FluidDjango

I don't believe one must label every self-promoter a sociopath. And Aaron's post is foremostly a promotion for his self-published 2008 book, Authoritas, whose sales are currently lagging (http://www.amazon.com/Authoritas-Students-Admissions-Foundin...)

Although one must expect at least a handful of complaints any time a company has 100s of 1000s of customers (oops, I meant 'students'), the type of abuse that is likely to occur when recruiters are pressured to meet quotas can be seen at Consumer Affairs:

http://consumeraffairs.com/education/phoenix.html

"today the book’s publisher Simon & Shuster got involved and is threatening legal action."

Thanks. I needed a little more juice for my "death to the publishing industry" mission. grrrr

True, actions speak louder than words as indicators of sentiment.

To purchase a banner ad expressing a sentiment is only a tactic. ...and a tactic toward what end is completely unclear to me. If I were an Apple shareholder I would expect to receive little benefit from Adobe sending Ars a few buck for a banner ad that doesn't indicate a commitment to creating more effective apps for Macs, phones, etc. that Adobe has been in past.

EDIT: And now that I visit http://money.cnn.com/ I discover that they're throwing money for cnn banners too.

EDIT2: Sorry, I did not click on the banner (never feel inclined to on any banner ad). Which reveals the punch line:

The banner actually means, "We love Apple... but... (their behavior is unacceptable)."

Interesting how the TechCrunch article cites the "qualitative research" of simpsoncarpenter.com -- whose site my grandmother would never navigate to find whatever article Mr. Carpenter wrote about the iPad. I guess he knows about what "won't go mass market anytime soon" from his own example.

For HNers purposes, quantitative research might be more significant. Me, for example. I don't care whether an iPad has no place in my work/personal life.

I do care whether enough (quantitatively) people are purchasing/using iPads to influence my business decisions about how I target my app development work. (I know, I'm a mercenary SOB, right?)

On the other hand, the proportion of sociopathic personalities in a prison is probably much higher than in an HN thread...

And sociopaths are less likely to be burdened with empathy/loyalty/etc.

Thanks so much for that. I printed and highlighted the pee out of that.

I've been hearing about Gatto for a while but have yet to pick up one of his books.

I can quibble about some points, but most of it fits with my experience: the abilities that I retain are the result of my resisting the educational system. So I expand the traditional maxim of, "1) Those who can... do; those who can't... teach." to include:

2) Those who can't teach... administrate.

3) Those who can't administrate... design educational systems.

4) Those who are concerned only with controlling deviance (aka creativity)... run for school board.

Disclosure: My UC-Berkeley diploma is validated by the signature of a movie actor. [No, not Arnold; think early pleistocene era.]

Impressive work, Matthew! And I'm pleased it led me to your "Prosper" db front-end: looking forward to following its development. ...and to your use of "unlicense'd" (did i get right number/type of quotes?).

I guess what is supposed to be most striking is the horizontal slide show at [EDIT: that did not originally show for me in Safari 4.0.5]:

http://apirocks.com/html5/html5.html

Which didn't seem remarkable till around slide #31:

http://apirocks.com/html5/html5.html#slide31

- whose css-controlled number of columns ( -webkit-column-count: 3; ) I had never seen before.

EDIT: For real usability a TOC of the numerous slides + info on cross-browser testing would have added huge value.

> Computers are devices, not fragrances, they should be feature-full and powerful, not beautiful in a chick magazine sort of way.

Okay. So you want "a man's computer." You are a member of one niche market.

Apple goes after a different niche market (though I think "chick magazine" does not capture its essence).

In any case, Apple makes business decisions. Some who evaluate their growth, earnings, and prospects conclude there is some business savvy in their business model.

As long as there's want enough to translate to a purchase... a sales rep will be happy.

> So basically, it looks petty and unprofessional to say...

True. That would be very poor spin by your marketing dept.

I'm not in marketing, but I'll bet a half-trained spin-doctor could come up with something more flattering like,

"Our site takes advantage of the latest, user-friendly web capabilities. To experience the full ease and power of Web X.0 on our site (and many others), we invite you to download a free copy of a world-class browser [... insert links to Chrome, FF, Safari, whatever ...]"

I use ClickToFlash for Safari and I miss A Lot...

of ads.

Well, not really miss :)

Short answer: Apparently.

The problem is: They pawn it off as v 1.0 or better :/

And who is...

Registrant: N/A Faisal Shahzad (me.faisal@gmail.com) Green Town Lahore Punjab,54660 PK Tel. +092.3004447798

Creation Date: 01-Jul-2008 Expiration Date: 01-Jul-2010

NPR this morning said he had received a CS degree and then MBA (presumably while he was here on student visa). Then "quit" his job (problems?); home foreclosure follow a while later, unsurprisingly. Today's Morning Edition had first story I've heard shedding any light on personal life (also: married American woman before acquiring Am. citizenship). [ FWIW ]

> I never found lectures to be particularly useful anyway.

Nor I. You and I are not the norm (evidence: we are on HN).

But I have taught in a community college in rural/bluecollar area where the only hope that some students had of breaking out of their apathetic, educationally-clueless family/community was to have instructor(s) who mentored them - that is connected personally.

Being present in class was not sufficient for them to transcend the crippling effects of their upbringings. But it was the first (and necessary) step for those without other mentors in their lives.

[ Apologies for any arrogant sound in the above. Calling it like I have seen it. ]

"Legal Director Cindy Cohn: "If Facebook's legal argument is upheld, it will hobble companies that enable consumer choice, as well a create a massive expansion in the scope of California criminal law.' "

Or: it will further open up a toehold for new startups to develop alternatives to Facebook - alternatives that treat their user communities better.

Of course it's always easier to kill off something that has its own built-in self-destructive weaknesses.

I wonder if the "trim the SIM" workaround (and lack of any logic-board constrainst to AT&T) is a signal that Apple is betting that the ATT-binding is nearing end-of-life? (A fella's gotta hope, right?)

> you can at least sort of get the gist of the conversation.

Or: you can get the opposite of the intended meaning, e.g., when you said 'UNnatural' it heard 'natural'.

The OP says that using right-click to copy a link to google.com gives instead a link like:

http: // api.viglink.com/api/click?key=8eb8c964d...

But I am not experiencing that with a right-click in either Safari/Mac OR FF/Mac. He mentions Safari not being a problem. I find that FF/Mac isn't either.

EDIT: Any chance that they have disarmed this after getting all the bad press (at least on HN)?

Apple's acquisitions are few and mostly (IMHO) strategically well thought-out. Let's look at Apple's lala process for clues to where they're going.

Consider the possibility that the lala-buyout/close-down is prelude to Apple's next quantum leap in streaming service. [remember the huge NC data center that's nearing(?) completion]

The "store he doesn't want to shop at" may soon leap-frog what he lacked at lala. I understand that it's probably aggravating at time point to anyone with a substantial investment in lala service, but... the broader implications for overall media streaming/services may surprise us all.

How can you claim that it was to be "a device with great pen based input"...?

I thought it was only at a concept stage?

> the law that is meant to protect sources

IANAL. Nor do I know all about journalists' rights v. police procedures, but I am puzzled at all the press and online discussion about "protecting sources":

Seems to me that journalists should be able to protect sources of * information * - which is different than protecting sources of * stolen property† *

___________________

†or "stolen-ish" - whatever Calif calls found property that is supposed to lead to legitimate attempts to return it to rightful owner.

It doesn't matter how effectively you critique or ridicule a product/process/technique/habit. That won't make it go away.

It goes away only when you offer an alternative which is catchier/easier/more elegant.

In one of your other HN comments you say:

> Klicknation Inc, for which I am a product manager, is hiring.

>Our flagship product is Superhero City, a Facebook game. You may wonder if a Facebook game can support a whole (small) company, and my answer would be a resounding 'yes'.

So the (non-quantitative) data described by most of the posters here seems to say that there is one type of ad that does seem worthwhile of FB: those advertising FB games (e.g., Zynga, and your Klicknation games).

Of interest would be: who has found FB ads useful for non-FB-dependent products/services?

I like that it gives me this reassurance:

> You need to be logged into Facebook to see

> your friends activity

...so that I know I've remembered to stay logged OUT.

Now if only sites iFraming me to FB would post an reminder like:

"Thanks for staying logged in to FB (and providing info about all your activity to our advertisers)."

Please do explain: what's your hack to block just FB frames?

If you dislike the idea of being taxed while residing abroad, how about the idea of being "exit taxed" for the right to stop being taxed:

"Relinquishing U.S. citizenship is a fairly simple process: after filling in a few forms, and in some cases, paying an exit tax (based on the applicant's worldwide income and assets)..."

Wonder how much that amounts to?

Local survey results: 100% of males in my IT department said they were less likely to date women who based their dating decisions on men's phone preferences.