I'm sure mechanics feel the same way about the rest of us when we bring our car into the shop. Browsers are important to us but they'll never be important to "most people".
Does it matter if he came up with it? I think brilliance isn't always in coming up with the idea. Often it is the ability to see one idea of many, the one that appears ordinary to everyone else, and zero in on it.
Even if you're anxious to get a job in the industry, I would argue that you should never offer to do so for free. Employers don't value "free" because they assume it's sub-standard even if you kick ass. You may be great, but if you offer to do something for free, your time likely won't be valued much and you'll end up working the useless projects. It's not fair, it doesn't make sense, but I notice that's just how people treat "free" and the highest paid opinion usually wins even if it's not always right. Respect yourself, ask for at least token pay.
I've definitely seen the same scam from the user side. My friend left a 1 star review for an auto shop after getting ripped off. Several weeks later the review disappeared. She contacted Yelp who claimed that they "rotate" reviews in and out. This might make sense when you have hundreds of reviews and you want to show a balanced mix on the first page but this shop only had 7 reviews so the rotation strategy didn't make sense here. She left another bad review, again it disappeared. We knew something shady was going on but hearing the story from the other side makes me wonder if the shop just paid Yelp to remove the bad review.
I notice it's hard to get things done in a meeting when your arms are crossed over your chest or abdomen. It's the universal sign of "I disagree with you and I'm on the defensive" Try this: cross your arms, and the person across from you will inevitably do so as well. I find that when they do that, it's much harder to convince them of your point of view. It's almost as if their defensive posture puts their mind into defensive mode. The opposite seems to hold true as well: relax your posture (open arms) and the person will be more receptive.
Everyone I know has a hotmail account. It's everyone's throwaway-give-to-spammers account. Those same people have all slowly migrated to using their Gmail address for their most important emails. So if you look only at number of users, Gmail might be behind. But if you were to know the number of active users, I would guess Gmail is way ahead.
I've been using this trick when dealing with boring tasks, to prevent my mind from wandering. If you are on a Mac, this widget can crack the whip on you by chiming at regular intervals: http://www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/status/prodme.html
Of course, the preferable solution is to find a job where your tasks aren't boring.
Based on my (unfortunate?) experience of last 4 startups: when a company creates a multitude of these "core values" it begins making the transition from an exciting start up to a mediocre depressing job. If you have to explain to your employees that "Integrity, Passion, Commitment, Competence,
Conscientiousness" are "keys to success", perhaps you are hiring the wrong people.
At the same time though, you get several bright people who work together really well and suddenly there is no need to stick to one "great idea". Business plans change all the time. What matters most is the ability of that team to adapt to the changes around them.
Dr. Banfield at Harvard University wrote a book in the 70's based on his study of this question ("The Unheavenly City"). His main finding is that long term success is tied to "long term goal focus".
It may not be a unique idea but it's certainly the best execution when it comes to familiarity. Not only does Pixlr look and feel like Photoshop, but it supports Photoshop keyboard shortcuts, while the other two apps do not. As an experienced Photoshop user, my efficiency with the tool depends solely on those shortcuts.
The feature they added today - "canned responses" is priceless if you are using Gmail for your business. It's even more useful when you are running your customer support via Gmail.
SMS ringtones and SMS porn are all premium services and naturally are not be affected by a 3 cent transaction fee. This hurts companies that send out free opt in SMS alerts and subsidize them with advertising at the bottom of the message. Up until now, their model was to build up scale which gets them a lower per message fee with the aggregators. However even with large volumes their margins are a few cents at best. This 3 cent "transaction fee" kills them.
You sound really frustrated. Life is too short. If you hate grad school that much, drop it. Life certainly isn't downhill after school. My personal experience showed that the most interesting people I met, I met at school, not in cubicle land. Then again, it's what you make of it.
School is THE place to meet new people. In fact, enjoy the variety of people you meet at school now. It's harder to meet interesting people later on, after you are out of school. Most people are content with discussing what they saw on TV last night and what their lunch companion has on their plate. "Is that pesto?" Enjoy your school years :)
Interesting to note that most people I've met will barter over the number of options or compare competing offers by number of options... but rarely does anyone ask how many shares are outstanding.