foulmouthboy

Did anybody else think of Ford Prefect and his theory that unless human beings are constantly communicating, they shrivel up and die?

The thing that bothers me most is that Google's obviously trying to be sensitive in not displaying ads to people who might be in mourning and this "hack" exploits that. It's like hitting on women at a funeral.

Kids hate flashcards?

Cheap and ubiquitous, but also those previous "displosable" TVs just aren't getting disposed. It's not so hard to imagine that an "average" home went from a perfectly fine tube TV to an upgraded version to a more recent flat screen. The previous two televisions end up in the garage/kitchen/guest room.

I don't know how "ultimate" this guide is if it doesn't include any information about Acer who is devoting much of its effort towards netbook technology. Not to mention Samsung, who are also releasing solid products and have the background in mobile technology to pull something off successfully.

Also, the author's comments in the article come off extremely defensive as people are pointing out his shortcomings. He seems to have completely missed his own point and is resorting to snide remarks.

I don't think it's so crazy. A solid digital delivery system would be a great compliment to the Amazon Cloud. Beyond digital delivery, I would think that Amazon would be able to make some great use out of the Netflix recommendation system.

You might want to make that explicit in the copy.

I'm not sure what that has to do with the article. The article was primarily about how playing video games might affect kids' brains and didn't come to any conclusion either way that would've required knowing that kids in the past watched a lot of TV.

I don't think Google's lying when it says that content is the "best" way to get people. Sure, a combination of terrific marketing and some gray to black hat SEO techniques will get plenty of visits quickly, but the solid content will be what keeps visitors coming back and referring a site to others. In that respect, good content isn't the "fastest" way to get people, but I'd suggest that it's still the "best".

Take the pop music example a step further. The most popular singers at any given moment will consist of those that are the most hyped and marketed, but that group will also have genuinely talented individuals who have maintained popularity because they are able to live up to the hype.

All that said, I agree that marketing and promotion is just as important as building a great product. That's basically the same thing as being able to communicate why something's great instead of hoping that people will just figure it out for themselves.

It's definitely not production ready, but I still hold out hope. Two things right off the bat to increase its functionality would be to make the columns sortable and to provide ability to set the column headers equal to a particular value.

For example, if I run a search on San Diego restaurants to get an idea of where to go for lunch, I'd like to be able to set cuisine and price and build from there. I could see other comparisons working similarly.

I'm talking about the original Gladwell article. In the original article, Gladwell points out that there are rules that competitors limit themselves to despite the fact that they aren't explicitly laid out. The coaches of other teams were upset at this particular team because, as they put it, it's unfair to keep using a full court press against 12 year old girls.

The other example Gladwell referenced was of a naval simulation primarily played by people well versed in military strategy. While most players used traditional strategies seen throughout history, one player found that the optimal strategy was something that would never work in real life, but was totally feasible within the rules of the game. The other players cried foul because he went against the "spirit" of the game, despite not breaking any rules.

Again, the point of the article: The best way to win is to not limit yourself by rules that don't exist.

[edit] I realize we're talking about two different things. I don't really have an opinion either way in regards to running the full court press more often at other levels of competitive basketball. I still think people are missing the point of the original article, and Gladwell isn't helping himself by going on about the full court press thing.

Agreed. I especially am frustrated with the people who are excited because, "you can see each letter the other person types as they type it during chats!"

There's very little appeal in that. Lots of people need to edit typos and want to formulate complete thoughts before letting others see them. On the other hand, the underlying technology that will make that process even possible is what's really exciting. I'm looking forward to what creative people will be doing with it.

All of these criticisms miss Gladwell's point. The point isn't the full court press. It's that the teams that were beaten by the full court press thought it broke some sort of unwritten rule of youth basketball that supposedly reads, "don't full court press".

The whole point of the article is that in areas of competition or warfare, very often, one side lives (and sometimes dies) by obeying rules that don't actually exist. Goliath thought that, win or lose, the battle should happen hand to hand and David knew to use a sling and a rock to his advantage.

When one side is playing by a certain set of rules that the other side doesn't have to acknowledge, then the side with fewer rules has an advantage. That's the point.

Another way to say this is, "How to cater to the lowest common denominator".

52 minutes and counting. ;)

This and the "war on terror" are perfect examples of not creating actionable, measurable goals for an initiative. The equivalent of this in business strategy are projects with goals like, "Make the best iPhone App ever" and "Make the company more social".

How do you know when to stop? How do you know when you're done?

We see that in analytics all the time.

"The numbers are being collected, why would I need somebody to analyze them?"

I'm hoping it gets to a lawsuit so that it can either be shot down to give precedent to keep this kind of ridiculousness at bay or actually seen through so that I can start making SRJC email addresses to see exactly how they expect to enforce this rule.

What this blog appears to be taking three posts to get to and previously on HN: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=478632

I'm imagining it will be quicker than that. There are a lot of schools that use licensed, photocopied "readers" along with or even instead of the actual textbooks. Universities could do much better margins by making these types of texts digital and authors/professors would be able to publish and update at much greater frequency.

Publishers would be much better off building a business model now rather than repeating the RIAA's mistakes.

Quality > Quantity.

Big Quantity of Quality > Small Quantity of Quality

And even then, item 2 is a simple example of how attention to seemingly slight details can draw the eye to site features without resorting to a big button.

What better way to make your product better for your users than to improve on things your competitors don't do well? I think that despite size, good strategic business thinking should always take into account the competition.

I'm hoping someone invents a new tech meme to kill the "killer" meme.

Is the preconfigured lab really that valuable in today's workplace? I would think that a greater value would be in students receiving recommendations on software and configurations and then letting them discover what truly works for them.

This reads painfully like a commercial for OnLive. No need for big clunky consoles! No download times!

The thing that worries me about this is the fact that I was already uncomfortable with the idea that Facebook might be making my private information public. For them to be integrating Twitter-like features doesn't exactly make me feel better. Twitters main draw seems to be in communicating with huge numbers of strangers while Facebook lets me talk to lots of friends at once.

It's already been posted and doesn't need to be posted again.

I don't know why first mover advantage wouldn't be a good explanation for this case. Just because other companies squandered their first mover advantage doesn't mean they didn't have it initially. The big barrier to entry for a Craigslist competitor would seem to be brand identity since people want to buy and sell where they know other people are buying and selling. First mover advantage plays a big part in establishing that brand identity.

Eff it. I'm going to 6. Web 6.0!