What Happened to Yahoo
August 2010 When I went to work for Yahoo after they bought our startup in 1998, it felt like the center of the world. It was supposed to be the next big thing. It was supposed to be what Google turned out to be. What went wrong? The problems that hosed Yahoo go back a long time, practically to the beginning of the…
Everest is littered with dead, exposed bodies
In 2006, a lone climber attempting the summit of Mount Everest for the third time was, purely by chance, caught in an amateur photograph tak...
The Top Idea in Your Mind
July 2010 I realized recently that what one thinks about in the shower in the morning is more important than I'd thought. I knew it was a good time to have ideas. Now I'd go further: now I'd say it's hard to do a really good job on anything you don't think about in the shower. Everyone who's worked on difficult…
A real person, a lot like you
Derek Sivers official site. Thoughts on philosophy, culture, self-improvement. Author of Useful Not True, How to Live, Hell Yeah or No, Anything You Want.
Drowning Doesn't Look Like Drowning
Translations: – العربية – Norsk 汉语 – tiếng Việt – Español – Italiano – Français – Magyar – Português – română – Deutsch – Suomi – Svenska – Čeština – Русско – Íslenska – Nederlands – ελληνικά – עברית – Audio Version
My Thoughts on Oracle v Google
As you've probably heard by now, Oracle has decided to file suit against Google, claiming multiple counts of infringement against Java or JVM patents and copyrights they acquired when they assimilated Sun Microsystems this past year. Since I'm unlikely to keep my mouth shut about even trivial matters, something this…
The day Steve Jobs dissed me hard
Derek Sivers official site. Thoughts on philosophy, culture, self-improvement. Author of Useful Not True, How to Live, Hell Yeah or No, Anything You Want.
Automatically followed by abusive ex-husband (and his friends) on Google Buzz
I use my private Gmail account to email my boyfriend and my mother. There’s a BIG drop-off between them and my other “most frequent” contacts. You know who my third most frequent …
Google Engineer bails out student in jail
The whole experience of what happens pre-trial was a real eye-opener. One of the things which I learned was that if one uses a bail bondsman in the US they require a 10% payment which they keep even if you do show up for court. That makes getting out of jail phenomenally expensive.
New iPhone Agreement Bans Flash-to-iPhone Compiler & Others
Cross-compilers, such as the Flash-to-iPhone compiler in Adobe’s upcoming Flash Professional CS5 release, are prohibited.
A new type of phishing attack. Works on savvy users.
In essence, a phishing attack is a kind of hack used by cybercriminals to trick victims into performing a certain activity. These emails are frequently sent
Wikileaks To Leak 5000 Open Source Java Projects
Java's not even *fun* enough to laugh at. I expect after your sabbatical you would be trolling at Scala or Haskell or Go ! What's next ? Jokes about making GUIs in VB ? Pshh. Seriously though, I can get the attack on privateness and finality. From someone with a strong dynamic tropism, that makes sense. But that good…
How I Screwed Up My Google Acquisition
I began building a web-based version of PowerPoint called Preezo back in the Spring of 2005 after switching the direction of my angel-funded startup for the third time in less than a year. Prior to that I had been working on a web collaboration concept akin to JotSpot , but after awakening to the the potential of AJAX…
Re-entry to US without backscatter or pat-down
On November 21, 2010, I was allowed to enter the U.S. through an airport security checkpoint without being x-rayed or touched by a TSA officer. This post explains how.
Haskell Researchers Announce Discovery of Industry Programmer Who Gives a Shit
Oh, Steve, you do make me laugh, always. And it's so long between posts these days I hardly believed it when Safari hinted that there was some action over at Steve's. Thank you.
Design for Hackers: Why Monet Never Used Black, & Why You Shouldn't Either
Monet’s paintings evoke a sense of energy and life, they leap off the canvas with color and contrast, but Monet somehow managed to avoid using the color black for nearly his entire painting career. By avoiding black in your own designs, you can replicate some of this dynamism. Monet and Other Impressionists Explored…
When we got to the scanner, I opted out. Then they opted out.
Writing and Stuff from Isaac Z. Schlueter
Paul Buchheit: Serendipity finds you
Here is an interesting comment from Hacker News, on a story about someone turning down an early Google offer: Similar thing happened t...