DISQUS

Agreed. I frequently check events on the go and to have to open the iphone mobile site then click to switch to the low-tech mobile site before having any way to interact with events is madness!

I'd agree except do you _really_ want to be clicking the dialog all the time saying it's okay the app uses the location services?

Well done on an extremely lucid contrast of the two types of ideas.

It drives me crazy that your solution for how to distinguish between the two is that it's impossible. Even if someone were to "reach the cliff", for any cargo cult idea of significance one man's assertions would be quickly covered up by those who have lived their lives in support of the false idea.

You mention "only probabilistic measures are possible" but I a having a hard time conceptualizing for what sort of circumstances you could argue disproving the cargo cult idea is "possible". Or maybe you just mean possible on a one-on-one basis.

How frustrating.

Do you have other examples of good cargo cult ideas that exist similarly to the atheist vs. christian argument?

Well put. I agree.

I took me until a significant number of years into my life before I even began to think about religion and then not until within the last several years that come to any sort of a conclusion as to what I believe.

Considering the alternate argument and effort required to explain an alternate "default" such as animist intuition, it is all too easy and understandable why in many cases arguing "everyone is born atheist" is an more likely assumption to come to consensus on.

woot.

I think a good actionable would be to remove that from the dictionary ASAP. ;)

That latest Conan appearance really is great! Thanks for putting this together, Colin!

Please do not re-tweet when you update your blog. If I want to follow you're blog, I'll follow your blog. If I want to follow your tweets, I'll follow your tweets.

I would like to follow both, but right now most of your twitter activity is duplication of notifications so I have a hard time following both.

I vote remove auto-posting to twitter.

I completely agree though your friend does have a bit of a point in that video there that there is no demand because people don't see it as a viable solution yet.

But really, who cares? People who are interested in observing others' lives. And surprisingly a *lot* of people enjoy this. You can see this from the complete boom of reality TV shows which are, in essence, just live streaming of peoples lives. Yes, you did specify that you wish for people do respect viewers' time and edit it down. While that makes a lot of sense if what you're doing is actually solving a need other than ambient entertainment, what live streaming solves is a need that post production does little to add to compared to the amount of time and effort it takes.

Your argument, though, is that live video on cell phones is dumb. While I am not personally interested in watching such footage, lots of people are. It's all about bringing this live aspect that you see on peoples home webcams on other services to something a little more engaging and interesting to watch.

I do think it's stupid though and I never plan on getting involved in such activities, but I do see a place for it in the grand scheme of things. I would rather watch something produced, but that I feel is a whole different type of entertainment with a (subtly) different audience.

That player is really slick man. Well done. You are the disco.

One thing though about your specific implementation. You put the "Record a video comment?" link *below* your comment text box past where the submit button is. I didn't notice it at first. Maybe add some sort of bar attached to the top of the comment box?

Here's a quick mock-up.

Hm. The window for making a comment wouldn't let me login! "There was an error logging you in, unrelated to your login information. Sorry. Try again."

That is so very cruel but I commend you for doing it. :) It's good she didn't get sick of it and claim you were not home so it would be left at the central office for you to have to go pick up manually -- I've been scolded with this option many a time.

Congrats! *drool*

That is one sexy sexy machine.

My kind of entry! Pickles are amazing.

That's quite an honest post to make by the weather man. I commend his posting that.

I have never really thought about it but it makes complete sense.

Too bad for him people have expectations of him culturally that he can't prevent. As you mention with emails people expect to get confirmation emails no matter what -- and they should. What I draw from this is that we should be careful not to set too high of expectations and for those that we do have to meet, to do our best and chug along.

I watched the other day as well and I agree it was well done.

Doin something with rails?

Come on! Give me a link!

Like has been said, whether or not I use those services, it allows others to find me. Even thought it seems obvious to just search for me on Google, many people do not scope their search that large.

I also keep my accounts because of privacy settings. I'd like to see what my friends are doing on an irregular basis and can't do so without having accounts.

LinkedIn has proven practically worthless for me, but it is a nice resume for me to point people towards if they are curious where I am professionally.

Eat a sandwich. No bread, of course.

I have noticed this and have been frustrated with it but haven't thought much of it because my browsing on the iphone is so disposable.

Thanks for getting this submitted to the parties responsible.

Is there any downside to forcing the users to adjust to new interfaces and feature sets on web applications? Any intelligent application provider will think twice before completely revamping their application in ways like you exemplified.

It's a matter of feasibility and providing "what's best" for your users.

Firstly, at least for social applications, to provide different code bases and database configurations for different types of users would likely not even be possible in the world of traditional DBMS's, let alone what the hassle would be to run to different uniquely optimized code bases.

Secondly, does it really happen that often that web applications change so much that they alter how you fundamentally use the web service? Your two examples would be such examples, but people don't do that. And if they did (in the case of Microsoft Office 2007 or the re-vamping of Google Reader), it would be at the disgression of the application provider to decide what they deem a best choice for the user. People will upgrade to new versions of software no matter how different they become because thats how we are used to reacting to new versions of things. If users of web applications were provided the option to upgrade in these extreme situations they would likely choice the upgrade path not because they think that's best but because it's what they think of as "default" in their mind. It wouldn't make sense to impose such a question on the majority of users because likely the majority of the users that were afraid to upgrade would simply be because of laziness and fear.

Okay you did it. You found my weak point. I can't resist commenting to say what a cute cat!

I would disqus in more detail, but it seems everything has already been disqused.

The comments I write in response to your post are meant to give a shout out with a quick opinion on your post whereas a post I'd put on my website would really have to be something I strongly had interest in reflecting upon.

For example, this entry I am interested in replying to and giving my thoughts but I don't personally feel this issue is one I'd like to put on my blog for my readers to read. You could argue that I'm wrong and that my readers may enjoy reading my commentary but it's not something I wish to share often times.

Having comments enabled allows for this middle-commentary to go on. Also, you're comparing leaving comments to posting on ones blog. What about those that don't have a blog or forum to reflect and link back to you? Comments give those people a voice and I think it's great.

I've been debating setting up my blog to allow for some posts with comments and some not. I've seen several bloggers who choose on a per-entry basis whether or not they would like commentary and I think that's a good way to go. Sometimes people write in a one-directional manner and sometimes the entry is just asking for responses - like this one.

requires the 'www.' and won't work without it.