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This is a thorough summary of essential principles of user registration and engagement. It's well-organized and includes some excellent examples.

Although it's "only" a slide deck, I came away from this feeling enlightened.

This was a popular-ish thing to do with AltaVista's Babelfish about (probably more than) 10 years ago. A friend used this back-and-forth technique to mix up song lyrics. A teacher did the same to generate bizarre text for class handouts.

A time-honored classic.

Reminds me a bit of the Australian island caretaker "best job in the world," (http://www.islandreefjob.com/) and a bit of the Netflix Prize.

I'm not sure why this is here. Someone took methylphenidate for the first time and didn't notice much of an effect? This has happened to other people I know as well. Doctors typically allow a few weeks for brain chemistry adjust to regular doses.

I think it's funny that "owning a television" is so often perceived as a lifestyle choice. It's especially odd these days, when a television is typically just another LCD monitor.

"I don't use a broadcast, cable, satellite, or fiber video delivery service" doesn't have the same smug ring to it. And you could be watching the same content over a data network anyway.

This stuff is all merging together, and it's time to stop being so judgmental about home appliances.

My SE/30 monitor burnt out completely after a few years of heavy use. It was a sad day, seeing the old thing go.

The comparison with RDNY.com (a 14-year-old competitor) is fairly illuminating/discouraging, if somewhat brief. Regardless, I certainly hope these guys succeed. The more services to help New Yorkers avoid abuse from real estate brokers, the better.

The interactive free-broker-service angle that the RentHop guys are taking is perplexing to me, but I must say it helps them stand out. I hope the approach does not hinder them from scaling up to the point where they can offer a better range of listings.

In NYC, I have only seen the Segway used as a mobile advertising station. I have never seen a "normal" person riding one.

It may be due to the ubiquitous stairs and subways, but this device would be utterly impractical in most situations here, and it looks silly to boot.

I'm glad the author was excited by fast-paced challenges, but this type of thrill can arise from many situations, and when it's a job, it's not necessarily a good job.

I've worked all weekend to put together a payment system for a high-volume ecommerce site. It was exciting watching the logs for possible problems and seeing money start to roll in during the early hours of Monday morning, and it was pretty satisfying that everything worked after slaving away through the weekend, but I wouldn't say it was a particularly good job at all.

Good article though - it's definitely important to seek out satisfying (and potentially exhilarating) work for oneself. Kind of the opposite of cubicle numbness.

I don't think anyone suggests (for serious websites) that log files should be abandoned or ignored. On the contrary, script based analytics - which do indeed offer significant value that's ignored in this article - should be considered supplemental or complementary to more traditional methods.

It would seem that popular software practices are trending away from certain types "premature flexibilization." Conventional Java coding practices - things you might have seen everywhere a decade ago - might call for a number of interfaces, class hierarchies, and perfunctory design patterns (getters, setters, perhaps factories) just to declare a SINGLE concrete class.

These days we're much more accustomed to succinct code in dynamic languages and looser structural rules. Maybe some of this strict enforcement has shifted off into test suites.

The author's observation that anticipating changes / future requirements in software is often misguided and ill-informed fits right into this trend toward simplicity. Concise, readable code that's easy to shuffle around is much better suited for adaptation than a big, bulky "framework" that tries to anticipate every contingency.

I've gotten some weird looks and a few questioning words from Limewire employees at parties in their own office, like I was some riff-raff that drifted in from the street. Ultimately, however, they always gave up the inquisition and went back to trying to impress girls and/or lure them into the lounge room. Fantastic roof deck though.

I know some of the engineers and they're incredibly nice guys, but the company has been flooded by those typical business types.

I can only feebly imagine what it must have been like to do studio work with the Butthole Surfers in the 80s. Which recordings did you do?

I just wanted to say your comment about brazenly-illogical-yet-effective (i.e. "assholish") business mannerisms rings true to my own experience and some of the characters I have encountered (and, unfortunately, worked for as well). There are many different ways to make a buck.

The "most dangerous kind" is just regular warfare, i.e. physically disrupting infrastructure.

Basic guide to starting an EC2 instance. Missing some details from the official "getting started" guide (but I guess that's the point).

http://docs.amazonwebservices.com/AWSEC2/2008-12-01/GettingS...

Perhaps the hypothesis would apply more to the approach/situation rather than the goal.

If depressed people despair that they cannot find new friends or lose some weight, maybe the depression might direct them to try something new. That's how I see the idea presented here. (Unfortunately, you're right that many people are quick to give up and deem a goal impossible.)

This is one of those concepts that I always simply assumed to be true. Ordinary feelings of depression (i.e. specifically not chronic or "clinical" depression) are quite normal responses to situations that are, in fact, depressing. These feelings can help shake us out of situations we might otherwise suffer through.

I am fascinated by the underlying concept of this article, that society is evolving to support a shared awareness or a certain augmented intelligence of the individual. Just look at how much has shifted in society regarding specific knowledge vs. a more general intuition or analytical ability.

I'm somewhat annoyed by the depiction of stimulants as intelligence enhancing pharmaceuticals. These drugs certainly do affect behavior (and as such they obviously play into that old "99% perspiration" maxim). However, I would argue that stimulants (specifically powerful drugs like modafinil and ADD medications) usually cripple intuition and creativity.

To me, these aspects of mental agility are significant components of intelligence. Intensely focusing on an extended stretch of work seldom yields optimal results (aside from those truly inspired "in the zone" moments). Years of experience/experimentation would indicate that I need sleep, breaks, and a balanced mind to produce anything even resembling my best work.

Has anyone here actually felt MORE intelligent while taking modafinil or ADD medication (or to a lesser extent, even coffee)? I'm very curious to hear what you have to say.

While this is a decent reminder of some reasonably current UI trends (and some very old ones - just check a few of the form-oriented items in this list), I'd guess that most HN readers are familiar with all of these concepts.

I'm somewhat tickled to see "sign-up forms must die" as the first item, but then a feature about giant, prominent sign-up forms appears farther down. Hm.

Yep, business schools have been furiously selling out for many years. I remember attending classes in IBM and HP branded classrooms, and there were entire wings named after corporate sponsors before I'd left. Branding the degree itself itself isn't too much of a leap from there.

The bitter/sarcastic tone this article takes toward the end reminds me VERY much of humor/commentary I've heard from academics. It's amusing but off-putting at the same time, and comes off sounding as though the writer has an axe to grind.

A: it's an established market leader. You could copy it too!

Yes! All types jobs have problems and unhappy employees and generalized complaints of dissatisfaction.

Consider the other, personally motivated side of this "IT dissatisfaction" scenario: specifically, that the type of people who work in IT fields are often fairly passive and sometimes choose not to stand up for themselves when they really wish they had.

Someone with this type of demeanor might tend to find themselves settling for the wrong job, as well as staying in a job that turns out not to be so great somewhere down the road.

Could it be?

I have experienced this personally and have seen others go through similar scenarios. Not quite Milton in "Office Space," but some have come close.

This study reminds me of my own phone habits. It would seem that I prefer the left ear for long personal conversations and the right ear for more matter-of-fact transactions. Somehow it seems more natural or comfortable.

I sort of feel uncomfortably predictable now.

Should read "8 basic tips" rather than "open letter."

Perhaps "finding opportunities to be unique" would be a better way to describe this concept. Doing the opposite of everyone else sounds like a profoundly bad idea when applied to many, many things.

This stirs up some of the sense of irony found in business-friendly phrases like "think outside the box."

There was an entertaining exhibit of fabricated housing at MOMA last year, including some "working prototypes." The "micro compact home" was incredibly cool. The attention to detail and slick, functional design was really inspiring. I left with an "I want one of those" feeling, a little like you'd experience after seeing an exciting new gadget.

I've worked for a ~100 person company that switched from Exchange to Zimbra last year.

While many aspects of the system work great, others are buggy, difficult, or practically useless. (For example, the calendar features are miserably immature, and the web interface is clunky and eschewed by most employees.)

The company is currently considering switching back to Exchange.

Well, this is an art exhibit, and it's really more about cultural deconstruction and examination than entrepreneurship.

This reminds me how much I love getting lunch out of a cart or kitchen truck. Some of the best (and/or most satisfying) food I've had in NYC has been on wheels.

Yep, this is that same seam carving presentation from siggraph 2007.