davycro

I was going to post the same thing. My family uses the SPOT messenger. Whenever one of my brothers embarks on a dangerous trip, he takes it with him. Recently my brother kayaked through the Grand Canyon alone in the winter. Every day he would "check in" and we could see where he was camped and how much progress he made down the river that day.

Cormac McCarthy writes everything on a typewriter that cost him $50 in 1964 [1]. The novel, A Confederacy of Dunces was written by hand [2]. So I guess this means that when it comes to writing, especially writing fiction, the man and his mind are what matters.

[1] http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/04/cormac-mccarthy...

[2] http://www.broadwayworld.com/article/John-Kennedy-Tooles-A-C...

Agreed. But the video has to be quality. We have several flipped classrooms at my school, where you watch a video before lecture and then have an interactive session. The videos are mostly a professor talking over a PowerPoint deck, which is worse than a lecture.

Medical student here. I've tried many flashcard programs (StudyBlue, Quizlet, gFlashcard, MentalCase, and more), and Anki is by far the best for my needs.

One thing that puts Anki in an orbital beyond the other programs is the ImageOccusion editor add-on [1]. This lets you screenshot an image, draw rectangles over labels within that image, and then generate a flashcard for each label. This works insanely well for learning anatomy.

I remember about a month ago where I had two hours to learn the names of all the tracts and nuclei inside of the brainstem for a readiness quiz. It took about 10 minutes to create flashcards for them all, and an hour to memorize. I passed the quiz. Days later fellow classmates were still struggling to remember the same information.

1 - http://tmbb.bitbucket.org/image-occlusion-2.html

I just tested this service with gmail and it did in fact work. Pluto sends an image that contains the body of the message. After about 30 seconds the image is replaced with another that says "this message has expired."

A very remarkable hack! Especially since Gmail caches images on their own proxy servers. I wonder how long until Google finds a way to prevent this?

Here's some background information about the founders. One is a CS grad from Stanford, and former Google employee-- http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2014/4/2/law-school-email-...

I rely on flashcards for medical school. A few requirements that I would need to switch from Anki--

1) Copy paste of images. This is key. With my mac I screenshot a slide from an anatomy atlas to the clipboard. Then use the image occlusion editor to hide labels on the slide, and then I use the editor to highlight a certain area on the slide and ask "what is this muscle?" 70% of my cards require copy/paste of images. Without this feature I could never switch.

2) Cloud storage that synchronizes flashcards on my mac and mobile device. I do a lot of flashcard review in the gym, bathroom, waiting in line, etc. Without mobile I could not switch.

3) Searchable index of cards. I make a flashcard for every major piece of information that I need to know for school, and I use search to connect that information. For instance we spent the last 6 weeks learning about metabolic pathways and what factors regulate enzymes within them, but we never focused on specific regulators. With Anki, however, I can search for a certain activation enzyme, say protein kinase A, and then have a deck of flashcards showing me what pathways are affected by said enzyme.

Those are the biggest must have features for me that set Anki apart. There are loads of great minimal and social flashcard applications (eg Study Blue or Quizlet) available for average users, eg, someone learning spanish. You'll have to find a way to stand out from them.

Have you looked at the Dartmouth Atlas? They've been mapping healthcare costs for the last decade. Might have some good data and inspiration for you.

Reasons that I did not blog when I ran a company:

1) I'm a poor writer 2) Any insights that I shared would benefit my competitors and would be insignificant for customers

37signals is an outlier because their readers are potential customers

I'm surprised that people here are sympathizing with the criminal. Have you ever been robbed before?

Someone willing to pay $10 a month to hide ads probably uses AdBlock.

For this, he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize

> Going back to the subject of the article, I wonder how much this visit program actually costs, and whether it could be direct-marketed to wealthy people with elderly parents. "For $10,000(e.g.) a year, we can reduce your parents' hospitalizations by 33% and help them live independently." Sort of like concierge medicine.

Better yet, maybe health insurance companies could offer lower rates to chronic patients who enroll in a visit-program. They are the organizations with the most financial incentive to implement these programs.

Function is beauty.

I doubt you will find another sub $75 phone with a QWERTY keyboard and WhatsApp.

The Pink and Yellow colors are a nice touch too. I think low-income buyers are tired of being limited to just black and gray phones.

This looks fantastic. Keep in mind that this phone is designed for the worlds poor-- people who can barely afford enough prepaid airtime to send a text message. Nokia and WhatsApp are bringing technology to an underserved market that have the most to benefit from it. They are achieving what OLPC couldn't.

Now, I only wish this phone had a flashlight.

the iphone app pulsepoint is worth mentioning here. its designed to alert people with cpr training when a cardiac arrest occurs near them. if more people use this app them more people should survive this type of accident

Just the potential medical applications of Google Glass are enough for me to believe the hype. Doctors could use glass to: collect patient data (by photographing injuries, surgeries, symptoms, or lesions); automatically recall patient information (bar codes on patient charts could be scanned by glass and then used to lookup a patients history); automatically scan patients for visual symptoms (such as measuring mole size and looking for melanoma); or display a patients vitals in real time. I concede, however, that they may interfere with the relationship between a patient and a doctor by making it difficult for a patient to make eye contact, or by continually distracting the doctor.

I do agree with the author that Google Glass is a ridiculous consumer product. I wouldn't want to spend time with someone who wore them in a social setting, such as a bar or restaurant.

I think that friends always bailing on you is a sign that you are boring. Reading this article reminded me of this quote from Anne Lamott:

"There are certain people whose company you love, whose mind you love to pick, whose running commentary totally holds your attention, who makes you laugh out loud. When you have a friend like this, she can say: “Hey, I’ve got to drive up to the dump in Petaluma—wanna come along?” and you honestly can’t think of anything in the world you’d rather do. By the same token, a boring or annoying person can offer to buy you an expensive dinner, followed by tickets to a great show, and in all honesty you’d rather stay home and watch the Jello harden."

For now just web and SMS. I am not sure which platform to use if my cohorts and I decide expand our project outside of Cape Town. Shoot me an email at me@davecro.com if you would like to talk more about it. I'd be interested in hearing about your work in Nairobi. Cheers, David

I think most people in cape town will spend up to $100 for a phone. It's by far the most important possession here. Data plans are prepaid.

Awesome, I am developing mobile software in Cape Town and wish Android phones had a higher adoption rate so I could build gps enabled apps for medical workers. Nairobi has a reputation for being the most tech forward city in Africa and hearing you can buy android phones for $50 there adds to that.

For the record I'm not African. I've been in rsa for only three months.

> Almost half of those surveyed were using internet-enabled smart or “feature” phones. The scratch cards that many Kenyans use to charge their mobiles have recently begun to advertise their value in terms of data rather than talk time. Meanwhile, mobile-phone operators have been giving free access to sites such as Wikipedia to entice customers.

> Still, only 16% of respondents said they were using their phones to browse the internet.

The iHub report I read said that 88% of Kenyans browse the Internet with their mobile phone instead of 16%. The same report says that 99% of Internet access from Kenya is through a mobile device. I think the Western world assumes people in developing countries are dependent on computers for Internet access because of the popularity of the One Laptop Per Child program. I think we should recognize that the developing world will probably never have the resources or desire to adopt laptops or personal computers and so we should instead focus on providing them with web-content sized for their devices and hardware organizations such as OLPC should look into reducing the cost of smartphones. In my personal experience an android device in Africa costs at minimum of $200.

Reading this article reminds me that there is a huge demand for mobile Internet in developing world and few companies are capitalizing on this.

I agree with your points. However, I think that this market is underserved and ripe for some form of profitable innovation.

> People in third-world countries don't care about the average U.S. site, and if they did, they would find someone with a computer that probably is 5-7 years old, possibly older, therefore they wouldn't be using that resolution.

The most popular websites in the developing world are Facebook and Google. American culture is huge in Africa. Africans visit websites with information about American movies, celebrities, and rap music. However, less than 5% of Africans own a computer and of these, few can afford an Internet connection. Over 90% of Africans rely entirely on prepaid mobile phones to access the Internet. They do not use computers. I estimate that a billion or more people are using these devises to browse the Internet.

When I first arrived I thought that Android would be the dominant upcoming phone. But for reasons I do not understand, the devices are marked up. An iPhone 4 in South Africa will cost $800. I would like to see more android phones in the developing world, because developing for Nokia is a pain.

Nah, make it available through a browser. For pre-paid users, SMS costs far more then data which is why WhatsApp is so popular in the developing world.

> Furthermore, despite the fact that small-screen phones with web browsers exist, that doesn't mean that people actually use them to browse the web.

Actually they do. Over 90% of African's use their mobile phone for internet access. Around 5% of African's have an internet connection and computer. For people in the developing world, a mobile phone is 'good enough'. It provides them will access to email, facebook, and google.

I understand that you do not intend on making your content to African's-- my website has not been optimized for these devices. But, keep in mind that by doing this, both you and I are restricting our content from roughly one billion people.

I just spent the last three months developing a mobile app for the South African market and I disagree. In South Africa, Android phones cost USD $200 and higher. I bought a Nokia X2-01 for USD $50. Android phones must drop into the USD $50 range before they will have traction and I am not sure this will be possible.

I agree with the author that people in low income areas do not care about high speed internet access. In my experiences developing healthcare software for people living in South African townships, people in these areas get along just fine with feature-phones. Feature-phones are easy to use. They allow people to check Facebook, email, and chat. This covers 99% of their needs so they have little motivation to purchase a computer, figure out how to use it, and then pay the money (which they do not have) for monthly internet.

There is hope however. People here love smartphones only they cannot afford them. If Google wants to provide internet and computer access to people in low-income areas, then I suggest they create an Android phone that costs less than $50 and can be used on a pre-paid voice and data plan. After this I suggest they create an affordable tablet.

Also, it is surprising how few people have the technical capacity to understand the amazing ness of Google Fiber. When it was released I shared it with my friend who studies medicine at Yale. My friend did not even understand or care about the difference between a 1Gb/s internet connection and a 1Mb/s. He thought the internet was fast enough as it is.

Shame on Brian for claiming to be a poor developer about to be crushed by a big company (see quote below). I feel like a fool for up voting him.

Shame on WhosHere for suing Brian. People are not confusing these two apps. Brian did not steal the WhosHere brand or product.

Here's an example of stealing a product, of when it's appropriate to sue:

My Facebook app Quiz Monster was cloned by mike onagai (a man from hong kong). He copy pasted my CSS and JavaScript. His app looked exactly like mine. He then started emailing my users with links to his site, claiming to be me.

Appbank (a vc funded company) almost did the same thing, they definitely stole my design. The only reason I did not sue is because my product was better and more popular. They didn't seem like a threat. Nowadays I think facebook apps are silly. It must seriously suck to be Appbank or Mike Onagai. They have to make Facebook apps, I get to build whatever I feel like.

Also I think stealing fuels innovation. Facebook came from facesmash, a clone of hotornot. So did YouTube. Appbank started as a clone of quiz monster, but they evolved into something better, something original, and innovative. I'm happy for them.

> "I was born wealthy; I have an obscene trust fund. I assure you that if required, I will obtain the best legal representationmfor corporate litigation in the Silicon Valley. After your last proposal, I will resist this legal action well beyondmwhat makes any financial sense, simply out of principal."

And they used their inflated valuation to acquire a whole mess of start-ups. I like your style FB.