Sep 8, 2008
When you say, X is solved,” you’re saying that the space of possible enhancements is entirely divided up between ‘too hard to do now’ and ‘has too small a market to be worthwhile’.

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Sep 7, 2008
Where Kurzweil sees a steady march of progress interrupted by occasional hiccups, I see a few fragile and improbable victories against a backdrop of malice, stupidity, and greed: the tiny amount of good humans have accomplished in constant danger of drowning in a sea of blood and tears, as happened to so many of the civilizations of antiquity.

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Sep 7, 2008

Robert Scoble: Four years ago only 70 companies got paid attention to. Now double that number will. Even if you only try out the top five companies from each conference that number will be double too.

me: Attention is a finite resource. As more startups vie for my attention, sources of startups get devalued.

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Sep 6, 2008
It is, alas, a truism that authors generally have less experience than other men. This owing to the incontestable fact that you simply can’t be in two places at once. Either you’re in front of the typewriter, writing, or you’re out in the world having experiences. Therefore, since you need to write and you need to have experiences to write about, you have to learn to do more with less. And doing more with less is, in a word, what writing is all about.

comments

      
  • Anonymous, 2009-12-26: These words were written by H. L. Mencken in a letter to Arturo Bandini.   

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Aug 28, 2008
As software and hardware engineers, if our defaults put users in an unsafe situation, where their credit and savings are placed at risk, then we’ve failed them, and we’ve acted unethically.

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Aug 26, 2008
The problem in scaling software projects is not a communication problem; it’s a dependency problem. Control quality by being hierarchical and rigorous about how you test and accept changes, not how you generate them.

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Aug 24, 2008
I haven’t overheard a single intellectual conversation in three years, unless it was between Indian or Asian students.

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Aug 20, 2008
My biggest encouragement to those who are scared of criticism to enter the public space is this: if you don’t, the public space will be filled with people who have no fear of their failings whatsoever. And we all know what fools they are.

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Aug 20, 2008
We applied a red, yellow or black spot to a place on the necks of five magpies. The stickers could only be seen using a mirror. Then we gave the birds mirrors. The feel of the mark on their necks did not seem to alarm them. But when the birds with coloured neck spots caught a glimpse of themselves, they scratched at their necks—a clear indication that they recognised the image in the mirror as their own. Those who received a black sticker, invisible against the black neck feathers, did not react.

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Aug 18, 2008
It’s probably the best mobile application distribution method yet created, but every time I use it, a little piece of my soul dies.
Steven Frank on the iTunes app store

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