brianmcdonough

I'd like to see how your face would look on a replicant...

It's amazing, the variety of attitudes and opinions on this thread. People don't spend this much energy arguing the fine points of war and yet, it really is just a watch.

The promotion is genius. Not sure about the watch, but if the chatter is any sign, it's already a success.

Well written, but what I really appreciate is succinct.

A frivolous addition with no facts to check. Admitted. Give it twelve weeks. The point is that Heroku can do better. No offense meant to sales force or it's employees, just honest feedback based in real experiences.

What's the best way to muster an engineering team?

Heroku support options have always worked to shelter their employees from customers and as has been pointed out, despite the steep decline in costs, their prices have not changed. It's a shame because they were a trendsetter, but they are quickly being surpassed by players like DO, Linode and Poppup.

Thanks for the information. Sounds like they took the personal journey approach and it also sounds like you enjoyed it, which would indicate that they did a good job, including the ending. I'll look forward to watching when I get a chance, but thanks for filling in the blanks. I'm willing to say, I stand corrected.

Anyone who has seen a Vermeer painting up close, knows how hypnotic the experience can be. Is it true that in the movie Tim never gets to see the original and is reproducing based on a poster?

It costs a lot of money to make a film. I don't know Tim and I suspect he's a nice and interesting guy, but movies that lack broad appeal are sometimes referred to as vanity projects. I'd like to know how much money was spent making the film, where that money came from and what the theatrical run took in. If I had that information, I could tell you whether this was a vanity project.

Just my humble opinion, but it doesn't matter how the artist achieved the results. The work speaks for itself.

Tim's Vermeer is probably a lot like watching a behind the scenes video. If you enjoy consuming information for information sake, you might find it interesting, but a lot of work and money goes into making a feature documentary and it should be a work of art itself. If it doesn't have broad appeal, it's referred to as a vanity project.

The Cove is a good example of a documentary that is also a work of art. The story has a beginning a middle and an end and they are all made big through the story telling. The same could have been true of Tim's Vermeer if the story was told differently.

I apologize if my original comment came across as negative. I sometimes feel let down if stories are told in lazy or inexperienced ways and the article makes the story play like an episode of this old house.

I was recruited to work as editor on this project about two years ago. My reason for not taking the job at the time was that it would be hard to make the ending interesting enough to justify the effort. Two years have passed and now that I see the reproduction, I've changed my mind, it was impossible to make the ending interesting enough. Would have made a good magazine article in the Smithsonian though.

"what a sweep of vanity comes this way!" - Shakespeare

The problem is sufficiently complex and boring to favor Comcast. What I would like to know is this: It is already a regional monopoly in high speed internet because no on can touch their speeds, why would anyone consider extending their monopoly nation-wide?

Where there are banks, there will always be bank robbers. This will never cease to be the case and the banks will always lose money this way. It's inevitable.

So, the problem becomes one of scale. For example, a bank can survive a small unauthorized withdrawal, but large thefts are what kills the business. Limit the withdrawal sizes and shut down everything at a core level when that security is breached.

The ability to move massive amounts around securely is a pipe dream.

Being purveyors of good taste, leaders have to take action. Despite my karma score (73) I support implementation of a solution to a known problem, despite the risks.

It provides a motive to achieve a higher score, whereas before there was little to no reason.

Cloud storage is not going away. It's just getting massively cheaper and will continue to do so until the team at dropbox gets bored with running a commodity business and turn to conquer another big problem.

Creative people do not thrive in commodity businesses and their skills are in much higher demand driving massive growth as they have to this point.

Amazon will incorporate cloud storage into prime at some point and may dominate this market as they are very good at running long-term focused, commodity-based businesses.

How very Kafka.

Loves power when wielding it, hates its being wielded against. It's not hypocrisy. It's human.

It takes tremendous self-knowledge and insight to take a step like this. It's what makes Paul Graham, Paul Graham and it's incredibly inspiring.

Welcome to YC 2.0. Looking forward to following the original meta-startup under Sam's leadership.

That's great, Now, if only Heroku were 40% less expensive...that would be progress.

Giving advice doesn't make OP an asshole. In fact, listening and making adjustments to a life strategy is one of the hardest things to do on a personal level, in my opinion.

Glad to see you are blogging again and quite effectively at that. This was at the top spot on HN this morning.

This advice may have been based off a long time best selling book that the author fails to mention, either because he doesn't know about the book (ignorance) or because he knows about the book, but he forgot to mention it (forgetfulness).

The name of the book is: Go For No http://www.amazon.com/Yes-Destination-How-You-There/dp/09663...

It's a great book.

Your former company is falling to pieces. No fault of yours, but you might have checked it out before you linked to it.

For clarification as to my comment.

The lie: I behave this way because of the place I live.

The truth: I am responsible for my behavior, regardless of where I live.

The fault, therefore, is not Silicon Valley, but the choices I make every day.

Finally, congratulations, you not only have a choice of how you behave, but you also enjoy the rare choice of being able to choose where you live.

Enjoy your choices. That's all I was trying to say. And I think Silicon Valley is a beautiful area, so don't knock it unless you have a legitimate gripe ;)

Silicon Valley is a beautiful area as is Tel Aviv and Singapore, but none of these places is going to change who you are or the decisions you make.

Working long hours is not a function of where you live. It's a choice.

I checked out the website for the company OP mentioned selling. The about page is not filled in with content, leading me to a conclusion that it's not really a fully thought through idea, let alone a company.

There's a moment in everyone's life when they either decide to start telling themselves the truth, i.e., I am not a hockey player (Guy Kawasaki reference from the linked article), or they continue to live a life of lies.

Perhaps moving to a new place will convince someone they need to be honest and make the right choices for themselves, but I suspect a dramatic move is not necessary to begin telling oneself the truth.

The net neutrality issue is a tragedy of the commons. Say you have a common green area and everyone shares it. People come and picnic and everything's great until a family of giants moves into town and sits on the entire green.

Netflix is like that family of giants.

The solution is to build a bigger green, but how is that going to be funded. Customers don't want to pay for it and feel they're already being overcharged. Netflix doesn't want to pay for it just because they are streaming giant files. Such costs are not built into their ability to make profits.

It's a common tragedy.

I want to express my gratitude for your thoughtful and more effective approach. The aha! nature of this article and the sensationalistic title lead me to believe that it's a knee jerk reaction.

Agreed. Microsoft tried to create a closed system, but they were prevented by governments worried about them consolidating their power forever. Now, we are faced with two closed systems fighting for power, ios and android. Companies like facebook talk about their "mobile moment" the time when their presences on closed systems eclipsed their presence on an open system, the Internet.

I long for a time when data flowed freely along pipes and tubes.

If you look too far into the light, you may go blind.

Hard work and iteration is what led to the creation you speak of: the Automobile, Electricity, Artificial Light.

Children's creativity is, for the most part, aimless and inconsistent. None of the men you mention were by any stretch of the imagination, childlike, though Edison could have been following "the light."

Also, including Ford in your theory, for example, someone who used thugs to break unions with baseball bats, also does not speak to lightness.

Being childlike is great if you aren't interested in making money and want to spend your life giving your ideas away, but you'll need a lawyer if you want to make and keep the money from work you've done to make your ideas a reality.

It's rumored that Oscar Wilde's favorite color was green.

I drank your milkshake, ha ha ha.

I know a lot of people use gmail, but I never understood why...