SimplyUseless

This is so wrong! Instead of encouraging tinkerers, schools have become a dumbing-machine.

Thanks JdeBP. You raised a very valid point.

I have submitted a separate discussion thread on this

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10225569

Already posted here

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10223054

It took more than 5 years of complaining by millions of users.

http://www.fsf.org/facebook/mark-zuckerberg-is-time-magazine...

Having opposites (Like/Dislike, Up/Down) is natural and Facebook tried to create behaviour which is not natural. I think this is a great proof that Businesses have to adapt to the users and not the other way around.

Distribution is a great idea. Decentralizing is a great idea. Open Source is great idea.

Permanent.... is a great idea and a very conflicting idea.

While the utility of permanent cannot be denied but the implications for privacy, piracy are far reaching.

In all of the comments, I see a lot of excitement about the "features" the company is able to pack for a "low" cost.

I would like to say this in simplest possible way

-- One plus one support model and execution is poorest of all phone makers --

The emphasis and culture in the company is to grow fast without concern towards individuals paying still very high prices for their phones but not getting the worth. The half life of the phone is lower than market and people do face issues when the OS changes are pushed without a good amount of testing.

One plus one forums are inundated with people all over the world having hardware issues and the insufficient support they have been receiving. The founder Carl Pei has made commitments to improve support however the progress has fallen short on promises.

One Plus One ended up being a huge lesson for many customers. One plus two would just end up being another phone without company getting its act together.

Thank you. I had not realized that this was already submitted.

This is behind the paywall but very worth a read.

To quote some of the excerpts

"RIM's chiefs didn't give much additional thought to Apple's iPhone for months."

"It wasn't a threat to RIM's core business," says Mr. Lazaridis's top lieutenant, Larry Conlee.

"It wasn't secure. It had rapid battery drain and a lousy [digital] keyboard."

Hey! I got it! You build it to get ads from "Despicable Me".

Thinking of a drunk scenario, where I could end up setting bad alerts for me and eating a lot of green bananas; it would be wise to add a drunk check such as simple math sums.

This is what I call a mother-of-demos !

All stuff no fluff!

24 robotics teams are about to compete for $3.5m in a Pentagon-backed competition.

A team from Google was a favorite to win, but has quit the contest because they had concerns of the competition being linked to a military-backed event, even though it is has a "humanitarian" theme.

This is a very common question and the answer gives an insight into how mind works.

The following explanation applies only for the unconscious-mind (aka the fast-thinking mind from the seminal book by Daniel Kahneman):

People are used to searching on the Google-Homepage so much that they forget that the search is now integrated into Browsers and Computers.

So what happens is that when someone wants to search for information, the first thing they look for is the interface that they have used a lot (which is Google-Homepage). Now fast-thinking-mind tries to go to Google-Homepage.

So they type "google" into the browser search bar (which is what the unconscious-mind does when it is looking for some webpage) and Browser-search-bar-Google opens Google-Homepage.

The end result is you see a lot of people typing Google into Google search. However what is actually happening is that people are looking for Google-Homepage into Browser-Search-Bar.

Google self-driving cars are better than Californian drivers.They don't accelerate quickly, they don't speed, they leave plenty of space and are very polite to pedestrians.

Robots are coming!

If Moore's law will apply to the progress of Robotics, we have very few years left before we will all be slaves.

I think "Buy button" will not be forced to the retailers instead it will be an opt-in.

However think of these scenarios from the retailer's point of view:

1. Where Google button shows up on all links except my link, would it come under pressure and cave in; since all my competitors are selling by "Buy button".

2. Google may give priority to links who provide Buy button "integration". Pending anti-trust looming, this could put retailers under pressure as well.

3. Given an option to the end users to buy from Google vs. buy from another website, the end users could start seeing Google as a good brother.

Even though it could be an opt-in, it does not look like an opt-in when it comes to monopolies.

The philosophy is similar to Amazon 1-Click, reduce friction to buy however the impact to retailers may not be all positive. Retailers will loose control on up-sell and cross-sell, instead the control will go to the Search platform.

The startup world has clearly proven that the strategy of not using eraser is successful.

Any founders, who don't hide their mistakes and overcome them by actions taken after the fact, show maturity.

I personally cannot imagine the VCs funding the ideas based on good looking idea presentations rather than actually hearing about the journey to success and the mistakes on the way.

Honestly, the mistakes and effort should be encouraged in the schools rather than neatness of the outcome.

Impressive to see 5,000 design and utility patents to his name!

As an Indian, I guess the difference between you and me would be...

you don't lick your fingers and complement food while I will lick my fingers but instead of complement, I will pay.

Full credit for the infographics to http://www.informationisbeautiful.net

Beautiful Infographics is something everyone needs to allow information to be ingested and be sharable across social media.

On their github page, it still shows a warning about not using it for mission critical applications.

https://github.com/sandstorm-io/sandstorm

A little pain for 2 hours to replace your office ID with this tiny RFID chip to gain entry to doors, unlock/lock mobiles and computers, unlock copy machines.

It is well known fact that RFID are easier to hack (http://www.eweek.com/security/hacking-rfid-tags-is-easier-th...). I think this under-the-skin-RFID is being pitched as convenience rather than better security.

However are we prepared for skin penetrations for making us more digital.

and eyes hurts after looking for my targets. Isn't it like Archery sports.

Just plain nightmare

Schneier nails in explaining the current security landscape and the motivations behind it.