JohnHammersley

TL:DR - Build Something People Want :) (as you say in your second section heading!)

This also deserves a shout out to Sinead of http://www.fluency.io/, who is one of the most inspiring entrepreneurs I've ever met.

Has there been any more recent analysis of author contributions to research articles? It seems like an obvious thing to do, but there is very little data available on it...

This reminded me a lot of Starwing/Starfox -- simple mechanics but a nice feel to it.

Firstly, great idea for an app -- I often tell myself I need to take the time to enjoy the wins but there is always the next thing to move on to. Being reminded of them at a later date makes perfect sense, and I'll download the app to give it a try when I'm next on my ipad.

In terms of advice -- everyone's already said it: don't rewrite now, just fix the important bugs and give it a push.

Good luck!

If anyone's interested in recreating some of these, LaTeX provides a neat way to do so: https://www.overleaf.com/gallery/tagged/illusions

This pretty much sums up my usual explanation :)

Always great to read Tim's thoughts on the future of science and publishing. It's not mentioned in the article, but he's also invested in PeerJ (https://peerj.com/), a new open access journal that's pioneering a 'pay once for life' membership model.

More details on the O'Reilly investment here: http://blog.peerj.com/post/91251985913/exciting-times-peerj-...

(I'm not involved with PeerJ directly, but I should say that we're working with them on opening up science; I'm one of the founders of Overleaf (https://www.overleaf.com), the collaborative writing and publishing platform that grew out of writeLaTeX. Send me a message if you'd like more info.)

I used to work with Mukund (Rangamani) and Veronika when I was doing my PhD at Durham Uni (2004-2008) -- it's great to see the work they and others are continuing to do on this. It formed the basis for my thesis (http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/2906/), and Anti de-Sitter spacetimes allow for some great visualizations (I spent much time working in Mathematica to produce the one shown in the slide here: http://bethnalgreenventures.com/2013/08/05/guest-blog-from-m...).

You also learn something new everyday - I'd never come across the term "Fisheye Universe" for AdS space before! :)

This is an impressive trajectory these guys have been on -- congratulations to Max and the team, and I hope they have a great year ahead.

(Linked to from today's comic: http://xkcd.com/1488/)

Thanks for posting this - you can find the repo for the git-bridge at https://github.com/winstonli/writelatex-git-bridge - it was created by a group of Imperial College London CS students who worked with us over the past few months (I'm one of Overleaf's founders).

This is very cool - both Desmos itself and the Sierpinkski Valentine example! In case you're more familar with LaTeX, you can also create similar visualizations in LaTeX using the 'lindenmayersystems' libary and TikZ. Here's a quick example: https://www.overleaf.com/latex/examples/the-first-six-levels...

This is a great collection! I'm having to look up a fair few of the references, and my current favorite is one of the simple ones:

Rene Descartes goes up to the counter. “I’ll have a scone,” he says. “Would you like juice with that?” asks the barista. “I think not,” says Descartes, and he ceases to exist.

"Nobody ever got fired for choosing IBM"[1] ...except as an employer!

I'll get my coat...

[1] http://www.quora.com/What-does-the-phrase-Nobody-ever-got-fi...

Thanks - yes, we've still got a few things to finish up on the relaunch (we got the technical stuff out of the way first, now have things like that screenshot to go through and update!)

This is a really nice explanation, thanks for taking the time to post it. We've got our own real time collaborative editor going with code-mirror at https://www.overleaf.com (formerly writeLaTeX), and have experienced many of the same issues!

What are you next plans for it? Be good to have a chat sometime in the new year if you're interested :)

Do you not think you'd get more traction by offering some sort of free trial, or providing a bit more social proof as to why someone should subscribe? A landing page plus a subscription button seems a bit....stark.

This is a very good read - being a startup CEO who's raised a seed round after a number of delays, a lot of the points raised ring very true.

It is amazing the difference a term sheet / money in the bank makes - obvious with hindsight, but difficult to see when you're wrapped up in pitches and negotiations.

Edit: And just to reiterate a point from the article - traction makes you seem formidable like nothing else (until you have a term sheet / money)

Having worked on the Ultra PRT project (http://www.ultraglobalprt.com), which was born out of Bristol University thanks to the late Professor Martin Lowson, it's great to see Bristol involved in this driverless car project.

However, it's a real shame that the Bristol project is basically another study, led by consultants, which won't actual result in any implementation. The Ultra system at Heathrow has now carried over a million passengers, operating in one of the world's busiest environments, and yet none of the engineering or operational experience will factor into the study (or even be used to - shock horror - actually test something rather than just study it).

Still a long way to go, but this is a huge step forward.

It's also not the first time Macmillan have tried something new - their whole Digital Science arm (which includes ReadCube) is focused on innovation and disruptive publishing tech: http://www.digital-science.com/

Thanks for those two suggestions -- will take a look at both.

What I particularly liked about Jure's article was his storytelling -- the TL;DR at the start is a great hook, as is the link with the New York subway signage, and so when he gets to the scientific figure standards (and presents a very thorough commentary) you're interested enough to take in the details.

Great to see this interview with Ed - he's one of our angel investors, very smart, and a top guy all round!

It wasn't meant as a rant against markdown -- just my observation that, for me, I found its simplicity limiting rather than helpful (I appreciate I could have made that clearer in my initial comment though)

Great post - I would stress that for me, one of the big limitations of Markdown is that it just doesn't do everything LaTeX does.

So although it might be slightly easier to get started with, it doesn't let you do everything you need (as a scientific writer).

There's a version of track changes available in "compare" mode (see https://www.writelatex.com/blog/154-a-first-look-at-the-new-... for details), and we'll be releasing a further update to this in the near future.

One good route is to solve a problem you're experiencing yourself (or even better, one that you and some friends / colleagues are all experiencing).

It's how our startup came about -- we built something which did what we needed, and it turned out that a whole load of other people had the same problem (unsurprising with hindsight, but the point is we set out to solve a problem, not to "create a startup")

Happy to share more thoughts if you're interested.

I'd ask your current users why they downloaded it and what they'd most like to see next.

If you get anything back that inspires you into thinking it could become a business, great - there's a plan.

If nothing inspires you, and you've had a fair number of responses, probably worth moving onto something else.

Universities often express dismay & consternation at the abilities of the students that arrive at their gates. Would more collaboration between high school students and universities help bridge this gap?

To add some context to this post -- Martin was a great mentor to me when I worked at Ultra, and one of the most passionate and driven people I've ever met. He continued to work on new ideas -- most recently looking at the aerodynamics of bird flight -- and it was an honour to have worked with him.

I hope his work will continue to inspire engineers and innovators for many years to come.