sharpn

It's not a computer keyboard, but there is a good use for this that's been around for years - midi piano keyboards.

I would have a problem with this - it's like forcing a shop to justify not stocking a particular product. I do think Apple should be clearer, but they shouldn't be compelled to do so.

Good idea to have a less formal meal the evening before (rather than after) the meeting, where possible.

okra

Yes, and often there are two levels of user - those who 'get' what a site is about immediately, and others who need more information. Seperating out detailed descriptions into an FAQ section can lead to a cleaner 'main' site.

I'm learning Spanish at the moment, purely using Michel Thomas's course CDs, and going to Spain for a week every few months. I guess going to Mexico as often as possible would be the US equivalent (I'm in the UK). The CDs are available free in libraries here, so you can rip them for free onto an mp3 player & listen to one per day repeatedly. I got by well in rural Spain for a week without using English, but I'm far from 100% fluent yet. Other suggestions here like podcasts, radio & TV etc. are also all good. Best of luck!

Or "there's no 'i' in 'team', but there is in 'winner'".

The light that burns...

'electric smoke'

If you are an EU citizen you can work anywhere in the EU (with some temporary restrictions in Austria & Germany if I recall correctly). So for example a Latvian citizen can fly to the UK or Spain & apply for any job without additional paperwork.

I would flip the 'idea guy' & 'dev guy' percentages at least. An idea without development/execution is worth ~nothing, wheras the development of a good idea is valuable. Find the sucessful company that is closest to what you have in mind & see how they did it. Good luck!

'Create Your Own Economy' by Tyler Cowen - a good read.

This is very cool - stroke victims could benefit from this too.

yes, at age 32. It seems his lifestyle (not just pot-smoking of course, but it likely didn't help) contributed to his early death.

Hicks was a great comic, but if you're going to take his act as lifestyle advice then do bear in mind how & when he died.

Context is everything, though. My concern over password security for a meaningless survey is much lower than for a site that stores my credit card details, for example. If the password to your survey got stolen, I'd lose nothing.

I suggest you use a newspaper's archive if wikipedia doesn't suit you.

If you just want to test static pages in different browsers, you can use this site for free - it's what I used to test my site (there are probably others): http://browsershots.org/

"running ruby" too.

Utter nonsense. Overlaying a racist agenda onto the shift from Myspace to Facebook is ridiculous. Neither have any barier to entry. Abandoning Yahoo! for Google might also shadow the population changes the author alludes to, but does that make google users racist? No. EDIT: the new original link provides more reasoned context - but even then, the data appears very, very weak [~4 anecdotal data points, all 17-year-olds]. If the point were valid it would be troubling, but I'm not convinced on the evidence provided.

The Jackson ticket game theory thing is noteworthy - but indirectly discovering that The Times is partially hosted on typepad is more remarkable to me. I'd be interested if other Murdoch papers follow suit.

I heard that too (again without proof) - that Lehman (& Bear Stearns) refusal to participate in the LTCM rescue still rankled with other market participants.

Thankyou, yes I think I see your point & it is a valid one. But I suspect any such complicating of the rating algorithm would be of very marginal benefit, if any. For example, I enjoy not having to ever visit TC directly, knowing that I can wait until a TC link gets enough points on HN & the HN comments suggest it might be worth reading :o)

Do you mean populist? I don't understand your argument otherwise. Popular stories are destined for the frontpage - and the problem is?? I'm not being snarky - I just don't understand your logic. Are you suggesting that HN should only (or mostly) contain posts that we can't already get from more 'mainstream' sites? That makes some sense as an ideal, but would be very subjective & I'm not sure that's what you mean. Please can you expand?

All interesting deadline-based work involves some degree of overworking at one point - not just startups, but journalists, project managers & many others. But the problem with asking 'successful bootstrappers' whether it was all worth it in hindsight is survivorship bias. They survived & got successful. Ask someone whose great idea failed because they fell ill & you get a different picture - especially in the US where leaving a job to startup can mean foregoing medical coverage.

There are times when a burst of excessive work is both necessary & beneficial - but it's not universal.

Alan Turing, Issac Newton or Jimi Hendrix

If you like great poetry check out the drafts of Wilfred Owen's 'Anthem for a Doomed Youth' - Sigfreid Sassoon helped him redraft it into possibly the most iconic WW1 poem, but the original version was relatively weak. Fascinating to see the changes, for example: http://www.lancs.ac.uk/fass/projects/stylistics/topic1b/2ant...

I agree, I'd suggest with Terms & Conditions there are: 1) people who don't read/skim them (the majority) 2) people who want all the details (a vocal minority) So if your T&C's state something like 'we may send puzzle data to our server, where it might be stored' & you also have an FAQ on your website with the full details that should satisfy both.

Freedom.

"blessed are the peacemakers".