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Hacker News | Our greatest shortcoming is our inability to understand the exponential function
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How (and Why) to Stop Multitasking – Peter Bregman – Harvard Business Review
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Creative Class » Blog Archive » The Density of Smart People – Creative Class
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San Francisco is crawling with financial retirees who have degrees, yet produce nothing. Most innovation in the Bay Area occurs in the suburbs, such as silicon valley, Berkeley, and Emeryville.
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Hacker News | Ask HN: How can I grow this or gain more traction?
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Hacker News | Charlie Stross on Common Misconceptions About Publishing: Ebooks
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精神病人的世界（这么牛逼的文章我不得不转，强烈推荐非常规思维以及喜欢心理学或者科幻世界的同学看~~）（太好看了，忍不住转了）
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我面前的他是一个妄想症患者，他认为自己是一部书的主角，同时也是作者。病史4年多了，3年前被关进医院。药物似乎对他无效，家人——他老婆都快放弃了。
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那次谈话就这么结束了。之后我又去过两次，他不再对我说这些，转而山南海北的闲聊。不过那以后没多久，听说他有所好转，半年多后，出院观察了。出院那天我正好没事儿就去了，他跟他的主治医生和家人朋友谈笑风生，没怎么理我。临走时，他漫不经心的走到我身边，低声快速的说：“还记得第一次那张桌子吗？去看看桌子背面。”说完狡猾的笑了下，没再理我。
费了好大劲我才找到我和他第一次会面的那张桌子。我趴下去看桌子底下，上面有很多指甲的划痕，依稀能辨认出歪歪斜斜的几个字。
那是他和我第一次见面的日期，以及一句话：半年后离开。
过后很久，我眼前都会浮现出他最后那狡猾的笑容。
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他：“你可以想象的出来，跨越时间的看，我们是一个长长的虫子怪物，从床上延伸到大街上，延伸到学校，延伸到公司，延伸到商场，延伸到好多地方。因为我们的动作在每个时间段都是不同的，所以跨越时间来看，我们都是一条条虫子。从某一个时间段开始，到某一个时间段结束。”
我和量子物理教授都愣愣的听着他说。 -
我努力镇定下来强调调查的事实：“你的母亲、所有的亲戚、邻居，都异口同声的说你哥哥在你出生2年前就夭折了。你怎么解释这件事儿？”
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“她”那不存在的哥哥，就是“她”的多重人格。
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他舔了舔嘴唇继续说：“我给你讲个真实版《三只小猪》的故事吧：三 只小猪住在一栋很大的宫殿里，开始的生活很快乐，大家各自做各自擅长的事情，有一天其中的两只小猪发现一个可怕的怪物进来了。于是那两只小猪一起和怪物搏 斗，但是怪物太强大了，一只小猪死掉了。在死前，他告诉参加搏斗的兄弟，希望他能打败怪物，保护最小的那只小猪。此时最小的那只小猪还不知道怪物的存在。 于是没有战死的这只小猪利用宫殿的复杂和怪物周旋，同时还要保护最小的那只，甚至依旧隐瞒着怪物的存在。这样过去了还就。但是，他太弱了，根本不可能战胜 怪物。而怪物一天天的越来越强大，以至于他一切工作都不能再做了，专心的在和怪物周旋。有一天，怪物占据了宫殿最重要的一个房间，虽然最后终于被引出去 了，但是那个重要的房间还是遭到了严重的破坏。宫殿出了问题，事情再也藏不住了。但是最小的那只小猪很天真，不懂到底是怎么了，于是肩负嘱托的那只小猪撒 谎说宫殿在维修，就快没事儿了。他还在尽可能的保护着她，并且经常会去利用很短的一点儿时间去看望、安慰最小的那只小猪，不让她知道残酷的真相……这不是 一个喜剧……终于怪物还是发现了最小的那只小猪，并且杀死了她……最后那只、也是唯一的那只小猪发誓不惜一切代价复仇，他决定要烧毁这座宫殿，和怪物同归于尽…………这就是《三只小猪》真正的故事。”
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大约两年后一个学医的朋友告诉我一个生物器官：鼻犁器（费尔蒙嗅器，vomeronasal organ）很多动物身上都有这个器官。那是一个特殊的感知器官，动物可以通过鼻犁器收集飘散在空气中的残留化学物质，从而判断对方的性别、威胁与否，甚 至可以用来猎物追踪、预知地震。这就是人们常说很多动物拥有的“第六感”。人类虽然还存在这个器官，但都已经高度退化。我当时立刻想到了她的自我描述：鼹 鼠——嗅觉远远强于视觉。也许她的鼻犁器特别发达吧？当然那是我瞎猜的。不过，说句无责任的感慨：有时候眼睛看到的，还真不一定就是真实的
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Dan Grover » Indie Developers and Crossing the App Store Chasm
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This is, of course, silly. The App Store does streamline many things, but not the fundamental tasks of building a successful business: finding a need, fulfilling it, and reaching customers who want to buy the product. It is not a silver bullet.
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For indie Mac developers like me, it can be a pretty big deal to get in Macworld magazine or have Daring Fireball mention the app or win an Apple Design Award.
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But compared to most people, the customers who would actually be reached by any of these things are, well, kind of geeky. I mean, even the people who would be reached by the second-order effects of such exposure are still up there on the geek scale.
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I’ll repeat that: Regular people. Using third-party apps. Not shrinkwrapped software packages from major publishers. Just apps from indie developers. That they downloaded. And paid for. And sometimes even keep up with.
If this doesn’t shock you every time you see it, you haven’t been paying attention. Average people are, with absolute confidence, doing something that only dorks like me did five years ago.
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It’s not about using nice icons or having good user interface guidelines — it goes much deeper. At its core, every aspect of the iPhone user experience is carefully crafted around the way we develop emotional relationships with inanimate objects.
It sounds silly and pretentious, but it’s a real factor! Donald Norman has written and spoken a lot about this topic. Humans are emotional beings, and good human-computer interfaces take this into account.
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As a result of all this, when you touch the phone, you’re not touching the computer, you’re touching the software. Again, pretentious-sounding, but true!
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And this isn’t because of how easy it is to install apps, but how easy it is to remove them.
Somehow, the iPhone is discoverable, knowable, and manageable, in a way that desktop computers (or even other smartphones) never were. The end result is that when people are no longer afraid of their tools, they can finally really use them. They can experiment and test the limits. You know, without being the kind of dorks who read Macworld.
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Developers may lament the “hit based” nature of App Store apps, comparing it to a Top 40 chart (I’m pretty sure I’ve gotten reports from Apple that referred to my apps as “albums”). But it’s apt — just look in your iTunes sidebar. It practically seems like apps are on the same footing with music and movies and TV shows.
But this much is clear: regular people actually get the concept of apps, and they’re willing to pay for them. For this reason alone, it’s a great time to be a developer.
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I prefer good software over open software any day, and I’m of the opinion that social good is maximized by the ebb and flow of free and proprietary systems. And that every piece of software has a tipping point at which it is best made open.
But even if you disagree, the struggle that the free software movement is fighting isn’t made harder because people don’t understand free software. It’s because people don’t understand software.
Period.
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iPad application/api / Suggestions / Discussion Area – Sente Support
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There is a ‘no comment’ on a very convenient application syncing
the desktop with an iPad application functionality( for the express
purpose of removing 5lbs of journal printouts in my backpack).Is there, or will there be an API for enterprising users who
want to home brew an application that syncs with Sente? I’m a CS
major, and since iPad + Sente = Happy, I am desperate enough to
write some crude personal app.
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iAnnotate PDF (Productivity) | Speak iPad
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Hey Guys, We just updated iAnnotate!
Here’s a quick run through of a few changes:
- A redesigned and streamlined interface
- You can receive, modify and send annotated docs through email!
- Transfer PDFs via iTunes USB
- Download any PDF link with the integrated web browser
- Share files with other apps.
- A redesigned document finder now includes favorites, tag search, new/recent documents, and more.
- Text annotation summaries are available to read and share.
- Two finger scroll allows lets you scroll while editing
- Many other minor interface improvements and bug fixes based on excellent user feedback!We’d love to know what you think, and we’re super attentive to our forums if you have any questions at all.
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Kindle Statistics — Matt Mullenweg
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As the Kindle has become a bigger and bigger part of my life, much of my reading time has shifted from RSS-based sources to content on my Kindle, but I’m really curious how much time, how many words, at what times of day, etc I’m consuming all this new content. I think providing stats would also encourage people to read more, and highlight to them how the Kindle has changed their habits.
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What will be the quality of Kindle Apps we see? « Kindle Review – Kindle 3 Review, iPad Review
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Kindle Apps could make the Kindle more useful
At the same time apps that help with the reading process would really, really help users. Basic things like wishlists and bookshelves and perhaps a thesaurus and perhaps an app that remembers a list of new words (Note: this can’t be done from within a book – you would have to go to the app and note the word).
At the moment there is no way (at least to my knowledge) for an app to play sounds (using the KDK APIs) while reading – However, down the line, an ambient noise app or a better music player would definitely add to the reading process.
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I read about all the current and future ereaders, the iPad, etc. – and all I can think about is how much I love my Kindle. With the exception of folders or some way to organize books, there’s not a thing I would change. Like the previous poster, I never access Wikipedia or the Kindle Store from my Kindle, although I do highlight and make some notes. And I order books from my laptop. So to me, Kindle’s great strength is being a dedicated ereader that uses eink. I would hope that any future apps would be to improve the quality of our reading experience.
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From looking at the publicly available documentation of their development kit (I am not a participant of the beta testing) it seems there is no way of developing applications or tools that somehow integrate with existing features of the device. For example one could think of an application that uses information about the dictionary lookups performed when reading a book in a foreign language, and then allowing to schedule repetitions of the words helping to memorize them. Apparently there is no easy way to do it.
As a user I am probably more interested in Amazon further developing the so called experimental features: the web browser and the music player (with decent UI).
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Kindle Software Update Adds Twitter, PDF Zoom, Sharper Fonts | Gadget Lab | Wired.com
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The new features fall into two categories: social, and not-stupid. The social features will let you share a passage via either Facebook or Twitter, and adds a new function called Popular Highlights, which lets you “See what the Kindle community thinks are the most interesting passages in the books you’re reading.” These seem to spoil the very reason I use the Kindle to read: lack of distraction. When I read on my iPod I’m all, like, ADD? The Kindle has until now been much more isolated and book-like.
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heres hoping AMZN exposes annontations via API
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If you already have a thousand books on there as some do, yah, it’d be a bit of a pain, but it’s mainly a flick on a highlighted highlighted book on the home page, to add it in to a Collection or into a few collections.
It’d be better to be able to select a few and then, in one, click get all those into one Collection. So far, no other ereader makes this possible to do within the reader device itself so I suppose it’s not too easy to program (especially when the server is is often scanning for last page read and annotations to be backed up (if you don’t disable the latter feature).
I had tagged my books, in the past, with keywords prefaced by ‘x’ when I wanted to find things (via the old Add-Note feature) so this will be a lot better
I didn’t expect them to do something that would give this much flexibility.
Re the shared highlighting of books info, I’ve always liked a feature they don’t advertise – and that’s the private password-protected webpage you get, listing all your books and showing all your highlights and annotations for each book, with all annotations on any individual book shown on a scrolling page, which is very useful. The new update now includes info on what others thought to highlight in the book.
Me? I think I’d turn that off. Not interested in knowing! The marketers thought that one up.
But here’s what the private Amazon webpage of annotations looks like. I made a gif of a shorter list. That’s at http://bit.ly/kwebnotesample
Hope we get our update sooner than later.
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Hacker News | Amazon Starts Sharing What You’ve Highlighted on Your Kindle
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Amazon Starts Sharing What You’ve Highlighted on Your Kindle
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
