Hacker News Reader

umtreyon Facebook knows you’re gay before you do

Tesco was the first company to really do this right - there's a book called Scoring Points[1] that outlines this in details. By using the detailed profiles of customers, they learned that giving discounts on products customers cared about was much more valuable than just giving discounts based on vendor preference. A fan of Coca-Cola will come in to buy a Coke, but won't buy Pepsi, no matter if it's on sale or not.

[1] http://www.amazon.com/Scoring-Points-Winning-Customer-Loyalt...

umtreyon Challenging The Math of a Work Week

Success comes in many flavors. The author's version of personal success is way more angled towards professional and business success, where I may put more emphasis on an amazing relationship with my children as a bigger factor of personal success. You can be successful by many measures, and have a growing, profitable, healthy business, without 70-80 hours a week. Are you not successful because it doesn't hit 1B in revenues?

These kind of articles frustrate me, as someone who already has a tendency to work too much at the expense of all other aspects of my life. Everyone has tradeoffs to make. The business tradeoff that Treehouse makes means that people have a higher likelihood of personal success in ventures outside of work, at what Mr. Carson sees is a minimal impact to the likelihood of business/professional success.

Can a company of people working 70-80 hour weeks be more successful than Treehouse's model? Sure. But I'd argue they're just as likely to be less successful. More code doesn't always mean more success, whatever the measure may be.

umtreyon The Asus MacBook Air, sort of

I'd say it is entirely Apple's Execution. Someone used this machine before they pushed it out the door. Someone had to have gone, "this trackpad is just awful!" And yet, nothing changed about it, and they released it. It's hard for me to see another brand capturing such equity and such positive reputation when this happens over and over again. If there's a will, there's a way around the patents, etc.

umtreyon Japan: We're losing to Apple, and here's why

Great point. Consumers are also heavily biased towards what they already know or see in similar devices - "oh, if it had a removable battery, I need that" or "I need it to vibrate when I type on it," and so on. They might all be valid desires by the consumer, but it doesn't mean it has to be there. Establishing the correct prioritization of features is the principle goal of these product development teams, and Apple seems to be winning there.

umtreyon What's rising faster than health care? College costs

An unintended consequence would be limiting education based on financial ability - a school would not admit a lower income student as opposed to a higher income student. While this does occur in loans, and also in property taxes feeding school districts... to say someone can't go to college here because they don't have the money now is a tough argument. The great equalizer will have taken the final plunge into a wealth-based advantage.

umtreyon Istanbul Isiklarius traffic lights

Also, from a design standpoint, the idea of using LEDs is being challenged - while the designer mentions a lack of snow build-up, the traditional lights do a good job of emitting enough heat to melt snow drift:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34436730/ns/us_news-life/t/energ...

It's not an entirely obvious problem, but one that is being dealt with often in colder climates. Unintended consequences of design.

umtreyon iCloud’s Real Purpose is to Kill Windows

People are worried about the cloud-killing PR mistake or security breach that will cripple the efforts to get data into these controlled data centers, so this makes perfect sense. Start the focus with something everyone will know: Music. If someone breaks into your music collection... oh no? I was keeping my Duran Duran passion a secret.

Once this catches on, any mistake won't be a crippling one or a business-critical error, just a little frustrating. Gradually promote the other cloud offerings afterward, even if they have been there the whole time. Tied in with Lion's auto-versioning options, this just means everything naturally goes to the cloud, and no one will ever think of it again.

As stated, this isn't to kill Windows, this is to kill the pain of buying more devices. This is the first step to build that confidence and show it off in something people will have fun with.

umtreyon Should Apple buy a phone company?

I can't find the article that originally referenced this... but the idea that Apple would buy a phone company was made obsolete with the AT&T service issues that were present in the United States. By commercially separating the Network from the Phone - a new concept for the carrier-lock in situation in the states - it removed a large segment of risk from the user experience. How many times have you heard "the iPhone is great, but AT&T has terrible service" or something else along those lines? It's a common argument.

People don't understand the difficulties of having lots of data on a large-scale network across thousands of miles of cities, countrysides, and elevation differences. They do understand if a computer or phone is slow, though. This way, there are problems, but it's not because of Apple and their immaculate product. Why tarnish your brand with something people won't understand?

umtreyon The python paradox

If we look at the rise of easier and easier to use graphic design programs - Photoshop, Illustrator, and so on - we don't see a decreased relevance of experienced or quality graphic design professionals. Instead, the ability to get something, anything done that looks OK is much easier. The highest quality products are still produced by the highest quality individuals. The tool is an enabling device.

We can mirror this to programming, and IDEs. Visual Studio, for instance, takes a ton of the nitty-gritty details of programming out of the picture for a vast population of people looking to write software. The need for quality and very skilled programmers isn't any less relevant - they're just not needed for every piece of development like they used to be. This is how we're able to get way more software than before. The very skilled programmers are almost more important in order to facilitate more software to get pushed out, as there will require an increased expectation of quality from software and only a limited group who can produce or lead such a development effort.

None of this is a bad thing, but it's just a change in how things used to be done. As it used to be in the automotive world, not everyone has to be a full fledged mechanic to keep the car running - but for the big jobs, there is a definite demand for the higher skill. (Of course, computerization of the automobile is bringing this back around!)

umtreyon Facebook silencing Tunisian cyber activists involved in Revolution

That's not the point - it may be the easiest for the users, but it's not the easiest for the entire system. The system is primarily made up of the hosts of the data, which would be these private companies who would rather not deal with any potential ramifications for helping out a political movement that is, by its nature, revolutionary. It's the right idea for the activists to use these mediums, but it should not be expected to work long-term.

umtreyon Hustlers Wanted

If I were looking for this kind of person, I'd want them to know that different people see tasks differently. Some people see simple design stuff as "bullshit work" while others see having to parse through server logs as "bullshit work."

This isn't an all-glamorous job. To portray it as such would be deceitful and would attract a different kind of individual, who would ultimately be let down.

umtreyon Why UT Austin is second-rate at producing startup founders

I would guess that the source of department donations would drive focus for many universities - and not many startups are dropping seven figures for new buildings or fellowships.

umtreyon Sad as Hell

Gone are the tacit alliances with fellow subway riders, the brief evolution of sympathy with pedestrians. That predictable progress of unspoken affinity is now interrupted by an impulse to either refresh a page or to take a website-worthy photo.

It's sentences like this that I would imagine to be under a dictionary definition of "nostalgia." I read this, immediately look off into the distance in an oh-so-subtle way, and then wonder quickly how this type of thing could be changed... and if it would be changed.

Think of the last time the bus or the subway car stopped more suddenly than anyone expected. Most everyone will look up, look around, and make brief eye contact with another person to make sure that someone else felt it too. There's that initial panic that sets over a number of people, then, seeing how others have this same, shared experience, everyone is immediately partially comforted. Why wouldn't we be? Someone else is here, they know what's going on, we'll get through this together.

The instant connectivity means that this period of worry before we make the most fleeting of eye contact is even shorter - we're getting rid of that terrifying low in order to have a constant sense of stability. When we do this, we don't feel that euphoric positive delta of connection and of community. The internet, the tubes, the twitters, the facebooks, the pictures, everything is just a numbing agent so we don't have to fret for that initial period of time.

We've advanced as a society to avoid the great pains of life as much as possible - fighting to remove hunger, distance ourselves from war, medicine to cure the sick. Why do we think it unreasonable or unexpected for society to also inadvertently make progress towards avoiding the emotional pains of life?

umtreyon Ask HN: To go or not to go college?

And even if you're restless (like I most certainly was), you can still work while you're in school for a company, the university you attend, or yourself. Best of both worlds, and it keeps loans down.

But the one big thing that college offers that lee references here is the learning things you may not have thought of learning. You'll have to take some "fluff" classes, or classes that aren't related to your major, but they expand your appreciation for other topics.

More importantly, at least for me, was the idea that college was a sandbox in which to learn about myself and leadership. I went the fraternity route (of the "Greek" variety, at that), and I learned more about leadership than I would have thought possible at my age. When I first got to school, I never would have dreamed of joining a "frat", let alone running one.

Working my way to President and leading 60 men/fratboys to a higher calling than getting drunk on weekends - a Sisyphean task if there ever was one! - built up my ability to lead without authority, and focus on such nuanced topics like recruitment for business and attention to detail.

Not everyone will have the same experience, that's for sure. I can definitely say I learned a ton outside of the classroom, and the ability to have those experiences when the generally worst case scenarios is a few angry drunk guys and not salaries or a business was very unique.

umtreyon Why Mark Suster is wrong about not hiring job hoppers

There's a fine line between being tough and taking an unnecessary risk. If you're not in a position where you can walk into your job to find it doesn't exist anymore, it is your obligation to yourself and your family to manage that. If you can take the risks to stay, why couldn't you also take the risks to change jobs often?

If you're looking only for people who can put themselves in that position, then I'd bet you'd find a good number of them to be job-hoppers.

umtreyon Lemonade Stand Operator A/B Tests His Attire - Suits FTW

He was likely in school for 9 of those months, so if you only have a quarter to sell (13 weeks), that's 26 times per year, or 182 times overall. 20 bucks a session at a lemonade stand is a HAUL.

umtreyon [dead]

Ha ha, it's just a large iPhone or iPod Touch! Ha ha, how clever! Also, it has a name similar to feminine hygiene products! Ha!

Really, though, we get the point. It's very similar in shape and looks, and doesn't have much in the way of new functionality. Let's hear something new.

umtreyon Adobe CTO talks Flash performance on Macs, more

Denying the problem isn't going to win them any points here, nor is off-handedly stating "oh, we're working on it, but don't blame us." They could start turning the discussion the other way to admit to problems, get releases out quickly to improve the performance, and be painfully clear how Apple could help make their software run better (system call information, etc).

Suddenly, it's Adobe who's coming out as the sympathetic market leader, and Apple has to turn and defend its stance as anti-Flash from a non-technical standpoint. As Apple is forced to make its pro-App Store stance official (even though all of us here understand it) they'll get looked by the masses as as a monopoly-maker or as a company that stifles outside development.

umtreyon Bill Watterson, creator of Calvin & Hobbes, first interview since 1989

I wish there was a video of this somewhere. I would need to hear his voice inflection to really get his true... attitude on life and relationships.

"When it seemed I would be writing about 'Midnite Madness Sale-abrations' for the rest of my life, a friend used to console me that cream always rises to the top. I used to think, so do people who throw themselves into the sea."

umtreyon On the iPad

People didn't switch to the Mac in droves when XCode came out, or when Apple switched to OS X. It took a closed platform - a perfectly cultured, strictly defined environment that was the iPod to start building the halo (and with that, peoples' trust) towards the desktop/laptop Mac.

The iPhone didn't get the buzz or the acclaim because of the App Store - it became thought of as a gift from the heavens! Steve has blessed us with this new way to add our value to the closed product. Watch this happen in a different extent with the iPad - something new will come up that will open it up ever so slightly, adding new features where Apple doesn't have the creative or physical capacity to develop.