Things that I don't need to get separately when I buy a computer.
I'm not advocating for Microsoft. In fact, I use Linux, Open Office, and Gmail. But for regular consumer, they just want something that comes in one package and works without additional effort. That's why iPad is hitting the spot, because it's even more packaged than a Microsoft PC. Microsoft couldn't careless about Ubuntu, but they should definitely be worried about iPad (or packaged computing device in general).
I'm curious how are they are going to solve the problem that most people hate to learn new interfaces of their old tools.
For example, it took me a while to start using google reader, google calendar. I told all my friends how great those tools are, but none of them has converted.
People are used to their twitter, facebook, newspaper interfaces. Crossing the chasm from early power users to mainstream users will be hard.
To me, viewing linked images and articles from twitter is a whole different app. So it's less about convincing them to upgrade and more about convincing them that they need the new app IMO.
The article estimates his current car (the Porsche) to be worth $9,000. (By the way, I always thought a Porsche would cost more, even used. Hey, I may get myself one for this price.)
We also don't know what other trades he has made during this time. Judging by the description in the article, he seems to be quite prolific, and has probably also made some money with refurbishing electric gadgets and so on.
And we also learned that he still worked at a sushi bar (but lost the job at some point in time). So he has quite a lucrative hobby, but still did a day job.
Porsche's seem to depreciate in price pretty rapidly. I was surprised to find that my used 98 Boxster is now worth only 9k. Bad investment, these cars. And I bought mine used for less than the price of a new Accord. But fun rides!
The only cars which are investment grade cannot be driven, and you've got to be an absolute expert to make money on them - like an art expert, knowing what will be in demand in the future.
No car is an investment, unless you're making money from driving it, ie a limo or rental car.
Porsches have some of the best depreciation resistance in the business, but even they can't resist the pull of gravity that comes with use, and the inevitable production of newer, better models. A pristine, low mileage used Porsche is a good buy, a well-used cheap model is best avoided and admired from a distance.
Your 98 Boxster is 12 years old. They cost about $60k brand new. Holding 15% of it's value over that time isn't too bad, considering you're down to about 55-60% original value in the first year alone. You're probably at 30-35% after 3 years.
Not that I'm complaining - I picked up a 97 back in 2004 for about $13k (when I worked at a car dealership), drive it for 2 years, and sold it for $14k. What's nice about the Porsche was that a 97 looked just like a 2006 since they rarely change their body styles. I did have to replace 2 tires though which was like $500. Not cheap to own, but plenty of fun to drive.
That's one way to look at it. Having a job will get him $15,000 every year, after two more years he would have $60,000.
It would be interesting to see if can trade up to, for example $100,000 in next two years using that $15,000 as starting point.
From what I have seen of history, the most intelligent people (from what we have been able to tell) are never a regular part of the mainstream. They only dabble occasionally.
Are you saying Jefferson and Einstein are mainstream? That is clearly not the case. Their popularity is, but their actions were from from it. Hell, just LOOK at Einstein!
This recent post shot down a lot of things being mistakenly attributed to the Dunning-Kruger effect. Well worth the read, since it actually explains the study in a more comprehensive way, rather than the somewhat sensationalized version most articles have. Essentially, it says that the worst people judge their abilities to be on par with average people, thus grossly overestimating their abilities. The smartest people somewhat underestimate their abilities, but not nearly to the degree that the truly incompetent do.
I must admit, that article is way too long for me atm. Maybe that disqualifies me from posting here, but it also seems to me that the DK effect is more of a "fun fact" than a life changing realization. I have adopted the "I know that I don't know anything" wisdom long ago, and also subscribe to the "all code sucks" theory, so I try to shield myself from (what I think is) the DK effect a little bit.
Actually, the future is recommendation via brain composition. Or better yet, direct brain stimulus that makes you think anything is a good recommendation.
Facebook is the future? I hope we are a bit more imaginative and ambitious.
I remember somewhere in MongoDB documentation that states why you shouldn't use Mongo for sensitive information (i.e. money related) because of the lack of transaction. (No reference, but obviously I read it somewhere because I remembered it.)
His site is worth so much more than his degree, IMO.
I guess this is the I-am-pot-committed-so-i-have-to-go-through-with-it effect. It's hard to make decisions based on future returns as suppose to past efforts.
Which do you think grabs more attention in a resume:
- Graduated from xxx University with Honor in computer science
OR
- My site was so engaging to students that my university had to threaten to retract my degree three months prior to my graduation in order to force me to shutdown my site.
This is the kind of PR Bill Gates get by dropping out of college. If I was him, I'd keep the site running, let the university take my degree, then take them to the court (knowing that I won't win), just to create more media attention.
"A few weeks away from getting his degree" is exactly the kind of thinking that I'm trying to avoid. But of course, who knows what I would actually do when I'm in his shoes.
How about a mailinglist automatically filters out posts based on relevancy? Using ardvark-like NLP?
A small niche mailinglist is probably the closest thing to a real online community, for two reasons:
- relevant emails always get read by everyone in the mailing list
- people read emails anyway, so there's less step involved as suppose to going to a website to read posts.
But a conventional mailinglist is not scalable - some of the lists I'm in get so many posts everyday that I become de-sensitzed to them.
There's a solution however.
The way to keep the posts relevant is to sub-categorize them much like subreddit, but that's also work and it's manual. That's where NLP and machine learning comes in so that the system can learn your preference and only email you the relevant posts. Of course, you also get an option to receive less-relevant posts too.
(I should probably make this into a post as suppose to a comment.)
