forced to. So, why bother?
It must not be a full fletched street fighter clone. But when possible customers say they want some interaction, why not give it to them? I mean, it can be something small, like clicking a lot ur left mouse button to heal ur creature (click faster, heal faster), or having 1 to 3 special moves that need a long time to reload, changing between different fighting styles like defensive (heal), balanced, aggressive (kill), or even some kind of stone-scissors-paper stuff. There are a lot possibilities, to give your users more interaction, that does not influence your automatic fight results much. Don't be smarter than your customers. You aren't!
btw: I bet people think of your game that way because you present it as a fighting game. If I see a fighting game, of course my first idea is, that I should interact with my character to win a fight. If I am not interested in that kind of stuff, I will probably go to look for another game. So maybe you can also get something out of positioning your product in another way.
your viability test is a perfect example of "doing more". It is actually in the core just repeating what you can read in "4 hours work week" and yet it feels like good work.
I agree and want to add that you also should consider your future. Today playing around might be a fullfilling life. But in 10-20 years you will think differently. If you don't start now to do something you can build on later, your life will just suck when you are 50. And then it will be incredibly harder to get what it is important for you if you don't create it now.
Just think about how you would not have that job chance, if you didn't go to school as a child. Of course that was uncool at this age, but now you have great opportunities for the sacrifice of a part of your days back then.
I agree that the design of HN should be improved. I think since a long time. But why didn't I created this Ask-HN-Thread? Well, I think when I make such a request, I should have some screenshots attached of my "playing in photoshop", or that I should use the RSS Stream to code a realtime example myself, or at least I should look around for pages that have a solution that I like. You know? Something to see, because design is for the eyes.
But I can also tell you that I am just too lazy for that. Why? It works. Yes, HN doesn't have the best look it could have, but it has a design that works. To move my own ass, I need something worse.
a) nobody knows what you are doing. When you have to visit the site and watch 5 minutes of presentation before you even get what's the product, there will just not be enough customers. So you should change name and slogan to get closer to the point (I thought you make a new programming language, guessing from your slogan. The name says nothing.)
b) Pricing. Why would I pay per month for something I just used once? Your value is not the customer support that happens every month but the easier usage to create support stuff. Why not paying $5 per download? So you can also get more money if more different versions are used.
Beside that I was astouned what a beta(?) can look like (but I didn't try it, because I don't have an urgent need for such kind of program).