dskhatri

Nice to see they reference an iPod instead of a Nexus One. Somehow I feel that if it was a Microsoft announcement, the company would reference Zunes.

A good point and it seems to be validated in studies involving new democracies: http://www.technologyreview.com/article/25048/

"Unexpectedly, the civic decisions--often involving road, sanitation, and water projects--were nearly identical whether made by majority vote or village elites. Giving power to the people, it seems, does not automatically lead to tangible material changes. Yet when people were allowed to vote, they expressed greater contentment with the results."

Why not have QB deploy the kickstand/third wheel on low-battery conditions?

In case you missed it, here's a decent summary of Saturday's live webcast: http://www.youtube.com/v/0lXfy43L8Og

I just received my Envy 15 last night. It's a beautifully designed machine but has 2 glaring flaws:

1. The screen only tilts to ~105-110 degrees. This makes it tough to use on your lap or on a short table (commonly found in coffee shops sadly).

2. The AC-DC power supply is bulky. The plug has 3 pins too. Earth is not needed for laptop power supplies! There is no electric shock risk for a laptop user! I was dismayed to find such a hideous power supply bundled with this laptop.

Not to be snarky, but why isn't John Gruber an evangelist at Apple? Surely Apple would want him on their team.

Emacs' org-mode. I've been using it for the past several months and love it. Some links:

http://searchyc.com/org-mode

http://orgmode.org/org.html

That's a good question. He only mentions a bubble concentration of 1ppm by volume but nothing about the area.

I agree. 'Calendar' & 'RSS Reader' aren't much of a categories and shouldn't have the same weight as "Gaming" or "Ad Network"

What's so wrong in releasing a base product that is comparable to your competitor's first? Then add the differentiating features as you complete them. Releasing these new features will be good for PR/marketing too.

What about your trusted customers? Do you have any customers you are working with to develop your product? If they still believe in your product, keep working hard on it. Release a version - with fewer features than you planned on - sooner. What do people think about this suggestion? It sounds reasonable to me but I'm basing it on others' advice (Steve Blank on customer development) and not on experience.

Where in Los Angeles are you?

Yes, very clever! Is there any chance you would offer 2 or 3 different themes? I recognize that some users may like the look of the site but how about an option to select another theme for those of us who enjoy the quality of the search results but can't stand the range of colors and font style?

NewsLabs sounds cool. There may be a lot of journalists out there frustrated with the constraints of working with a big media organization and want to do their own thing. NewsLabs could create the next Arianna Huffingtons.

Data Marketplace is promising: market research firms charge ridiculous fees for their reports which are usually overkill for what you are looking for. Data Marketplace could solve this problem.

Greplin sounds cool. 500Friends sounds like it'll generate revenue straight off the bat.

Betaworks is a conglomerate of web applications: http://betaworks.com/work/

I like their About Us presentation: http://betaworks.com/about/ (made using Prezi: http://prezi.com/)

I share the same wonderment! In the 20 years of growing up in Kenya, I had never heard of anyone with allergies. I am baffled about how widespread allergies are in the US. Could the prolonged use of germ-killing products in the US cause this disparity? Unfortunately, I do not have statistics on allergy prevalence in Kenya vs. USA, and my wonderment is based simply on observation/experience.

[Edit]. The Hygiene Hypothesis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hygiene_hypothesis): "In medicine, the hygiene hypothesis is a hypothesis that states that a lack of early childhood exposure to infectious agents, symbiotic microorganisms (e.g., gut flora or probiotics), and parasites increases susceptibility to allergic diseases by modulating immune system development"

[Edit2]. Statistics on the prevalence of allergies in the US: http://aaaai.org/media/statistics/allergy-statistics.asp

Cool, thanks for the tip. I might make it!

The guys who made the Rube Goldberg machine are brilliant hackers based in LA: http://syynlabs.com/

More illusions: http://web.mit.edu/persci/gaz/gaz-teaching/index.html

"There is no counterbalancing force. "

There is a company offering an interesting service to fight patent trolls: http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/feb2010/tc201...

I meant that if he was given the opportunity to work under Stephen Hawking, his research must have been impeccable and unquestionable. I think there is a good correlation between being ethical and being a good researcher.

That's pretty harsh and unobjective! I haven't read anything to suggest patent trolling is equivalent to a Ponzi-scheme. Furthermore, give the man benefit of the doubt. For a person who did a Post Doc with Stephen Hawking, it's difficult to believe he is absolutely lacking in ethics and morals.

An in-residence collective sounds like a great idea! Again in LA, I know of one great example for artists: the Brewery Arts Complex: http://www.thebreweryartistlofts.com/brewery_website_002.htm

I'm a big fan of hacker labs/collectives like Saul's Squid Labs. Here are some others I know of:

Squid Labs (Bay Area): http://www.squid-labs.com/

Applied Minds (LA): http://www.appliedminds.com/

Syyn Labs (LA): http://syynlabs.com/

NYC Resistor (NYC): http://nycresistor.com

Any others?

Wouldn't medium-sized and large companies benefit a lot from having small but independent (free to hack on whatever they feel like) "skunk works" labs like these? I'm not sure if the research labs at Microsoft, IBM are equivalent.

The Synn Labs folk are cool hackers. They often have their interactive tech projects on display at Mindshare. If you're in LA, Mindshare (http://mindshare.la) is a monthly event that I highly recommend.

Catchy app name!

Some suggestions:

- The "Start Building Stuff" menu is too wide (1/3 of the page width). When a user selects to build a contact form or a slideshow, you could hide this menu or offer a smaller menu instead.

- I signed in but still get the "Join Today" button on the home page.

- The button on the top right that reads "Free Account, Click Here for Dashboard" could be redone for a logged in user. Maybe "Welcome firstName! Start Here". Would your typical user understand what a "dashboard" is?

- Finally, a comment you'll probably hear a lot: let a user start building without having to join. As a final step, you could ask the user to join.

Here's a presentation to Congress by Molycorp, the company referenced in the article as the owner of the Californian mine (the largest rare-earth metal mine outside China): http://www.molycorp.com/pdf/MMCEMARCH09.pdf

Two observations from the presentation:

a) it is an interesting example of how to lobby for government funding, and

b) looking at the hybrid vehicle supply chain figure, it is startling how dependent the future of clean energy is on magnets which are made from rare-earth metals: magnets play a big role conversion of mechanical energy to electrical energy - wind, hydro, wave turbines require magnets, and vice versa (permanent magnet motors for hybrids, electric vehicles etc.)

The NYTimes piece linked to in this article is a shorter read, although it focuses on the environmental impact of mining the rare-earth metals :

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/26/business/global/26rare.htm...

I noticed that response to an article varies predictably over time. The best time to submit an article to HN seems to be weekday mornings PST.

In the introduction note, Bill says:

"I take a lot of notes, and often share them and my own thoughts on the subject with others through email"

Besides email (which isn't that great if you don't have GMail style threads), I wonder whether he and other prominent personalities use a closed discussion forum to engage in discourse about interesting topics like HN does. I can understand why he would be hesitant to comment on a public forum like HN.

That said, it's great to see people like PG, DHH (and others) mix with the no-names (or future-names) on HN.