I can't speak about Mahalo, but I have to say that I've become a big Jason Calacanis fan because of the podcast: http://thisweekinstartups.com/
He can be annoying at times, but I love the way he tells it like it is. Every episode, entrepreneurs call in and he helps us by dishing out no BS advice. Good advice. The kind you need to hear when you are too close to the problem to understand what to do. He doesn't patronize (well maybe just a little), but instead, he seems genuinely interested in helping other entrepreneurs.
Yes, his self promotion can get tiring, but hey, the guy is a marketing genius that we can all learn from. Check out the podcast.
Separating one table into multiple tables based on status has caused me a lot of pain over the years. Now I have multiple tables I need to join together more often than I would hope. Is this really the best way?
The mobile phone operating system battle is going to be fascinating over the next few years. I'm sure it will be studied in business schools for the the next 40 years. The stakes are extremely high and the market is global. Hardware, software, and carriers all play an important role. Overall, consumers will definitely win.
As a project manager managing multiple projects, I often need status updates from my team. I find that without a standard structure, people often fail to convey the most important information. I ask my team to report status in the following manner:
1. Of the things that were expected to be done at this point, what is not done?
2. What other deliverables are in danger of not being done in time?
3. What is being done about items in #1 and #2
4. Of the things that were expected to be done at this point, what is done?
I'd love to receive feedback about this process. What has worked for you?
Printing needs the equivalent of the ipod or flip video camera: something that was redesigned to do the most common stuff really well and is dead simple easy to use
Ray's argument against things getting complex would probably be something like: Why would things suddenly get "so complex" when the trend has been going on for millions of years.
Douglas Hofstadler (Godel Escher Bach author) says that perhaps humans aren't smart enough to understand and recreate consciousness.
I can't believe how much I enjoyed reading the 25 things my friends posted. As time goes on, people lose track of friends, but my friends shared enough for me to remember why they were my friends. Their personalities came out in ways you never see with the boilerplate profiles and status updates.
I can't believe how much I enjoyed reading the 25 things my friends posted. As time goes on, people lose track of friends, but my friends shared enough for me to remember why they were my friends. Their personalities came out in ways you never see with the boilerplate profiles and status updates.
What is a business model? It's how you make money. You can make money from advertising, thus it is a valid business model. See radio, TV, and PlentyOfFish for examples.
I wish I could give you more karma on this comment. This sounds just like me and it is hilarious. I also find that people say "You know what I mean" to which I answer "yes". They interpret this as "yes and I agree", but what I really mean is "yes, I hear the words coming out of your mouth, and I believe I understand their meaning".
This reminds me of something one of my professors wrote about: "Don't get good at something you hate because then people will pay you a lot of money to do it and you'll never be able to stop".
Lots of good advice on this board. I love Hacker News.
Looking at this from a strictly economic point of view, it is obvious that as the price of higher education continues to outpace inflation, a point must come when is negative expected value to attend college. Knowledge will be your reward. And debt.
This kind of problem comes up all the time in a poker tournament. Each person has a different number of chips in front of them, and when they reach the final table, since so much money is at stake, they want to make a deal. How do you determine a fair deal when each person has a different number of chips and prizes are radically different for first, second, and third place. Fun problem. Answer: The independent chip model
Speaking of poker, I was once playing poker in vegas when the guy sitting beside me asked me what I did. I replied that I was a "technology consultant". He looked confused. I tried to explain that I wrote software to solve problems in the home automation industry. He thought hard for a moment and a light bulb went off in his head and he sat up and said, "oh computers!". I resigned that I did "computers", and the moment was over.
Just goes to show how the whole world isn't technical.
This is what I call "playing defense" instead of "playing offense". By nature, the people at large companies are more concerned with risk aversion than innovation. This is also how managers like to "hold power" over the real innovators by controlling the change management process. What makes a manager more qualified to deploy to production than the programmer?
I don't own an ipod touch, but I view the it as an iphone that can't make phone calls and doesn't have a $70/month fee. It can surf (802.11), run apps from the app store, and play movies and music. It costs $70 more than the same sized ipod nano. I think it is a reasonable addition to the product line.
This comes down to negotiation theory. Is it better to make the first offer, or wait for the other person to make the first offer? I used to think "The first person to mention a number loses", but after taking a negotiations class and applying some of the concepts, I learned the power of anchoring the negotiation by mentioning the first number. After the first number is mentioned, you are now negotiating around that range. This has proven to be very effective for me.