Disqus - Latest Comments for morland

Re: The Decentralization of Everything I’ve been... - The Gong Show

morland — Fri, 25 Apr 2014 16:34:15 -0000

I think maybe that list is less of a chronology and more of a "Maslow's hierarchy" of how information behaves as successive conditions are met (e.g., tech constraints removed, interoperability being economically advantageous, etc.). The fact that it resembles an inexorable temporal march might be facilitated by repeated technological extensions of the frontier, but like you pointed out the consequent user experiences built around those advances and the match with real market needs shape behavior in each use case more than any inherent destiny.

E.g., Facebook has been "the new AOL" for almost a decade now, even through the flourishing and heydays of phases 3 and 4, because the UX advantages, financial model, and organizational agenda outweighed (by far) any forces pulling for that information to be liberated and distributed. I think mobile is just another example of this. What we're seeing is an (exciting!) addition to the top of the pyramid, but just because it's there doesn't mean it will be reached in all, or even most, cases — the total benefit to all parties does not always increase as you move higher up.

Re: Can Computers Engage in Judgement? - The Gong Show

morland — Mon, 20 May 2013 08:06:11 -0000

Google's self-driving cars are an interesting example to study in this context.

Being able to operate a car requires complicated real-time synthesis of several data sources. There are explicit rules in the form of traffic laws (as Albert alluded this can be considered simply a codification of human judgment), knowledge of the operating behavior of the car (e.g., the distance required to brake, how it varies if the road is wet — for humans this is intuited after a while, for machines it can be directly calculated), local sensory input (e.g., speed, position of other cars, traffic signals), and complete journey context (e.g., traffic rerouting, whether to fill up when you see that sign saying "last gas for 80 miles").

Furthermore the objectives are manifold and not always compatible. Sometimes punctuality must be sacrificed in favor of safety. Sometimes a decision involves multiple unsafe and/or illegal choices.

Is the cars' judgment here a repackaging of human-generated data? Partly: they have access to a vast corpus of successful and unsuccessful drive logs. But I'd argue that, importantly, what they're doing is so superhuman (e.g., the use of qualitatively different information like constant 360-degree proximity sensing, the ability to follow another vehicle at a distance so short it would be recklessly dangerous for a human driver) that they have to invent their own judgment and define their own norms to some extent.

I expect to see a lot more of this alongside the Soylent Green-style filtering.

Re: http://behold.grillpanda.com/post/3019703925

morland — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 06:43:03 -0000

Non family members support you too, Matt.

Re: teendrama :: hello my name is dennis.

morland — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 05:51:58 -0000

When I lived on 10th/B I used to always cut over to walk by that place at night. It's like that guy keeps the corner turret library illuminated just to show off. I would too.

Re: The Gong Show ~ by Andrew Parker

morland — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 08:36:07 -0000

A quick behavioral hack when the software won't delay for you is to fill out the message in reverse - body, then subject, then recipient(s). It's a pain for reply-all if the recipient list is too large but in a lot of other situations guarantees you won't send by accident.

Re: Sheets on tumblr

morland — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 13:48:35 -0000

Awesome.

Re: Marginal Revolution: Markets in everything, hedonic pricing edition parts I and II

morland — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 22:35:51 -0000

Kudos Al, the econ nerd in me rejoices.

Re: The Gong Show ~ by Andrew Parker

morland — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 14:25:22 -0000

They played this last night in London in a still-active church - fantastic. Some good pics on Flickr: http://flickr.com/search/?s...

The live percussion, which I didn't expect, adds a lot.

Re: seedcamp: The fitness test

morland — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 05:48:07 -0000

That's an interesting question. We don't have the resources unfortunately to provide translation ourselves, but we're going to try to allow (and encourage) the aggregation of as much data from the event as possible. If anyone wants to translate this voluntarily we'd be pleased as punch.

Re: seedcamp: Making our short list and checking it twice

morland — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 05:18:06 -0000

Hi Hessia-

I just emailed you yesterday morning, after your first comment. Did you not get it? If not, can you send an alternate email address to info@seedcamp.com?

Thanks,
M

Re: seedcamp: Making our short list and checking it twice

morland — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 05:27:14 -0000

Sorry about that Hessia - we'll look into it immediately.

Re: seedcamp: 2008 application zeitgeist

morland — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 10:32:53 -0000

Hi Anna-

No need to cut us 20%, thanks though ;)

Be sure to let us know how much interest you get.

-m

Re: seedcamp: 2008 application zeitgeist

morland — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 05:06:22 -0000

Agreed - I was also surprised that some up-and-coming languages were absent (Erlang, Haskell, OCaml)... and no Git either.

Re: seedcamp: Quick-pitch round-table

morland — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 12:18:36 -0000

Hi Francesco - the contest closed last week. Did you also apply to Seedcamp?

Re: seedcamp: Video pitch competition results

morland — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 11:11:06 -0000

http://www.seesmic.com/vide...

Re: seedcamp: Seedcamp 2008 applications are now closed

morland — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 10:59:06 -0000

Yes, it's a cumulative total - the day-by-day would just be the deltas in the steps up each time.

We're analyzing the applications stats and will post something when we have it ironed out.

Re: seedcamp: Voting now open for our video pitch competition

morland — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 06:21:01 -0000

No, it's not a dumb question at all.

There's a bit of a "prisoner's dilemma" problem here where asking people to abide by a shared code of conduct is doomed to fail if:

1) entrants have much to gain by deviating from that code
2) entrants know their deviation is not observable to other entrants, and even possibly administrators
3) entrants therefore expect others to deviate, and must then deviate themselves to avoid a competitive disadvantage

As the number of persons involved increases there's a lower chance that everyone will abide by that code out of what we might call, for lack of a better term, sheer altruism. My own gut speculation, which is completely empirically unverified, is that above 10 participants the chances of one deviating are already asymptotically approaching 1. I'd be positively shocked if, with a group of 19, not one entrant self-promoted in the manner you're describing. There's probably a greater likelihood that I'd be voted Sexiest Man Alive (still keeping the dream alive, though). And glancing at some Twitter feeds, it looks like it's already happening (the promotion, that is, not my award).

So all that's a way of saying that we thought about asking people to rely on nothing but the natural course of visitor traffic to the voting page, but realized there was no way to enforce that request. It's a basic human engineering problem.

That said, if you're applying to the main Seedcamp event this is a chance to throw in an additional sweetener (we're keeping track - if you fill out a main Seedcamp application we'll append your video pitch to it). I'm not saying we'll pluck our favorite pitch from this competition, but it can really only help your overall odds.

-m

Re: seedcamp: Voting now open for our video pitch competition

morland — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 04:30:49 -0000

Ok - fixed now.

Re: seedcamp: Voting now open for our video pitch competition

morland — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 19:05:11 -0000

Not sure what was going on - looks to be up now.

Re: seedcamp: Voting now open for our video pitch competition

morland — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 13:44:12 -0000

Whoops, we'll have that changed by the morning if that's ok - a key resource is out for the evening. Sorry about that.

Re: seedcamp: Quick-pitch round-table

morland — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 07:08:49 -0000

Hey guys - had to upload it to my account to get the poll embedding working. I'll pull it when the voting is finished.

http://seesmic.com/video/91...

Re: seedcamp: Quick-pitch round-table

morland — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 06:36:56 -0000

Looks like you succeeded in both respects, but as you said I don't think it's a "pitch" per se ;)

Re: Sheets on tumblr

morland — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 09:37:14 -0000

I know it's twisted but I totally get a kick out of this.

Re: seedcamp: Quick-pitch round-table

morland — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 09:16:07 -0000

We'd really prefer you use Seesmic for two reasons:

1) it's integrated with the voting system we rigged up for tomorrow
2) we're not looking for anything formal - we're trying to replicate the impromptu environment in which founders often find themselves, so sticking with a site that encourages a quick conversation (albeit with the camera) is more realistic than a slick presentation

That said, if you really can't use Seesmic for some reason we can try and work with what you do use.

-m

Re: seedcamp: Quick-pitch round-table

morland — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 06:32:51 -0000

Hi guys-

Can you see my reply to Marty's comment below?

Thanks,
-m