Comments by Peter Renshaw

"... About a month ago I had one of the strangest phones call of my life. “Steve my name is Donald xx, and I’m the head of external affairs of the CIA’s venture capital firm and we’d like you to keynote our conference.” CIA? “Do you mean the Culinary Institute of America? And you’d like me to do my talk on Customer Development and startups?” “No, we’re the other CIA.” So I gave my “The Secret History of Silicon Valley” talk as the keynote to the CIA’s venture capital conference. ..."

It's been suggested one way to re-create Silicon Valley is to follow this recipe ~ http://paulgraham.com/siliconvalley.html This post shows another ~ http://steveblank.com/2009/03/23/if-i-told-you-i%E2%80%99d-h...

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“… I never had any sisters, and my best friends have always been guys. I grew up with four brothers, a backyard full of cars and the smell of oil and sweat loitering about my bathroom every moment of every day. Mechanics shops, to me, feel a lot like home. These days I can race a car up the Spit, and win, with the right wheels, but I can’t walk in cork shoes for the life of me. I can rig a safe electrical connection between a back shed out a kitchen window, through a back room, over the clothes line and down past the garage … …”

Great observation Kate. I wish all the stuff I read was insightful. Btw if you understand this, you will understand how clueless blokes really can be.

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"... Good points but why not just comment within the thread? ..."

Read ... http://gilesbowkett.blogspot.com/2008/05/summon-monsters-ope...

and specifically ...

"... When you build a system where you get points for the number of people who agree with you, you are building a popularity contest for ideas. However, your popularity contest for ideas will not be dominated by the people with the best ideas, but the people with the most time to spend on your web site. Votes appear to be free, like contribution is with Wikipedia, but in reality you have to register to vote, and you have to be there frequently for your votes to make much difference. So the votes aren't really free - they cost time. If you do the math, it's actually quite obvious that if your popularity contest for ideas inherently, by its structure, favors people who waste their own time, then your contest will produce winners which are actually losers. The most popular ideas will not be the best ideas, since the people who have the best ideas, and the ability to recognize them, also have better things to do and better places to be. ..."

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"... Basically, Australia is offering to pay someone 100k to go to an island for 6 months, do a a little yardwork, do some interviews, and play for 6 months ..."

Also diving and the sharks are pretty active this time of year. The other way of looking at it is by taking a 6month setback for the opportunity of certain payment allowing for free time later on to work on your product - delayed gratification.

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"... Wouldn't competition - the invisible hand of the marketplace - also restrict abusable power? ..."

How?

I didn't see this invisible behaviour ( "an individual pursuing his own self-interest tends to also promote the good of his community as a whole" ) when stikkit, pownce shut down. They simply allowed you to download your data and suggested alternative services. Downloading your data while better than nothing, doesn't stop users loosing their subscriptions, disrupting their work flow. By having some sort of agreed plan at commencement might allow a smooth transition for users in the advent of closure or sale. The power unbalance is where at any time you can be evicted at short notice.

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Added after reading an interesting article from this thread on PHP ~ http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=436870 posted at http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=437001 by http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=kuniklo

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"... Water tanks and solar hot water seem quite prevalent in Melb - what's the cost/experience gap that you're referring to? ..."

If you want re-cycled water with minimal waste. Solar power hooked into the grid selling back to the power companies. Houses re-fitted with better insulation, access to high efficiency white-goods. Proper citing of properties with north facing aspects. This all takes money.

To get the desired outcome, you have to think decentralised rather than the centralised reliance we have now. Adding tanks & restricted showers is a 1950's solution to a much bigger problem. Btw where I grew up ~ http://www.flickr.com/photos/bootload/sets/72157612299413869... a large portion of my school mates lived on tank-water and generators for backup ~ http://www.flickr.com/photos/bootload/245135326 So water tanks are nothing new.

What I'm suggesting is a more radical thinking of dwellings, having the capacity to capture and store drinking water. Installations of solar heating and electricity. Power that feeds back to the grid during the day & pulled off during the night. There is no effort like this being undertaken in Melbourne save a few enviro-houses. This kind of redesign cannot happen without the combined work of architects, local planners and local government. It's not an easy task because

"... But yeah, I broadly see your point - the two construction issues that get to me are (1) no verandas and (2) no trees ..."

That is a problem. I think there is a definite disadvantage living where you cannot add trees or verandas. The other is water. My current geo location gets on average 20% more than the rest of Melbourne.

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"... These insta-neighborhoods were not designed or built for flexibility or change ..."

I remember being critically aware of this when looking for a house and choosing an area that was around 100yrs old. Doing this has a number of advantages, pre-built infrastructure, transport, a variety of different shops (remember main streets in towns?). So the idea was to find a place that had already spent the dollars in the past. In these types of environments you don't get mono-culture inhabitants. There is also a diversity in the ages of the inhabitants which counter-acts the decline that naturally occurs as population ages.

"... And after decades of renovation-obsession that has simply gotten out of hand, it seems a prudent time to swap Viking ranges for double-paned windows and high-efficiency furnaces. It’s the perfect moment to fix what we’ve got. Despite their currently low numbers, green homes typically re-sell for more money than their conventional counterparts. ..."

I don't see this happening yet. The costs involved are high and the expertise in re-building houses so they a) capture the water from the roofline, b) capture the suns heat for hot water and power and c) keep the heat out in summer and keep the heat in winter is simply not there, yet (Melb, Au is dry and hot in summer, wet & cold in winter). I think the biggest hack would be if new house designs could somehow be cheaply be modified before construction to achieve efficiency.

Especially water.

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"... It's there now ..."

Thats what I'm looking for, Apple confirmation.

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"... Whether you like Murdoch's politics or not, the WSJ is one of the most respected newsgathering organizations in the world. They didn't blow their credibility on a fake memo. ..."

Calm down.

I posted the article very early and only the WSJ & CNBC reporting breaking news. No other confirmation. This isn't about politics, it's exercising skepticism until the news is confirmed by a number of sources.

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166482

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"... I doubt the WSJ would publish a letter like this if it were unconfirmed. ..."

Email isn't the most reliable medium and the WSJ owner is Rupert Murdoch.

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"... Apple CEO Steve Jobs today sent the following email to all Apple employees ..."

Don't see anything on the Apple pr site yet ~ http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2009/01/ So it's unconfirmed.

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A short extract from a book called "The Psychology of Computer Programming" by Gerald Weinburg http://www.dorsethouse.com/authors/weinberg_gerald.html I found the reference via the article comments on this post ~ http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=431011

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Link points to the Abstract. The paper can be downloaded from the site or http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID1319466_code... (pdf, 416Kb)

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