Rich Bragg

This is so true. There were definitely parts of this video that gave me flashbacks to my consultancy days. - Kevin Fox

OMG! Im dying!! This is soooo funny! "female intersection zones"... "circles feel very 90s to me" - Erin

What a coincidence! ..I'm currently working on a new GO sign, still not sure if it'll fly.. however I'll give it a road test first.. - Jason Brooks

The last line is classic: "Guys, we don't like the way this is testing..." LOL - Diane Ensey

...so we've got some miiiinor tweaks we're looking into" awesome - Jason Wehmhoener

Hilarious. Also a bit sad that so many times we end up stuck in this sort of a 'process'. - Bindu Reddy

Clients suck. Sometimes they need to be reminded of that fact, gently. - Jason Wehmhoener

I agree, 12% seems low. - RAPatton

"Nexting." I like that term. I compulsively next an entire week, then get paralyzingly overwhelmed at the plethora of things I have to do, and wind up only accomplishing 10% of what I planned out. I'm interested to see what strategies work for you over the next few weeks/months. Oh God, did I just next not nexting? - Mark Trapp

I think it is much more healthy to spend time thinking about the future than the past. Myself I am more of an eat whatever is around when I am hungry person like your husband. But my lack of planning means I miss out on activities and later regret the lack of planning. - Brian Sullivan

"I clapped my hands over my ears and chanted, 'NA NA NA NA NA NA,' until I realized I was driving, and turned the radio volume down instead." :D - possible248

Thinking about the future can be dangerous if it takes you away from enjoying the here and now. I sometimes can't relax and enjoy what's going on right this second because of obsessively contemplating what's going on later... - Jason Kaneshiro

Be Here Now. - Jason Wehmhoener

Yoda had a lecture about always looking to the future, of course if would have planned ahead a little more we could have avoided that whole Empire thing - RAPatton

Your description of how your husband thinks about eating vs. you is classic. Exactly describes my wife and me. Cereal for dinner? Not a problem! - Hutch Carpenter

I think you're onto something: it's often a lot more relaxing to just stop and breathe and stop thinking about the future. - j1m

I think I'm a NEXT-er and a LAST-er. The future and the past both seem more important than the now usually does. - Wm Scott Rees

Yoda was a terrorist. - Amit Patel

@Amit Patel Yeah, he was the mastermind behind blowing up the death stars and runs a terrorist training camp on Dagobah - RAPatton

Isn't thinking about the future what's supposed to get us to drive Priuses and save for retirement? Americans seem to be accused alternately of being short-sighted and of being unable to focus on the moment. Maybe it's all about being smart about what to next and how much. For example, if you did plan your meals (or a default choice) on paper a week ahead of time, it might free you from having to think about it as much. Not that I could bring myself to do that. - ⓞnor

I like the friendfeed comment widget on your blog. - Shakeel Mahate

Fred: A great post. Here's one way we at The Star-Ledger are trying to use these tools to address some of Umair's points: http://www.nj.com/helpinghands. Basically, it's a platform for blogs by non-profits and volunteer organizations across New Jersey. A partnership with the United Way allows groups and volunteers to find each other through a searchable database of events, interests and opportunities. - John Hassell

Revolutionary products often start out looking like toys, such as the PC. Of course that does not imply that all toys are revolutionary, but it's important to remember that the impact is not always obvious beforehand. - Paul Buchheit

Incidentally, the line at the Shake Shack was awesomely short right after the rain storm ended ;-) - j1m

I've noticed that 'likes' happen first and comments follow. I would speculate that the formula goes something like this: If a user finds an interesting item, they're more likely to 'like' it if it has few or no 'likes' yet. If there's an existing conversation, a user is more likely to add to the conversation. People are less likely to leave the first comment ('star the conversation') on an item shared by someone they don't know. Put these rules together and you get a group behavior of an interesting item getting several likes with no comments, then a comment, then a great deal of increased activity in both 'likes' and comments. Of course, it would be interesting to gather data to support these hypotheses. :-) - Kevin Fox

Kevin, as a general rule, I comment when I know what to say or quote after reading a peice and I like when I don't. - Clare Dibble

In a world where our media consumption is evermore occurring on an individual level (feed readers, Kindles, iPods vs the family radio and TV) humans still crave shared experiences. The same forces leaving me confident that the live music business will remain healthy for years help me understand the emotional value of endorsement of a FF post. Even if we discount a "like" to zero, I think it still serves as a sign of vitality and gives this service a pulse. Often it's just nice to know others are listening. - Christopher Sacca

good post Fred. I personally have completely given up on "Web 2.0" as a term - it's just the Internet now (with Ajax, RSS, rounded corners, and "social" stuff). but I do think "Internet Ennui" is a recurring cycle, and considering the run we've had recently, we're probably closing in on another wave of it... - Jeremy Toeman

Not everything has to be about social change. Sometimes, we just want a place to hang out and relax. - Morton Fox

100-word version: "You're not as smart as you think you are. You need to find people way smarter and more effective than you. You can't find them with normal interviews. A six-month trial period might work, but what super smart person will stand for that? Your only real hope is that you've bumped into them some time in the past, or maybe you can find them by asking around. Good luck, and also I made up this weird phrase which doesn't help." - ⓞnor

Ginger, thanks for sharing your experience at Google. - Mike Reynolds

First page down, giving a Like for that. Continuing to read... - Hutch Carpenter

Really great read, and a true take on the types of "smart" out there. Also, I liked this little add-on Steve had in the comments section: "The Dunning-Kruger Effect has a fourth principle that I didn't mention, which is that as your competence increases, your self-evaluation diminishes. The most competent people apparently tend to rate themselves below their skill level. " Interesting thought. - Hutch Carpenter

The core of any good engineering culture is deeply allergic to unnecessary complexity. "Fancy" is a bad word; "complicated" is a really, really bad word. Design doc templates have a section asking you to explain why a simpler solution would work. Half my interviewers (having convinced themselves that I could code) were making sure that I wasn't the type to build giant rickety abominations. But a company like Google is too big for any single generalization to apply. - ⓞnor

ⓞnor: "and also I made up this weird phrase which doesn't help" Ha! :) - Bret Taylor

@nor if you do that for every Steve Yegge post you might have a high-traffic blog on your hands - Jeremy Raines

ⓞnor-notes.blogspot.com - Ginger Makela

@Ginger: I see that everywhere, not only in Sales… :( - Amit Patel

very cool...that is probably why friendfeed is ramping so smoothly and getting intelligent new features vs. another nameless service that is having severe growing pains. - Pokai

That's excellent hiring criteria -- would you hire them for your start-up. I know from experience that you can't really understand how important it is to work with A-players until you work at a company with mainly B-players. - Tödd Nëmët

I really prefer to work with @-players and ideally ?-players - ⓞnor

What about cos-players? - Jim Norris

And who is super-heroic dude? - Jim Norris

cos-players tend to be irrational unless you get exactly the right angle. - ⓞnor

Question: Why would one of these super-heroic programmers want to work for you rather than launching their own thing? - Adewale Oshineye

Dan should publish a blog with 100-word versions of all of Stevey's posts. I don't have the patience for the long versions. - Jeremy Hylton

I want high quality generic collaborative summarization in general. Not sure how it would work, it's really easy to warp and distort things when boiling them down, and way too easy to take cheap shots at the author (as I did above). - ⓞnor

If they want empty space around their car, they can go to the back of the parking lot and walk the distance. Parking toward the front of the lot should be reserved for people who are willing to take the chance of getting dinged in exchange for the convenience of the closer spot. :) - Kenneth LeFebvre

This kind of thing is stupid. You see a car taking two spaces and you assume they're an inconsiderate jerk, but more likely there was another car 5 hours ago that was slightly off center that meant the car parking next to them had to touch the white line on the other side to fit, and the next car had to actually intrude slightly into the next space. Eventually you're presented with two cars that both straddle the line, with one space between them. Then night falls and everyone goes home except for the straddler. The next day people park in their right spaces until the lot's full except for the 'asshole' who took two spaces then someone self-righteously comes along, declares that person unfit for society, and vandalizes their car. There's little worse than people who are self-righteous and wrong at the same time. - Kevin Fox

Self-wrongeous? - Jim Norris

There's bad parking and there's obvious space-hogging. Look at the original picture on Flickr and tell me this guy is the victim of "space creep" as you describe. :) http://www.flickr.com/photos/l... - Kenneth LeFebvre

I only by used cars and laptops from friends -- eg, people I've know for a long time and know how they drive. - Ginger Makela

I've never used eBay before, but that sounds just horrible. Why do they let it persist? - DeWitt Clinton

"Shortly thereafter I received an email from 'PayPal' (who is now apparently sending out their customer service emails from gMail), stating that I had received a payment, but that it would not show up in my account until I emailed them back the tracking number for the parcel." - bob

Why does eBay not directly handle payment (as they own PayPal and all) but leave it to customers instead, opening the system up for scams? - Philipp Lenssen

This has been going on with eBay for quite some time now. I gave up trying to sell any electronics on eBay over a year ago. - adventureran

My Dad had a similar spoof when he tried to sell his Used Truck on a website. If this spreads (meaning these 3rd world scammers make enough $ from the trickery) it could impact online commerce. Really its a social engineering scheme. Any online auction model is at risk (as the scammer can always win the bid and not pay). - Tim Bauer

"EVIL SLAYER Software designer Paul Buchheit was Google employee No. 23 (think of the stock options!)" - bob

Great picture! - Anne Bouey

I like how they photographed everyone in their normal work clothes. =) (btw—not too shabby of a group to be bunched together with...) - Dan Hsiao

I don't understand, Dan. Who wasn't in their normal work clothes? - Kevin Fox

No one as far as I could tell. They're all in their normal work clothes, right? - Dan Hsiao

I particularly liked Paul's choice of shoes. It was an uncharacteristically girly moment when I saw the angel costume and my first thought was not "I can't believe I went to college with Paul and don't have any pictures more silly than ones published in magazines" but "What shoes would possibly go with that outfit?". - Clare Dibble

Blogged about this photo here: http://flipzagging.livejournal... - Neil Kandalgaonkar

Paul, how come you never wear your wings to the office? - Jess Lee

GREAT photo. Beautiful light. - Ginger Makela

Wow. Paul, what did they pay you to slum with all of those other slackers? - Christopher Sacca

Wow, congratulations - that is a pretty amazing group of people to be in a story with!! - Jennie Lin

Murdoch looks very old. Paul looks very ... ugh ... white?! :) - Charlie Anzman

BTW, I think Pluto got cheated. - j1m

This is fun: 'She heard this story and she shook her head and said, "Where do people find the time?" That was her question. And I just kind of snapped. And I said, "No one who works in TV gets to ask that question. You know where the time comes from. It comes from the cognitive surplus you've been masking for 50 years."' - j1m

"The transformation from rural to urban life was so sudden, and so wrenching, that the only thing society could do to manage was to drink itself into a stupor for a generation. The stories from that era are amazing-- there were gin pushcarts working their way through the streets of London. " - bob

There are currently 884 results for the search ["cognitive surplus"]. It's fun to watch this meme ripple through the web. I wish I had a giant visualisation of the entire web that let me watch this particular concept spread through and between different online communities - Adewale Oshineye

"Did you ever see that episode of Gilligan's Island where they almost get off the island and then Gilligan messes up and then they don't? I saw that one. I saw that one a lot when I was growing up.... However lousy it is to sit in your basement and pretend to be an elf, I can tell you from personal experience it's worse to sit in your basement and try to figure if Ginger or Mary Ann is cuter." (b/c for one thing, duh, mary ann) - j1m

What a really, really smart essay. It crystalizes a lot of thoughts I've had over recent years, but mine carry a tinge of backward, residual Protestantism. For example, I often feel guilty that, on the treadmill, while FF'ing through commercials on "House Hunters International", I often ask myself how I could be better self-actualized -- while at the same period in my grandfather's life, he was probably wondering how he'd feed his children on Thursday. - Erik Dafforn

/me secretly wonders how many are going to try what Paul wrote .. LOL - Steven Hodson

60% of the time it works every time - MG Siegler

I feel so smart now - Devin Anderson

I love old news. "Then there's cyberbusiness. We're promised instant catalog shopping--just point and click for great deals. We'll order airline tickets over the network, make restaurant reservations and negotiate sales contracts. Stores will become obselete. So how come my local mall does more business in an afternoon than the entire Internet handles in a month? Even if there were a trustworthy way to send money over the Internet--which there isn't--the network is missing a most essential ingredient of capitalism: salespeople. - Paul Buchheit

No salespeople? Isn't that what spam is for? - Devin Anderson

That's a funny quote. Seldom has anyone been more wrong. And iirc it was obvious in 1995 that this was wrong. - j1m

Brilliant. I've been looking for a way to say just this, and you've done it! - Stephen Foskett

Caption: "Despite the fact that the media are trained to believe that winning a state is all that matters, Clinton isn't winning hers by enough. Each time she edges out a win she loses the opportunity to get the large wins she needs. And so every primary to date has resulted in Clinton needing to get an ever-increasing % of the remaining delegates to get a pledged majority. Her situation is getting worse, not better." - Kevin Fox

Great visualization of this. - Mike Doeff

What's it look like for the popular vote? - ⓞnor

Impossible to say. The # of remaining pledged delegates is a known quantity*, but the number of people voting** in upcoming primaries is unknown. - Kevin Fox

* I have another version of the chart if Florida and Michigan have re-votes and get seated, but it's the same trendline. - Kevin Fox

** How do they count the popular votes in caucuses? I haven't seen these stats. I only see the number of caucus sites going one way or another... - Kevin Fox

Like-abuse by Ana! :-) Nice graph that tells a story. - Louis Gray

A lot of politics is "spin" and it's amusing to see Clinton spin this trend any way she can with words like "underdog" and "momentum". - Jason Kaneshiro

Kevin: Nevada caucus chair to the rescue.....With the exception of the Texas two-step, there isn't a popular vote in a caucus. At each caucus site, we have a period where we line up by the candidate. Based on the number lined up for each candidate, delegates are allocated. At my precinct, it was three delegates for Obama and two for Clinton. Supporters for each candidate then choose who among them will be those delegates .... That's why when you see the current total in Wyoming, it's Obama 3068 to 2160, - Chris Reed

Time for an update :) - Sanjeev Singh

Here's an updated version with the Pennsylvania results as well as a few minor updates to the previous contests: http://fury.com/images/post_pe... She now has to win 68% of the remaining pledged delegates to get the majority. This chart is becoming less useful though, as the superdelegates are what really matter. In the next few days I'll make a new chart that incorporates the superdelegate trend and their own undecideds. - Kevin Fox

re: nor/popular vote: http://tinyurl.com/5836py ; basically throws the entire "popular vote" discussion out the window - where it belongs - Will DeLuca

HRC is painting herself into a corner and is starting to look foolish. - Mike Reynolds

Thank you for there finally being someone who commented on this! I thought it was hilarious too! - Ana

luckily for us, the japanese are no longer focusing their energies on building superior technologies. - eviltom