brycecolquitt

Thanks, but this was actually made by my friend Nathan Bashaw (nbashaw). I just submitted it because I think it's awesome :) I think the tool is great for a certain group of people: beginners and front-end folks who want to quickly see what something looks like or do some debugging.

I'm not sure if codepen supports the realtime google-docs-style collaboration, either, which Scratchpad is good for. It's simple product with no superfluous features.

If these are the type of students I'm thinking of, they really don't want to become computer scientists, or software engineers, even. They want to learn how to code so they can build stuff, namely web apps. I'm assuming that since they don't want/can't handle a theoretical program, yet still think they want to learn Comp Sci, they fit this description.

So I'd teach towards that:

1) an understanding of the technology stack for a web app 2) Javascript 3) Ruby or Python w/ Rails or Django

Literally die the hour you lose your job? No. But lose a job and become homeless? Or desperately find another job that barely supports your family and you end up living in poverty in a neighborhood with high crime? Almost every major US city.

I wonder--does it become less special because it's sent in a medium like this? Nearly automating the process seems to take the thought out of it, and it really is the thought that counts with your parents.

Since this is mostly satire--what are some actually good articles/blog posts about how to write better? I'm familiar with "Writing, Briefly". Any other suggestions?

"San Francisco ranks third of American cities in median household income with a 2007 value of $65,519." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco#Demographics

Thanks. So, to be clear, it's not the price that has you hesitant, but just wanting to make sure it's worth the money?

So would a free trial be better for that, or a few previews of past songs?

So, I just recently taught myself HTML & CSS, and this is my first project.

It's a simple site for people who like indie music--you can subscribe to a list for 16 bucks and get emailed a new artist everyday. I'm doing payments thru PayPal (I know, I know).

Any and all thoughts & criticism would be welcome. Thanks!

I personally think that the "internet" does need to learn about Congress, or at least be aware of what is going on. ICANN controls the root DNS servers for TLDs, and before ICANN, the US government did.

I agree with you. I think the free market infatuation many US politicians have without truly understanding it is a major reason for our predicament.

That said, a free market is capitalism at its purest, and in a free market, we'll get sweatshops and the like (which are very sought-after jobs in developing countries).

I guess my point is: semantics matter. If we want to push back against these effects, I think it's important to realize we're actually pushing ourselves away from capitalism and more towards a mixed market economy, which is a good thing in my judgement. But we shouldn't see a mixed market economy and call it capitalism, because they're not the same thing--mixed market economies attempt to mitigate capitalism's negative effects.

It's not that any and all forms of capitalism are bad, but capitalism has its benefits and its drawbacks. Obviously, there are lots of benefits. The aforementioned effects are some of its drawbacks.

I'm not sure why people have this notion that we can only take the good parts of capitalism and leave out the bad parts. It seems this is what you're suggesting--but how would we do that? Because when you do, you're most likely making the economy _less_ capitalist, and more of a mixed market economy.

> Also, hand-made isn't fighting against capitalism, it's fighting against mass-production, sweat-shops and machine-people jobs like the ones portrayed on Chaplin's City Lights or even Discovery Channel's How It's Made.

That's capitalism. To be more specific, those are inevitable effects of capitalism.

>Increasingly, the inequality comes from inherited social connections (social capital, mostly implicitly generational) and, as it increases, the decision-making elite becomes more insular. That's what most elites become (generational social networks, not meritocracies) and that is how societies rot.

Another thing this thread seems to be missing is that these inherited social connections are most definitely divided along racial lines.

Just as anecdotally, I have met plenty of them.

It's actually very disruptive, that post is missing the point. Yes, for some established businesses, it may not make sense. And they aren't overthrowing credit cards or banks, but that's not their aim. Square is democratizing payments--allowing anyone to be able to accept a credit card payment. Think of the implications of that: any small business owner will be able to accept credit cards, anywhere. Or my friend can directly pay me back money he owes me with a card. That wasn't possible before. They also have a really good chance of closing the "redemption loop," which is a huge, hairy, unsolved problem. They're very disruptive.

A few things: 1) There's an old game called Rocky's Boots, it subtly teaches engineering basics and is fun as hell. If you haven't checked it out yet, most definitely do. 2) Regarding computer teachers, krschmidt is definitely right. Teachers mostly do want to teach to the district guidelines because technology advances too rapidly for them and they want colleagues to be able to benchmark and bounce ideas with. The English literature canon doesn't change much, so those teachers feel they have a little more leeway. 3) Your market may be parents who want their kids to know how to program, especially homeschoolers. I don't know how large that market is, but it's definitely worth exploring.

It really depends on what the product is. If it's a product that the teachers would use in administration, then more than likely they wouldn't pay for it, since they have to use the school's admin software.

If the product is for them to use in the classroom, they'd be more likely to pay for it, but you'd have to be very price sensitive.

Honestly, I'd really need to know more about your product to give you better feedback.