saddino

Conversation here on whether this would be a good acquisition for Google just got me thinking about Google's motivation behind Glass (a bit off-topic):

1) Google can (easily) make the argument that it needs to sample the image stream from every headset along with GPS/gyro to recognize "what you are looking at." These samples would be stored (of course).

2) Each sample can be OCR'd to recognize signage and contextual strings for searching that particular frame (e.g. thinking of every frame as a "web page").

3) Google can then "index the real world" with the image and contextual data.

Forget sending cars around taking photos. With enough users wearing headsets, Gooogle can build a searchable, virtual representation of the physical world.

And to get back on-topic: I'm surprised that the Word Lens guys didn't think of this (not the image mapping, but the signage/contextual mapping). Or maybe they have...

Such a nice project, but both the name and logo infringe on Atari trademarks. Why risk it?

IMO truly great developers are not just developers. They are also software architects, UX and UI designers, network engineers, etc. "A" developers knock down learning curves and assimilate everything about software creation innately.

The Scrabulous case alleged both trademark infringement (the obvious name ripoff) AND copyright infringement (the board and tile design).

That's nice and all, but didn't stop Hasbro from taking down Scrabulous: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2008/07/scrabulou...

And didn't stop the Tetris Company from taking down Mino: http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2012/06/wireduk-tetris-clone/

IMO this is why Zynga's Words With Friends has a different board, different point values and different bonus squares...

Hasbro is a little crazy about defending their copyrighted board and rules (including point values, board layout, letter distribution), etc., so if WordBase gets any serious traction expect to get a letter.

Yes. If your business was acquired and you gave your investors a decent return, you won't (or shouldn't have to) bootstrap your next company, thus reducing your personal cost (and risk) the next time around.

Risk and reward are relative to your personal status quo. If you are gainfully employed, then leaving to start your own company has real cost (the opportunity cost of your lost income + the cost of your lost savings) and clear risk (the risk of not recovering that cost, the risk of not finding a new job). But there is also real reward (building your network, gaining experience as an entrepreneur, creating a product or service that is loved by your users) and potential reward (becoming profitable, being acquired, going IPO) that can lead to future reward (starting a next company with OPM, gaining a reputation as a successful entrepreneur).

So of course there is risk. As there is reward.

And the simple question for every aspiring entrepreneur is: given your personal status quo, are you willing to incur real cost in exchange for real and potential reward?

It's a personal calculation and a personal decision.

While Apple as Jobs and Woz hocking Apple I kits was started on almost no budget is true, Apple as an actual company was started with a $250K loan from Mike Markkula. Hardly a small budget when you consider those were 1976 dollars. Steve wanted to do big things, and he understood it took big dollars to do so.

I think the point of the OP boils down to: Steve (like Zuck now) wanted to build a company that changed the world, not build a company that he could flip.

There's another, very salient reason for selling your company. But only if you are a serial entreprenuer:

An exit validates your ability to build to sell and may move you ahead of the pack when a potential angel or VC calculates your probability for a successful exit, especially compared to others who are "unproven."

If you have no problem entrusting your software architecture and development to someone on oDesk, then yes, you will have no problem entrusting your design work to someone at 99designs.

The best approach I've seen for expanding APIs in iOS is the one Apple tends to use: pass a single NSDictionary of keyed parameter values. The API parameter list never has to change, it's guaranteed to be backwards compatible and you can still enforce use of semantic objects as the allowed values for the new keys you are adding.

(It just struck me that this mirrors the approach Apple used often in Mac Toolbox: passing parameter structs with a version field, instead of modifying the API parameter list itself).

"This seamless armor, is stunningly beautiful and perfectly smooth. It feels like cool liquid to the touch. It is also, incredibly strong. It's a fantastic fusion of design and function."

I'm partial to Localytics, but that's because we pay for their Enterprise solution which insures a complete copy of your raw data stream on S3 and much better reporting (including custom funnels).

We also run GA in parallel just for the real-time reporting (which the biz folks love).

I'd also recommend The End of Overeating (David Kessler) which posits that the obesity explosion is due to recent advances in food science re: foods engineered (precise ratios of fat, sugar and salt) to make you want to eat more ("conditioned hypereating").

If you want to lose weight, stop eating packaged food, cut out fast-food and cut back on restaurants/take-out.

Make your own food (like everyone did 40 years ago for most meals) and you'll find yourself controlling your portion intake by default.

In corporate culture, the CEO is, fairly or not, a proxy for the company, and thus, the individual held responsible for the success or failure of the corporate entity.

No different from firing the manager or head coach of a sports team (which may inherit a losing streak due to pure luck or regression to a mean from a spectacular run of winning seasons).

The buck has to stop somewhere.

Spot on.

I think Color's pitch was to stealthily suck value out of Facebook by attacking what it perceived (and Instagram proved out) as its greatest weakness: a healthy amount of user engagement on FB is around photos. If one could create the "perfect" photo sharing mobile network, FB users would start sharing photos outside of FB. As soon as a critical mass of users and photos was achieved, FB would recognize the attack and defeat it via acquisition.

IMO the main difference is that Color (and their investors) had a well-defined strategy, but it was Instagram that had the perfect app.

>>>59. What was "ubl"?

ubl ("under bell labs") was a AT&T UNIX port of BSD rogue with some minor changes, most significantly the name of the executable.

At the Labs, a short cut (bypassing going up to a floor with a walkway) allowed one to travel from one building to another utilizing the subfloor (hence "under bell labs") containing the pipe network for power, water, oxygen (and other gasses piped to to labs), occasionally ducking around a corner here and there. It was hot, noisy, dark and cavernous. And quite busy (esp. at lunchtime!)

Running ubl and discovering rogue was an amusing little hack. Wish I knew who was responsible!

If XCode ran on an iPad, then I'd be sold. As it is, it's the only reason I need to carry around my MacBook Air.

I know MM personally, and although he's a bit quirky, he's not "evil" by a long shot (see grassroots.org).

Concept video is a bit rough though http://bit.ly/J3YOnt

Started out my career while in high school in 1985 as a C programmer hired in the Solid State group at Bell Labs. Best part of the experience was lunch surrounded by physicists who bantered about the world from a analytical perspective; positing hypotheticals, engaging in spirited debate, proposing thought experiments galore. Just an amazingly brilliant and wacky group of individuals. I owe a lot to that initial rewarding experience.

Wait, I thought Rogue popularized hjkl? ;-)

If a significant portion of his return is tied up in the retention, he's going nowhere soon.

Actually, it's a complete paradigm shift.

http://gigaom.com/mobile/uh-oh-pc-half-of-computing-device-s...

So my choice is easy, but for the life of me I can't figure out how to delete my Path account. Both online and mobile interfaces appear to be missing this function. Help?

"Who are the rising stars in general-purpose web search?"

duckduckgo.com

My indie band's self-produced CD cost us only $16K in 2001 (we were signed to a small label), but to be completely candid, we cut corners all over the place: 1) We dropped two tracks because the live lay down (which we used as the base for all overdubs and re-tracking) just didn't click. We recorded live over three days and we just got burnt out. If we had been signed to a major, I would have appreciated the ability to spend a whole day on each track until the vibe felt right. 2) Overdubs and re-tracking were done quickly and efficiently, but again, felt rushed in order to save money. 3) Multi-tracked vocals, guitars and percussion were sparse. We had played these songs for years (true for most "debut" albums) and it was hard to experiment in the studio without feeling we were going broke. Add a jangly 12 string playing double stops ping-ponging in stereo over the changes? Sounds great we'd tell the engineer, but we can't afford it. 4) Mixing (which took 50% of the total studio time) was painful. The permutations -- even considering the sparse tracks we had -- all begin to sound the same after a while. Ideally I'd like at least a week to mix each song: producing variations that we could collectively listen, get used to, and then debate.

So, although 500K sounds like a lot, I think the studio wants to rightfully allow the artist enough freedom to track, experiment, and mix without worrying about hitting their budget ceiling.

Oh, shameless link to our CD: http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/future-perfect/id4478315

"A service like foursquare can be useful to different people in different ways."

Which indicates that their focus is too broad to capture a critical mass of users that use it in the same way. I don't think a pivot is necessary, just a focus. They probably have enough $ to figure it out, but IMHO they need to find something soon and stick with it. I suppose "Radar" is supposed to be it, but I don't see it.

As someone who was limited to 300 baud for learning UNIX and C, I actually preferred Joy's ex over vi. I found that I could type ahead very quickly and just let the edits scroll in as they were echoed from the mainframe. Watching the edits cascade in a scroll made much more sense to me than a slowly updating vi screen.