lani

there's also google translate to help out

How about a startup where one can dial a 1-800 number from Japan and get someone in ,say, Europe, who is also bored, and the two can rant to each other about how bad things are , and then go back to their lives ? International PainBuddy program, Dial-An-Agony . 1800-call-pain !! Best part, we pay a couple of life coaches to analyse some rants and provide anonymous advice

>> Takes me back to the good old days when Kiko was killed by Google Calendar

What would happen if someone were to try a startup doing what Kiko did ?

or for that matter, repeating any of the startups that users loved but were acquired and killed by Yahoo or Google ?

If I were to create (yet another) photo sharing site, what obstacles would I face because of Google already having Picasa/Photo and Yahoo owning Flickr ?

aren't these the 8 reasons people stop being Javascript programmers and become vacuum cleaner salesmen or something ?

nooo !! that's why research into the hover-skateboard stopped !!

oooh !! 8 Mill !! I'd like that ..

you'll need yahoo ids to see the images ? will it be shut down, like flickr ?

Subcultures are genes mixing and matching and exploring corners. Sentience burdens us with the ability to understand connotations of 'status', 'outcast' etc, but otherwise nature is on track with her research & development

> The gooey nougat of the hikikomori phenomenon is, it's sort of a quiet rebellion against the complicated and restrictive social protocols that are part and parcel of being Japanese. It is the same with otaku: however trivial their interests may be, they are determined to follow their own interests and choose their own path, rather than simply do what is expected of them.

I thought Zen was the quiet rebellion before it got stratified/institutionalized. I feel that the other phenomenon are more emergent, and they emerge from the mainstream not cracking down on them ,or not being able to..

if plain english could handle big O, we'd probably be programming in it ?

division of labour is passe. It's a thorn people have forgotten to remove

!!!!! Don't give them ideas !!!!!

zen robotics

>> was an Indian mathematician and autodidact who, with almost no formal training in pure mathematics, made extraordinary contributions to mathematical analysis, number theory, infinite series, and continued fractions. Living in India with no access to the larger mathematical community, which was centred in Europe at the time, Ramanujan developed his own mathematical research in isolation. As a result, he sometimes rediscovered known theorems in addition to producing new work. Ramanujan was said to be a natural genius by the English mathematician G. H. Hardy, in the same league as mathematicians such as Euler and Gauss.[1] He died at the age of 32.

-- no formal training -- developed his own mathematical research in isolation.

We're talking talent here, upper class or no. Talent is talent ,even when it is not discovered. In this case ,it was

you're confusing talent with skill

>> . The positive-sum “win-win” outcomes that Technocrats seek exist, and they’re all over the place, but they never come without risk. Once the company decides that creative risks are intolerable, what’s left is zero-sum social-status-driven squabbling.

This line really hepls me crack the code for me

ordered the JoC 1 on monday : )

>> Why are programmers granted such high status and wealth in our society for living in a self-created self-indulgent intellectual world of constant escapism

We know the specifics of the answer to this, I'd like to answer this in a general sort of way - in Alvin Toffer's 'Third wave' way of looking at the world, the integrators in a division-of-labour system are its rulers. Programmers give you tools to integrate. Remember, the key themes of the the second wave are :

"The Second Wave Society is industrial and based on mass production, mass distribution, mass consumption, mass education, mass media, mass recreation, mass entertainment, and weapons of mass destruction. You combine those things with standardization, centralization, concentration, and synchronization, and you wind up with a style of organization we call bureaucracy."

So you see , programmers are actually bureaucracy-engineers, creating the process and flow and channels for the industries of the world to play together

has anyone seen him talking about a Tim Gallwey video ? Kathy Sierra mentioned one of Alan Kay's talks called 'doing with images makes symbols'... I'm trying to find this one ..

also, John Gall's Systemantics - First Principles - : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systemantics

'Once a system is set up to solve some problem, the system itself is new entity which engenders new problems relating the development, operations, and maintenance of that system'

$100 worth of education, that will remain seared into the brain ?

you should get a paper out of it and sell the technique it to retailers ... i see a lot of kahneman/ariely patterns here... how about if you string them up in a nice if-else style decision tree ...

peaks at bhutan too. they have a Happiness Index too

> In my experience, the programming industry doesn't tolerate people like that

good observation :) business doesn't work like that. the industry is always on the lookout for people who work hard, make sacrifices and get things done and who treat the work and the company and its wellbeing as their own (except when it comes to money)

it doesn't wear a suit

"our tools don't matter. All code turns into shit " - most hilarious phrasing. I've recently adapted this philosophy and this helps me ship !! ps : any chance of getting to see your blog archives ? pps : this whole response thread has turned very religious !!!

irrational ideas are the work of the Devil !

I think a good way to classify the two is :"one group feels that others cannot do what I do" and the other group feels "what I can do anyone can do - right away or with learning/time".. and I think this shows up

I eat corn on pizza. I'm a manager

why isn't there more outrage ?