1,295 karma · joined August 9, 2013
Personally, this is true for me. I've lived in four cities and three countries in my relatively short life, and my immediate family is often in four countries at any one time. I have friends around the world, who are starting families, getting married and generally living their lives. Facebook's products are the best way for us to stay connected to each other.
The world has never dealt with issues we're now facing, on the scale we're now facing. The lessons we learn as a society from Facebook, both its successes and failures, will only make whatever comes next that much better. Every single day, I work alongside incredibly smart people who are empowered to turn the tide. We're making a difference but perception often lags reality. It's also a really, really big ship to turn around.
I've been given an opportunity to be part of the solution. I know that I would regret it forever if I didn't give it a try - if not me, who else?
Some companies will have spectacular failures as well as spectacular successes. Successful companies are able to learn from both and iterate.
Unreal and Unreal Tournament were absolute block busters that paved the way for Fortnite, just as Paragon did. You wouldn't have arrived at Fortnite without first going through the ups and downs that preceded it.
By your logic, a company can only be considered successful if they never make mistakes, which is a severely flawed position.
Unity has done an incredible job of making game development accessible. So much so that when I wanted an extra 30 days on their trial period, I reached out over Skype and was answered within minutes by the founder (who was CEO at the time) and issued a new license key.
Unreal adapted to that market change - they didn't do it half-assed either, they did it properly and with conviction. Their success with Fortnite isn't a one-off, it's come from an astute market awareness and adaptability.
The fact that they turned this fund into reality so quickly is exactly why Fortnite and the Unreal engine is a success.
I ignored Destiny 2 when it first came out, then picked it up on Black Friday last year with all the expansions. I basically treat it as a single player game and absolutely love it. The combat is so sharp and tight, the missions are enjoyable.
I know it has a lot to offer with raids and fireteams and all of that, but I just want a few hours of escapism and for that, it truly delivers.
Facebook does exactly this. The second report was published a little over a month ago: https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/11/enforcing-our-community...
Disclaimer: I work at Facebook, on Integrity, so this is near and dear to my heart.
In a similar vein, 18 months ago I came out of an 11 year relationship. It took me a while after that to realise that my sleep cycle was not actually mine. Naturally, I’m a morning person but had been forcing myself to be a night owl to fit with my partner’s rhythm.
These unexpected but dramatic changes in our lives always lead to self-reflection and growth - if we let them.
I hope 2019 goes well for you!
If I can nail this, everything else will fall into place. I’ll naturally drink less alcohol and eat better. In the last few months, I’ve experimented (via Apple Watch) with the impact that alcohol and diet has on sleep.
The book Why We Sleep, combined with habit theory, has had the greatest influence on this decision.
Look at fast food restaurant menus and the processed/frozen food section of your supermarket and it is 50% cheaper to feed a family of four that way (and perceived to be faster) than it is to use fresh, healthy ingredients.
Then factor in less-developed countries, where access to food is a major issue (today, it was announced that ~85,000 have died in Yemen due to starvation) and it becomes clear - for a very large portion of the world, diet is not a simple choice.
Making it mandatory (or strongly pushing it) greatly increases the level of trust people have in your company. The data suggests it is a worthwhile convenience trade-off.
I hope they take the time now to streamline their UX. A mobile-first bank is an outstanding idea and Monzo have been the best to execute on it, but avoiding bloat and maintaining speed and simplicity will be one of their biggest product challenges.
The thought that they don't care that much is really strange, because every single keynote that I can remember has included game demos. They always use game demos, from AAA game developers like Epic, to come out and show off the latest capabilities. They could take a sizeable chunk of PS4 and Xbox One customers very easily - fund the development of some genuinely AAA, exclusive games, bundle the controller in the box and the thing would sell like hotcakes. Nintendo is somewhat safe because their IP is much more valuable than Xbox or Sony, who basically offer the same games with a few notable exceptions.
I've been using iOS since the iPhone 3G and have built apps for it. I know iOS inside out. I recently started a new job where the vast majority of our customers use Android. I therefore chose my work phone to be Android, so I could use the same platform that our customers use.
Wow - is it confusing! Nothing is intuitive, and I genuinely find it very hard to use and get into a rhythm with. It's a Galaxy S9, so hardly a "bad" Android phone.
My takeaway is that so much of the way we use our devices, especially our phones, becomes muscle memory. Android is not badly designed, neither is iOS, it's just that I've built up a decade's worth of muscle memory, coming from hundreds of interactions a day with the device, that switching to a different paradigm is going to feel jarring.
I don’t think there is anything wrong for Wirecutter to say “hey, we make money from affiliate sales - do you guys have a program we can sign up to?”. That’s totally cool. But he does such an awful job of saying that and makes it sound so much worse.
I used them when I was freelancing and working on public wifi. Super easy to use and reliable.
A carrier should just be dumb pipes. Slowly, Apple has been eroding the value that a carrier adds (the iPhone Upgrade Program being the single biggest shot fired towards carriers). I would love to never, ever have to deal with a carrier and their scammy sales tactics ever again.
What can Apple gain from being a carrier? Seamless set up of devices and international roaming. In Europe, we already have data roaming across borders and it is incredible to have a device "just work" when I step off a plane. Bringing the "it just works" mentality to the service layer makes a lot of sense for Apple now. Importantly, unlike carriers, Apple doesn't need the cell network in and of itself to make money. It just serves to push the model this article articulates so well.
The biggest barrier they are going to face is the connectivity issue - they can make the best augmented reality glasses or cellular AirPods, or wireless, portable outdoor speakers, but without seamless connectivity, they won't be able to "just work". The rollout of 5G might just be the opportunity they need to execute on this.
By far the best investment I ever made for house cleaning though is a cordless Dyson vacuum. It’s mounted on the wall and I end up vacuuming (5 mins max) every day so it hardly feels like a chore.
If thats the case, it's interesting that he wasn't aware of the fundamentals of the technology that enabled the people he was investigating.