GavinB

38 ms·

331.
by GavinB 17y ago
I don't find this surprising or troubling at all. The first result in a search should be the quick reference for a general audience. Wikipedia, IMBD, and Amazon all accomplish this quite nicely. Those interested in more in-depth info will
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by GavinB 17y ago
The "faceless aliens" story is about real people walking around with masks on. The story itself points that out: Close inspection of the pictures rules out an alien invasion - small perforations around the eye areas of the masks allow the
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by GavinB 17y ago
What's the url of your site?
334.
by GavinB 17y ago
The problem with craigslist isn't the graphic design. It's functional and clear. The problem is that useful data isn't required and available. For instance, partment listings should require at least cross streets, so that it's possible to
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by GavinB 17y ago
The nice thing about subscription service is that you're never in danger of losing your music. You're not locked into a specific codec, audio quality, or player. If the service or technology went down, you're not out anything--you just mov
336.
by GavinB 17y ago
I'm not proposing that it should be forced on you. I would like to have the choice. I recently discussed Napster with a group that had never heard about it and they were very excited until I told them that it wasn't compatible with iPods.
337.
by GavinB 17y ago
His main point is the odd social idea that for-profit innovation is inferior to charitably spending is well taken. It should be noted that, for example, inferior products with superior marketing can actually damage overall welfare. Monopol
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by GavinB 17y ago
This article is good background to understand Hanson's health care perspective: http://hanson.gmu.edu/feardie.pdf Unfortunately his argument really only addresses marginal health care and shows that we may be over-cared-for and suboptimal
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by GavinB 17y ago
New Napster: $15/month, gigantic library with every well known artist. Download it and play on your MP3 player. Stream it from anywhere with no software to install. This is a solved problem--it's legal and fairly priced. The only problem i
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by GavinB 17y ago
This is an explanation of why people like fairy tales--but he has the causation in the wrong direction. We like fairy tales because they appeal to our natural sense of drama--they aren't the cause of it.
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by GavinB 17y ago
Wikipedia is not continuing to grow because its policy is to delete articles whose subjects aren't covered in the mainstream press. The mainstream press, on the other hand, is shrinking every month. The current definition of notability is l
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by GavinB 17y ago
When integrating dogs into a new group, trainers often intentionally create a specific hierarchy. This serves to keep the dogs from creating it themselves via fighting, and can allow for one dog to be a leader, for example if you need them
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by GavinB 17y ago
I wasn't assuming that it was true or wouldn't have methodologial flaws. It's basically impossible to find a study of any real-world sociological study whose methodology is beyond dispute. If it helps, here's one with more details: http:/
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by GavinB 17y ago
Yes, there is plenty of evidence that education has a positive effect on wealth creation. Here's one example: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi... Early childhood education is found to produce persistent effect
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by GavinB 17y ago
"Make something people want" applies to writing just as much as startups.
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by GavinB 17y ago
Right, and that's why no one was interested in buying the company. Investors own the company, not the employees--even if they are founders.
347.
Pixel Qi color screen for kindle-like ebook readers(video.allthingsd.com)
1 points by GavinB 17y ago|0 comments
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by GavinB 17y ago
Presumably they don't get the brand, domain name, existing code base, and access to registered users. There's probably a lot more to this story than we know--there's no need to jump to conclusions.
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by GavinB 17y ago
A microfinance or charity site (ala Kiva.com) that lets you skype with the recipient of the charity at the moment of giving. Translation and synchronicity would be major obstacles to this.
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by GavinB 17y ago
A version of social discussion site optimized for continuous discussion around a topic. One of my biggest complaints about HN is that it is very reactionary and every discussion ends in 24-48 hours. One of the reasons we have less "Hacker
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by GavinB 17y ago
A discussion site with a page for every wikipedia article. The discussion would be focused on general consideration of the subject, not the content of the article. You could discuss anything from your favorite band to Bernoulli's principle.
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by GavinB 17y ago
I'm guessing it was the $20 million.
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by GavinB 17y ago
You have to build a trustworthy, independent brand. To be honest, really freakin' good graphic design goes a long way.
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by GavinB 17y ago
You're totally right. Guiding people in the choice between even just the various computing options is a major task. This is just a big, big nut to try to crack.. To anyone attempting it, I'd suggest again starting in a very tightly focused
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by GavinB 17y ago
What would be best paths through product space? My first thought was “doesn’t Amazon already organize things independent of vendor?” But what we’re really looking for here is a recommendation engine, and Amazon really isn’t very good at tha
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by GavinB 17y ago
Users will reply to your "no-reply" e-mail, especially if it's a registration e-mail. One way or another, it's worth trying to get these e-mails into your support channel.
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by GavinB 17y ago
We have a catch-all running on the domainthat routes all e-mail sent to unknown addresses to customer service. We get e-mail sent to "no-reply" registration all the time. If we didn't do it, It's worth it not to have so many customers feel
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by GavinB 17y ago
I can't help but think that while pg may be hinting that he has a solution in mind, it's just a trick to get people to think harder about it and come up with new ideas. Sometimes, getting people to believe that something is possible is the
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by GavinB 17y ago
This is phrased almost as a guessing game, so forensic analysis of RFS 1 is in order. The phrase "you can't have aggregators without content" and suggestion that a writer is needed implies that this is content creation, not aggregation. One
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by GavinB 17y ago
Sadly, I was talking more about the wikipedia I would like to see than about the wikipedia that currently exists. Personally, number of people using something is a lot more meaningful to me than number of journalists writing about it. Of co

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