chefsurfing

Recent changes that Quora has made to their interface ( several UI dark patterns implemented to get people to automatically share / integrate with FB / Twitter ) as well as this move of hiding answers makes me believe that they are desperate, not confident. I had high hopes for Quora from the beginning but have been continually let down to the point where Quora seems like ExpertsExchange 2.0 now.

T-shirts and common schwag excite more people than one might think. Ask designer(s) to to donate something beautiful.

I am curious what you think of Eben Moglen's "Freedom Box" project?

http://freedomboxfoundation.org/ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgu8NUm5Zxk

They can integrate if they can make a successful bid to join the cartels or gain significant leverage with the uber-cartels ( governmental entities ).

I think your analysis is correct. It seems likely they will be forced to integrate and become a taxi service dispatch infrastructure provider. It seems a smarter move to accept how "sub-optimal" markets such as these have become and deal with unreality on it's terms than to resist the corruption outright on principal.

We were very surprised that this data was not already available some where ( I mean, it's just a list right? ) So we decided to post this to github and see if people would respond. Please let us know if you run into any trouble!

This is true. If possible it is best to start with $10k of extra funds beyond this in order to remove any worry of cash-flow issues. We are participating in Round 3 and the experience although not without it's challenges has been quite positive so far. Startup Chile held a graduation party on Friday for Round 2. Most of the teams are leaving Santiago either this week or within a few weeks and it is obvious they would prefer to continue. The staff and fellow entrepreneurs are most supportive of each other.

Be prepared to spend about one month just settled when you arrive. Most important advice I can give is to work on finding an apartment before you arrive to Chile as this has been a challenge to many who arrive. Startup Chile connects each team with a local who can help you by visiting apartments before you even arrive. Also, spring time will be coming soon and if it makes sense for your team, you can stay anywhere in Chile on the coast or in the south where the natural surroundings and outdoor activities are quite inspiring.

If the Skyscraper Index is predictive this is not a good sign for China's economic growth. ;) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skyscraper_Index

> There's a real question as to whether war ought to be shown in all its gory "It is almost impossible to produce antiwar films or documentaries that also present images of battle. It is like trying to condemn pornography while showing erotic love scenes. The prurient fascination with violent death always overpowers the message. War has become part of the modern industrial landscape. Indeed, its tools are often the cutting edge of technology." - from Chris Hedges' "War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning"

Great speech here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2SaM8RJ30c

How you snip the name from another 80's band and let the name... "Mmmmmmmmm... DROP!" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnPQdrPnCpE :)

My favorite quote: "stop pulling stupid stunts and to start listening". Great post, thank you for sharing.

The influence of RAND Corp on this legislation is instructive. CISPA is not the creation of Hollywood or even the FBI, it's coming from people building a technocratic military-industrial complex.

Interesting background interview with RAND researcher here: http://www.corbettreport.com/episode-173-alex-abella-inside-...

Didn't the Greeks crack it with the Trivium? http://www.triviumeducation.com/

Bravo! The earth has been waiting for this. ;)

> how old are you? The great thing about this rhetorical device is that it is both a fallacious and non-fallacious ad hominem. Asking the persons age is a legitimate question given the question of how important NYT is to public life. It's also a legitimate dig. "Ah. I see what you've done here."

I'd pay to read your daydream if it were an ebook.. it sounds like fun.. like Bruce Sterling meets Adam Mansbach.

IMHO "granular" is the problem, not the solution. Unless of course granular can also be easy/native to the core usage pattern. Not sure why FB hasn't cracked this nut yet, but seems like EveryMe is working on getting granular right, which makes it worthy of attention.

5k is just enough per team member, but not per team. I write this based on our recent experience; Our team of three arrived about two weeks ago to participate in the Startup Chile program. My suggestion is that your Startup Chile team needs to have 2 months of up-front expenses covered as it takes time to get the reimbursement process started. Between travel insurance, flights, apartment rental ( guarantee, deposit, two-months payment ), dining out and getting to know Santiago, bureaucratic payments ( such as the $470 USD immigration payment at the airport of US citizens upon arrival ), Visa application payments etc. You will be reimbursed for all of these expenses but combined together all within two months they are considerable.

We are enjoying very much participating in the program so far. It truly is the deal of a lifetime. The atmosphere is great and the impact it is having on Chile is becoming visible. Santiago is a great city with a higher quality of life than many cities in North America or Europe today. We are honored to participate in Startup Chile and I can already suggest it without reservation to any serious entrepreneur.

+1 He definitely is the "real deal". Known this guy for years and he is all of the above + healthy and hearty. Much startup experience and independent projects. Working with him on this would be a true adventure for those who have the privilege.

For passwords Nate suggests combining values from the name of the site with memorized values. Any security experts know if this will result in a reliable level of security?

> In this case, icons, although they may look nice, should always be accompanied by text. So right. Icons are too ambiguous for across-the-board use as Google has been implementing.

How would your dream compare and contrast to an efficient freight rail system?

The skeuomorphism is failry subtle. Maybe if squeak / etoys had this interface it would have gained wider adoption?

I am certain a world full of autodidacts would supersed the university system we see today. For these autodidacts the universe might truly become a "University of Life". I am also certain that the true barriers keeping most people from becoming autodidacts are not financial or social but rather built by the schooling system into our minds. This schooling system itself was probably setup to create obedient soldiers and weapons technicians so as to win wars. Can someone please queue Pink Floyd's "Another Brick In The Wall" [1]?

[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YR5ApYxkU-U&feature=fvwre...

Not one person is born with the skills listed. They are all learned through experience - Same as programming. If anyone has learned anything valuable from hearing "verbally stated principles" please send me a link to that podcast! However verbally stated instructions on how to pass through a specific educational experience are more likely helpful to the learning process.

"I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand." - Confucius

Reading this reminds me of this quote: “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” - Buckminster Fuller

and another darker vision: "For if you [the rulers] suffer your people to be ill-educated, and their manners to be corrupted from their infancy, and then punish them for those crimes to which their first education disposed them, what else is to be concluded from this, but that you first make thieves [outlaws] and then punish them." Sir Thomas More (1478-1535), Utopia, Book 1

Here's an idea for a frighteningly ambitions startup: Kill the prison-industrial complex! How? Fight crime! It costs a lot of taxpayer money and social wealth to keep things the way they are. Ostensibly the goal is to keep people safe from criminals and reduce crime opportunities.

A friend of mine was mugged on the street for his iPhone last night. He was stabbed in the leg when he fought back (mistake but he's ok thankfully). I wonder if a few high-res web-cams on the street would have kept the attackers at bay?

How about a Peer-to-Peer police/surveillance state? Found these startup ideas tonight:

idea: turn my webcam into a security cam [1] http://ideashower.posterous.com/idea-turn-my-webcam-into-a-s...

idea: millions of sensors / millions of surveys [2] http://ideashower.posterous.com/idea-millions-of-sensors-mil...

Jared Spool's article "Market Maturity" [1] published in 1997 is a very good way to understand what kind of experience is required for success. He argues that success depends on market maturity which roughly follows four stages: 1. Basic deliverability war, 2. Feature parity war, 3. Productivity / "ease of use" then finally 4. Price war.

Stage 3 is generally where UX becomes a priority. For a consumer web product or startup this generally makes sense as a marker for market maturity as delivering technology and shipping features has become easy and cheap. Crafting UX is difficult but probably won't be for long. For example Twitter Bootstrap seems to be lowering the cost of boilerplate UI which in turn lowers the cost of UX in general.

[1] http://www.uie.com/articles/market_maturity/

We just ran into this problem yesterday. A box with overflow: scroll will appear un-scrollable to users. It is a great example of form over function. Apple is too far on the form part of the equation quite often. Another example are the sharp edges on laptops... it makes you wonder if "user is able to slit wrists with edge of laptop" is one of their user stories. Obviously "looks cool" has it's drawbacks as a product requirement ( and I'm a designer ).

Slicing apple with laptop video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZvMlzVxQJE

Great! However the pacing still feels dense. I think beginners reading this could use two things: 1. more frequent sectioning and 2. more examples. Bonus round would be giving the students a way to actively demonstrate their newly gained knowledge inline with the tutorial. Anyway, I think what you've got is fantastic.

I've been using Twitter Bootstrap on a two projects for months. It has a huge upside, even for designers who write their own CSS. Version 2 seems to be filling in some gaps ( like responsive design and navigation lists/tabs ) and "filling out" with many nice-to-haves ( like progress bars ). I'm really looking forward to using version 2. Thank you Mark and Twitter team for the great work!