Thought stream
December 25, 2009
The machine will be capable of understanding the world around them much as humans do,” Rattner said. “They will see and hear and probably speak and do a number of other things that resemble human-like capabilities, and will demand as a result very (powerful) computing capability.
Intel hopes 48-core chip will solve new challenges | Deep Tech - CNET News
December 23, 2009
The romantic image of an über-programmer is someone who fires up Emacs, types like a machine gun, and delivers a flawless final product from scratch. A more accurate image would be someone who stares quietly into space for a few minutes and then says “Hmm. I think I’ve seen something like this before.
Why programmers are not paid in proportion to their productivity — The Endeavour
December 20, 2009
Since 2004, active bots have grown at a compound annual growth rate of more than 378%. In other words, the number of bots has nearly quadrupled ever year. In 2009, you could find nearly 400,000 active bots engaged in malicious activity on any given day with several million active over the course of any month.
1 Billion Spammers Served | Deep Insights into Spam | Project Honey Pot
December 19, 2009
But consider this: lyrics are the number two searched terms of all time on Google, and music comes in at number 9. Obviously, there’s a big user need.
Marissa Mayer Talks Google Search, Chrome, Online News And More At Le Web
December 13, 2009
If you’ve never written anything thoughtful, then you’ve never had any difficult, important, or interesting thoughts. That’s the secret: people who don’t write, are people who don’t think.
The secret about writing that no one has the balls to tell you - Pete Michaud
December 11, 2009
Start-ups are like medieval monasteries: always convinced that paradise is just ahead or that things only recently got worse. If you can begin to enjoy the process of building a start-up rather than the outcome, you’ll be a better leader.
How to Change the World: On the Other Hand: The Flip Side of Entrepreneurship by Glenn Kelman
if it’s a failure, it’s a failure worth all the successes of its age.
How to Change the World: On the Other Hand: The Flip Side of Entrepreneurship by Glenn Kelman
December 9, 2009
Cardinal Richelieu understood the value of surveillance when he famously said, “If one would give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find something in them to have him hanged.” Watch someone long enough, and you’ll find something to arrest — or just blackmail — with. Privacy is important because without it, surveillance information will be abused: to peep, to sell to marketers and to spy on political enemies — whoever they happen to be at the time.
Schneier on Security: The Value of Privacy
December 7, 2009
Well, I have a “Rule of Time in Startups”: How much time does a bootstrapped company take? All of it.
Sacrifice your health for your startup
Any idiot can get outside the building and ask customers what they want, compile a feature list and hand it to engineering. Gathering feature requests from customers is not what marketing should be doing in a startup. And it’s certainly not Customer Development. In a startup the role of Customer Development is to: 1. test the founders hypothesis about the customer problem 2. test if the product concept and minimum feature set solve that problem. This is a big idea and worth repeating. Customer Development is about testing the founder’s hypothesis about what constitutes product/market fit with the minimum feature set. Thereby answering the questions, “Does this product/service as spec’d solve a problem or a need customers have?
Customer Development is Not a Focus Group « Steve Blank
November 30, 2009
There are three questions you have when you’re hiring a programmer (or anyone, for that matter): Are they smart? Can they get stuff done? Can you work with them? Someone who’s smart but doesn’t get stuff done should be your friend, not your employee. You can talk your problems over with them while they procrastinate on their actual job. Someone who gets stuff done but isn’t smart is inefficient: non-smart people get stuff done by doing it the hard way and working with them is slow and frustrating. Someone you can’t work with, you can’t work with.
How I Hire Programmers (Aaron Swartz’s Raw Thought)
November 29, 2009
Amazon.com was founded in 1995, but it famously didn’t make its first annual profit until 2003.
Online Retail Thriving: 8% Growth Expected This Holiday Season
Where we got it wrong in 2004 and where lots of other teams I’ve seen since get it wrong is in prioritisation. We should prioritise projects to be able to release early something that is genuinely useful, not partial functionality that is useless on its own.
Gojko Adzic » The danger of releasing too early
November 28, 2009
Good ideas can employ lots of capital in a productive fashion, which is why good ideas attract a lot of money. Capital is required to grow. I’m not aware of any $100 million companies built with a lean startup mindset. Those companies are usually built with a “go big or go home” mindset instead. If Google had been a lean startup they would probably be some minor search player right now instead of one of the top technology companies in the world.
The Dark Side of Customer Development and Lean Startups : Coconut Headsets
November 24, 2009
It turns out there are two different ways people respond to challenges. Some people see them as opportunities to perform - to demonstrate their talent or intellect. Others see them as opportunities to master - to improve their skill or knowledge.
Pixel Poppers: Awesome By Proxy: Addicted to Fake Achievement
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Secret Lab by Peter Vidani.
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