huertanix

I used to be a huge Borders customer, but over the past few years, they became useless at having anything in stock or being able to easily check if anything was in stock without calling the seven or so stores in the greater Phoenix area. I like being able have a book in my hands the same night I hear about it, so I prefer brick and mortar stores (and I don't like e-readers much).

If they can solve this problem the way Powell's in Portland has (one giant bookstore with everything in stock and two or so subject-specific bookstores), then I'd still be their customer.

Good. This is why I hate asking my nice friends what they think of my web app design. They always say it looks good. I want to raise the bar to epic, and the only way to do that is to stop asking for preschool-era "everybody wins" criticism and start asking for Chef Ramsey servings of brutally honest opinion.

Personally, I'm a fan of Maté for its high caffeine content and wood-esque flavor.

The site's down so I can't read the context this was taken for, but:

1. Exploring more than middle-class American political ideologies isn't an example of a decline in learning for the same reason learning only Java or C# makes doesn't make anyone a better programming student.

2. Derrida is my homeboy.

I have yet to meet a single person outside SF who uses Plancast more than once a month (from the five outside SF I know who use it at all). Not sure if I'd call it viral so much as quarantined.

Can you elaborate on the trust issue?

I've only been to the Intelligentsia location in Silver Lake (Los Angeles), but I do recall having excellent coffee there.

I have Razer mouse (Copperhead, blue LEDs ftw). I'm just saying that Razer is probably not motivated to nix their mice line and go pure-button or touchscreen. They will be more than happy to sell you their mice with their mini lappies.

I don't drink SBUX, but I do like the new logo. Its simple and doesn't typecast them into being a coffee burner--err--roaster, exclusively.

I generally agree with your points, however, if I recall correctly, iTunes's window controls/style changed slightly before Leopard, and when Leopard was released, everything lost its white/pinstripe style and looked like iTunes. I think what we're looking at it is what every window in Lion will look like.

On the issue of dragging windows, I think that Apple is a bad boy that doesn't care about convention and wants to re-invent this. Right now, users have to know that only a specific narrow upper border is draggable. With any blank space replacing that tradition, users don't have to think about where they grab a window as long as they hit something gray that isn't a button.

World of Warcraft != Angry Birds.

Que the $80 Razer mouse.

Most gamers I know game in a dark bedroom and not in brightly lit coffee shops as the press photos suggest; The big, easily read illuminated keys are sort of a big deal.

I tried that. It didn't work.

I've used it to build parts for a RepRap printer, interestingly enough: http://www.heatsynclabs.org/wiki/Phoenix_RepRap

"Today, Google is a UI mess, as they haven't changed with the times, and keep adding content to their once clean design. (Even KISS sites need to be refreshed)."

Its not just the Google homepage; Android's UI is outright hideous, and while 99% of what matters in a search engine is results, a smartphone is too multifaceted in function to neglect a clean, working, uniform UI to organize the chaos of features into something that people can figure out.

I suspect this is why Android hasn't moved beyond the fellow nerds in my circle of friends.

Only if you turn off your Google account's Web History.

This isn't just a matter of advertising. Your search history is an incredibly personal and detailed profile of who you are, and governments have a history of trying to use that sort of information for $badThings. See: US DOJ request for search engine histories in 2005. There's a reason why librarians fought so hard to keep your book checkouts private when the Patriot Act passed. Search histories have a potential for abuse and their privacy should be an issue.

Enter, Google Alarm: http://fffff.at/google-alarm/

Clicking on a link in a Google search results page creates a redirect URL that leads back to Google itself and logs the visit to your Google Web History if you are logged in. Its not a simple matter of referrals to third party websites. Its a personal detailed silo of personal information that Google sits on and can only stay private as long as Google can make good on its promise to.

DuckDuckGo, AFAIK doesn't log your searches or correlate your searches with a user account.

I think the "I am totes dating a hot chick check me out" submissions have already beat me to the chase.

"I was introduced to the ”Hot Girl Effect” by a girl I dated once. This girl is an absolute knockout, and very smart too."

Pics or it didn't happen.

There are many brilliant people, but their time gets sucked away by Minecraft. It takes brains and balls to start a successful company.

For the most part, I've noticed it means "do things Flash does, but on an iPhone/iPad." So yeah, canvas.

I think that there's a certain dynamic with people that work in person that doesn't happen as much remotely; In person someone could walk into a random conversation after overhearing an idea, start adding their own twist to it, and eventually someone starts scribbling on a whiteboard and a new iteration of your product is born. I just don't see that happening as easily over groupware.

There's a thread in Quora listing a fair chunk of NYC startups that are currently hiring, and it grows almost daily: http://www.quora.com/Which-startups-in-NY-are-hiring

http://twitter.com/html5douche occasionally posts some cool html5 linkage when he's not busy fist-pumping in CAPS LOCK.

I can see those being setbacks, but on each point:

1. I'm not sure on the situation in Russia, but in the US, a lot of teachers don't know much about Windows or OS X either, but unless something breaks they wouldn't have to.

2. Gnome's memory footprint is rather large, sadly. Depending on whether the Russian authorities roll their own custom distro or image though, they could use XFCE instead.

3. As things move more towards the cloud, I think that kids would mostly just have to learn how to use a web browser. Those are mostly the same on all modern platforms.

4. Having to learn something new is not a useless skill. Being able to use more than one platform demonstrates the ability to adapt to change. That's a useful skill to have.

I really wish I could be there in person. Was really looking forward to talking to some of the people behind YaCy (http://www.yacy.net/). :<