71–80 of 236 posts
Point taken, but. . .not sure I agree that technologists were that involved with trying to end povery. Well, they were certainly involved, but I don't think they were the drivers. And I think sending humans to the moon was definitely a first world "problem" - not even on the list of priorities for third-word nations.
"People want to hear about the one big idea that changes the world, but that’s not how the world works. It’s not about visionary ideas; it’s about lots of good ideas which do not seem world-changing at the time, but which turn out to be great after lots of sweat and work have been applied."
We call ourselves innovators, but most of us are really just iterators... That's a fine line. The most significant innovations are often iterations. (Google comes to mind.) Why do we do this? Because we want to get rich, of course. I disagree with "Because we want to get rich". And I definitely disagree with "of course". Real hackers do this because we just have to . It just so happens that currently it's also a grea…
Note that its not about getting rich, but about not being broke . A very distinctive difference. Not being broke allows for a good life style. And that's what most of all want.
The innovator-iterator argument seems to be a red herring. The real issue here is building bullshit apps vs. helpful apps. I think focusing on making helpful apps is a more important message to developers than trying to "fix poverty in Africa" which is a nice goal but not something any web developer is likely going to impact. The reality is no one is going to come up with an idea like mFarm without REALLY understandi…
Absolutely agreed. Which is why I'm trying to specifically do that right now. (If it's not obvious, I'm the guy who delivered this speech.) But I absolutely disagree that web developers can't impact poverty in Africa (or, maybe more importantly, in their own town). To be perfectly frank, I merely think most of us in this industry don't give a shit one way or another. Which is fine, but I'm perfectly happy to judge pe…
Something that's built in such a way that a community create a lot of knowledge about the problem and context(general situation, current solutions and their limitations) , but maybe not the solution, so people could be more motivated to implement their invented solutions?
We call ourselves innovators, but most of us are really just iterators... That's a fine line. The most significant innovations are often iterations. (Google comes to mind.) Why do we do this? Because we want to get rich, of course. I disagree with "Because we want to get rich". And I definitely disagree with "of course". Real hackers do this because we just have to . It just so happens that currently it's also a grea…
prisoners are kept in jail That's cool, but if you are in the US, given the fairly dumb laws on a lot of things (drugs, mainly), how do you feel about helping to oppress the population? Are you only helping with really violent offenders? insurance claims are processed properly Isn't this just propping up an awful system? Wouldn't it be better to actually try and fix the base system? ~ As for the rest, good work!
I'm not even going to respond to that troll bait first point of yours, but as for the second, please give some insight as to how a programmer in charge of writing insurance claims processing applications can "fix the base system."
I know this is the smallest part I could take out of the post.. but Fremont - Ghetto? Maybe OP meant East Palo Alto, or Oakland, but IMO Fremont is one of the safest, homey places to live in the Bay Area. But then again, maybe I'm hanging out on that "One Block" - But I guess that block encompasses 12mi^2 :-). More on topic - I wouldn't agree completely. Some startups are new completely, some are building things a li…
He means Fremont street in Las Vegas. The area surrounding it is largely populated by places to gamble and find bail bondsmen. Very un-Palo Alto.