Stephen Wolfram Uses This
stephen.wolfram.usesthis.com
stephen.wolfram.usesthis.com
Wil Shipley talked about it upon meeting him at Ted in this blog entry: http://wilshipley.com/blog/2010/03/ted-2010.html (towards the bottom of the entry)
If a "Dropbox" style product would also index everything I send it so I could have a search experience like I do with Xobni I'd certainly pay extra for it.
This sounds very similar to DevonThink Pro: http://devon-technologies.com/products/devonthink/index.html , which I use daily, mostly along the lines that Steven Berlin Johnson describes here: http://www.stevenberlinjohnson.com/movabletype/archives/0002... .
> Mathematica + Wolfram|Alpha everywhere!
That's a funny dream, considering he charges a few thousand for a copy of Mathematica. I'm sure he'd have a larger user base if it were less expensive (or free…).
What do you think he means by "20 years of keystroke data"?
From the 12 December 2009 issue of New Scientist:
"I'm an information pack rat," he [Stephen Wolfram] confesses. Recording our interview is just the tip of his peculiar obsession with documenting every moment of his life. "I have a keystroke logger that has collected my every keystroke for the last 22 years," he says. "Every day I get an email that tells me how many keystrokes I typed the previous day into each application. I find it slightly interesting." He shrugs off my suggestion that it's a way of securing his immortality; he believes that soon everyone will be doing it.
Which, if any historians become fascinated with Wolfram, would be an amazing boon.
Now, from other publications like NKS, I do get the vibe you mentioned.
My main job is being CEO of Wolfram Research. I spend most of my time figuring out technical and strategic things, sometimes short-term and sometime very long-term.
Compare with:
"I am the founder and CEO of Wolfram Research."
Which contains exactly the same amount of information (because strategic planning is the job of a CEO, isn't it?). No subtle "Well everything I do is pretty heavy and it doesn't fit in this little paragraph, you see?"
Nitpicking, I know, but that's how I feel when I read the §...
But it could use some sane URL organization. Sub domains are horrible for quick "select and erase/replace" actions, though I understand the final result is quite beautiful.
I'm not going to say this isn't a great and sensible product, but it is very weird.
I've gathered that long term goal is telepresence robots that can enable transcontinental labor arbitrage. That has the potential to make Trevor, at least in the developed world, one of the most despised people alive. Talk about disruptive.
"No, the $circle_7 goes below the $resistor_3_12, inscribed in $heptagon_3, like in a fronkit. What? Never seen one? Oh hell..."
Until then, good luck designing anything collaboratively. I like the hat-like look to the top, though. Personality without uncanny valley, and still highly functional in design; perfect for something like this.
Anything non-projected break down any time you've got a large scale - what's an efficient way to point out a sparse mesh between 20 objects on a whiteboard? Point to one, and then the next which it connects to, lather-rinse-repeat to 40 points (more if it's a directional graph), or draw 20 lines and leave them up for people to peruse simultaneously? People just can't remember that many things at once, so you'd rely on someone to marker in your lines... to be erased if you come up with something better? Even changing a single line means several dots + waiting for someone to walk over and do it for you, instead of just changing what's displayed.
And how about completing a circuit diagram? Have fun pointing out a resistor, inductor, and XOR gate[1], dot-by-dot, or showing any complex replacement in a number of sketches + several points showing where each connects. Even if you're only able to draw a couple at a time, being able to draw them in place is a huge efficiency boost.
edit:
Or designing in groups: crowd around the 'bot to look at the screen, while you-or-they are unable to see the board, every time you have input that can't be elaborated by a single dot + words. The time it takes you to sketch something and hold it up to a webcam is the same as or longer than it would take to make those lines displayed, but then everyone can see it at once, as you intended it.
Know of any good ones? ie, fast + network access for shared whiteboarding?
Wanted to let you know that your rss feed seems broken.
It would be like wondering which car a top class football player drives, or which flight tickets the USA president uses.
:(
He barely touched the thing his usethis would be most interesting, the fact that he claims to record so much.
He may be a good mathematician and project manager. but hardly fun for a usethis
I appreciate that I probably shouldn't be nagging on the guy who built Mathematica. But seriously? webMathematica? yawn.