gohat

I took a sociology class (briefly!) and one of the things that left a tremendous impression on me was how in some cultures, sexuality is completely different. That sexual drives are perhaps not universal, and that they can be very largely shaped by your culture.

If so, then something like adolescence could likely also be susceptible to such an effect.

Writing from the developers side, this type of functionality is extremely useful. Many products are review driven, and getting reviews is not easy. Reviews tend to fuel traffic and demand especially in the App store context.

But as a user, I strongly dislike being spammed. Here, what seems nice is that it waits until 30 days use before asking and only asks once per version, which is good for multiple reasons. (I'd likely personally keep it to once ever though)

My reaction to this was to laugh and think 'what a surprise!' That said, interesting that he claims most of the work was done by the US.

I've done a lot of SEO and my experience is that you can get great amounts of traffic if you think creatively and approach things the right way. If you want to gain traffic by ranking well for "music downloads," good luck! If you, however, research the music niche and find 5 keywords with low competition and 20,000 monthly searches, you could easily build good traffic.

One example - I have a health site, and realized that I could write an article on medications when they were officially named - as until then, the name was a closely kept trade secret. This type of trick could lead to gaining traffic over established players like WebMD who were less nimble.

Ultimately, you need SEO, you need great content, you need everything if you want to succeed. But SEO still works very well and still offers plenty of room for people to outmaneuver and perform the big names.

I've been taking macroeconomics and one of the questions asked, "Do you think this is a good model to explain this phenomenon?"

My answer? "If a two variable equation can explain things that PhD/MBA's with 20+ years experience don't get, yes."

Economics is very valuable but, imo, mostly on a higher level.

This is nice, but more developed, cutesy ones with animals and such are all the rage. Maybe they should ask the guy at The Oatmeal comic if he'd be willing to help; he did the Tumblr one for free iirc and it's fairly awesome.

I don't think this question is as profound as it seems. Basically, it is asking: If a civilization had access to the resources to create a technology, why didn't they?

Take perspective, or drawing things so that they look real. Closer things are bigger, further things smaller. Until it was invented around the Renaisance (1400/1500), all art was flat and kinda clumpy. Why couldn't people draw nice things until then?

That's what new technology is. A profound change in how we use resources.

Whenever I start a project in the internet/web app field, the first thing is to come up with a great idea and get excited about it.

Then do nothing.

The next step? Check thoroughly to see if it was done already.

He doesn't spend much time visiting Reddit anymore - except to submit articles saying he doesn't.

Assume you have little willpower, and set up if and then statements.

a) Little willpower: we react to our environment. Think you have limited willpower then act to create an envrionment which supports your good behaviors.

b) Plan using 'if then' thinking. Studies show that this conditional approach is the key to getting things done.

For example, If I see the delicious unhealthy item on sale for $5 at Store X, then I do behavior Y.

I'm not sure these examples are entirely failed tests - rather they teach what is working and what isn't.

How does one share their happiness with other people in a way that makes sense? "Today, I am happy. The world is lovely." [then what?]

Why would you admire and want to learn from someone whose main appeal is that they are happy? What would bring a great deal of people to their blog/site?

That said, there are some lifestyle blogs that do exist like Zen Habits.

I'm an undergraduate at a school, Brown, that has a somewhat decent entrepreneurial mindset. What I've seen is that it is not necessarily something you can force.

You can't from top down try to make someone do a startup.

But what you can do is create an environment which has the culture and attitude that promotes it.

That said, I think telling someone or a group to go and come up with a good business idea - then helping it develop and become viable, is perhaps the best way to promote it in a school setting.

Yes, it is a bit melodramatic.

I think the key message of this article is to realize how much power big internet companies have gained over our lives. And how they don't find dealing with problems efficient, so just rely on automated systems that can greatly fail people.

I'm sure that you've done a great deal of challenging/complex programs in pursuing your major.

If this is so, and you can't program, then how did they appear?

thanks - don't see your email tho? mine is dgurevich5@gmail.com

Those are some good ideas, thanks. Again, a lot is my comfort level. Will definitely look into it; maybe there are some that I am fine with, and the margins could be quite good.

Sure, done, thanks.

I think Hacker News is a gem then as it is now. Simple idea, great topics, and a wonderful community. Just works very nicely.

I've been writing about health and medical topics for a long time and this piece does a good job of discussing how the science can get 'icky.'

First, let me say that in general, modern medicine has done wonders, increasing duration and quality of life in astonishing ways.

That said, the system is set up to promote positive studies/findings, and there are a lot of ways you can play with the data. Very competent statisticians/researchers are capable of helping studies, sometimes, be more positive than they might otherwise be.

That, plus the many millions of dollars you can make from a drug, has often resulted in questionable - but predictable - results.

As someone who has been trading stocks recently, this statement is quite accurate. There is the phenomenon that a positive momentum position suddenly becomes 'hot' and people want it; at that point, it's now obvious, and generally too late.

Yes, entrepreneurial ism is how you make a lot of money.

That or massive entitlements in commodities from the government. Or just growing a basic commodity compony, like a steel firm.

So not surprised by this statistic.

To make a lot of money, it's good to be an entrepreneur. But being an entrepreneur isn't necessarily good for making a lot of money.

This is very helpful and appreciate it.

I think one of the most important skills to have in business and entrepreneurial pursuits is realizing when things aren't going great. You develop the tendency in life to whitewash things, to always think in the positive.

But this isn't always necessarily good. I read a fascinating piece which said that depressed, pessimistic people were actually more accurate in their analysis of some things than happy optimists.

Being able to think/accept that you have room to improve is a good thing. It's when the real improvement/learning takes place.

I've done a lot of writing and analysis in health sciences. My very strong intuition is that there is a study flaw here of one form or another.

What this seems to say, to me, is that people who choose to eat healthy also tend to be less depressed than those who choose to not eat healthy.

Population bias may be a problem here - that eating unhealthy may not necessarily cause depression, but rather those who are eating unhealthy are also likely to be suffering from depression.

There is limited data on diet and its impact on health in general - except in obvious cases of frank deficiency.

This could be like saying "People who go jogging daily tend to be happier in general." You could say that jogging then causes happiness. Or you could say that people who tend to jog are demographically likely to also do happy inducing things.