smbwrs

I was a huge doubter on day one - the initial video and manifesto seemed confusing and too abstract to fly - but seeing Dalton handle intensive negativity (even some from me, I'm a bit ashamed to admit) with such aplomb won me over. Seeing his frequent updates with progress, even before the $500k mark, was a great confidence booster.

Every cent well deserved. I was a supporter, and I look forward to helping build app.net in to something amazing.

This is sarcasm, right?

I was complaining a couple weeks ago about how someone needed to open an alternative to the Mac App Store for legit apps that don't work with sandboxing, desire demos or paid upgrades, etc. Never thought of Steam as a possibility, even though I use it weekly for gaming. I have high hopes; if anyone can pull it off, it's Valve.

"...from a few hundred accounts to over 9000."

I see what you did there.

Scratch that, apparently I've got an ATI Radeon Mobility in this thing. Regardless, still an excellent update.

My current laptop is a Dell C510 running Arch Linux, rocking a massive 384MB of RAM and LXDE. It's relatively (surprisingly) snappy as is, but any improvement is going to make a huge difference. Great work.

Bostonian here. The lady and I have been convinced that this winter was significantly worse than usual, and wondered why no one else seemed to think it was so weirdly awful. Glad we're not alone, and that we weren't wrong. Wow, did it suck. Excellent article and research by Mr. Dobres.

Golf, soda, cigarettes, newspapers, and beer. Seriously? I've never felt so disconnected from the typical "American Male", nor have I ever been so proud to feel that disconnected.

Maybe if "soda", "cigarettes", "beer", and "bars" were a bit farther down the list, "gyms" wouldn't need to be so high?

(Who still reads newspapers?)

They "simply took thermodynamics" and created a useful, beautiful product that solves a common problem and doesn't (as far as I know) exist yet. I don't understand what your issue is.

My point is more that there's at least one layer of protection between that page and the actual password, which I'd say is more important than displaying some code. It would take more than one mistake to really do damage, which is better than nothing.

You lost me at "bordering on criminal negligence". They gave away a lot of details about how their internal systems are structured, but surprisingly little as far as actual usable data. Passwords can be changed, API keys can be disabled and regenerated, local IP addresses can be switched up. No user data was revealed. How is this even close to criminal, let alone catastrophic? This is pants-down embarrassing, at worst.

If they're clever, that password isn't the actual password, it's a salted hash that the Database class breaks down to the real password before connecting. In theory, that hash alone shouldn't be enough for a breach, unless someone is able to figure out how it's encrypted and salted.

Wonderful idea. I signed up.

Nth-ing the suggestion on tweaking the ads. They're definitely jarring. Perhaps try to pick up some sponsorships? 1800Flowers, etc.

Agreed. If I was forced, or even prompted, to tweet before watching a video, there's a very strong chance I'd just close the damn tab. Don't force me to promote your content before I have a good reason to.

Seamless tweeting mid-video seems pretty useful, though!

Not every idea is a good one.

I kept reading the name and it never got not-funny.

(Should I get the Home Edition, Premium Edition, Professional Edition, Gold Premium Edition Plus, or the Home Platinum Professional Office Extra Plus Edition?)

Came to post this. Well, this, and, "It took you 300 lines to do THAT?" A dozen or so lines of Javascript + CSS would do the trick. I say this from experience, having built a system to auto-print thermal labels from a browser. It's reeaaallllyyy easy. Heck, most of the time was spent fighting with Windows' print settings. While I'm happy for your success, I'm kind of dumbstruck that anyone would pay for such a system.

[Edit] In the interest of not just poopooing on the badge thing, I want to mention view.io actually seems like a pretty interesting idea. One of those so-obvious-why-hasn't-anyone-done-it-yet types, could be big if it works well. Good luck!

Considering the fact that Marco is an advisor, and the upcoming Readability iOS app is "powered by Instapaper", I'd assume not much.

What interests me most about Anonymous is the fact that it's actually two groups: the small group of technically-competent individuals, and the LOIC script-kiddie griefer minions who can be dispatched at will. The griefers get the media attention and do it "for the lulz", while the folks with actual skills penetrate systems and expose private information. If I had to guess, I'd say that HBGary got a little information on a bunch of the griefers, and near nothing on the people who can do real damage.

If I were a hacker, Anonymous - that is, the 4chan script-kiddie bunch - would make for incredible front line. They generate an unbelievable amount of noise, and a very particular kind of hacker-ish noise, which I'd imagine is fantastic for redirecting attention and covering tracks as necessary. The recent FBI raids, for example. http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110128/tc_afp/britainarrestwik...

I had this idea - rather, an idea for something very similar to this - right after the first iPhone came out a few years ago. Never did anything with it. Should have. Let this be your daily reminder to execute on your good ideas!

Also, I'm totally in.

"However, once everyone agrees, once the establishment gets on board, once you are worth a reported $14bn yourself ... shouldn’t you start looking like a responsible person, as generally defined by responsible people such as, well, lawyers? Or maybe just your dad?"

No. Absolutely not. You should do whatever the hell you want, because you're worth 14 BILLION DOLLARS. What a ridiculous article.

Beautiful. If Mr. Aurlien could somehow work in CSS3 gradients too, something like this - http://www.colorzilla.com/gradient-editor/ - I'd be willing to pay for it.

I wish there was an easy way to buy web apps like I can buy iPhone apps. I'd easily throw down a buck for Piknik + some kind of gradient generator.

A mobile app that allows users to create ad-hoc points-of-interest maps, both public and private, based around events.

My inspiration came from spending time at the Brimfield Antique Show this year. My lady wanted an easy way to note specific vendors with items she liked and wanted to revisit, but the iPhone Maps app only let me drop one pin at a time, for some unknown reason. This lead me to imagining a map of the area with dozens of pins dropped by all sorts of people, with tips ("this lady is willing to haggle", "don't get your hopes up, this guy wants twice what his stuff is worth") and recommendations ("avoid the seafood place. trust me."). It's a little Foursquare-y, but less about, "I'm here" and more about, "let me tell you what I've discovered."

I imagine something like this could be used for all sorts of things, from large concerts like Coachella or Lollapalooza to keeping track of where one parked in a parking garage. The idea scales from personal location tracking to a sort of event-focused hive mind of wisdom.

Of course, it is entirely possible this already exists, and I just didn't check the App Store throughly enough. But if it doesn't, it should. I'd use it. We were at the Topsfield Fair last night; it would have been wonderful to know exactly where the maple cotton candy vendor was, or to expect an unbelievable wait before riding the ferris wheel.

I'm in. Can someone make it their goal for the month to create a site to aggregate all the sites created during the month, or is that too meta?

Also, I mentioned this elsewhere, but September Startup Sprint has a nice ring to it. Perhaps next year? (Hat-tip to tlack for the original "November Startup Sprint" inspiration.)

For the future September Startup Sprint might be better, what with the alliteration and all. But, in the interest actually getting something done, I think we can let it slide this year. ;)