Your blog sub-text is missing the oxford-comma. "Lies, damn lies and startups."
Infinite monkeys and infinite repos
21–30 of 32 posts
Re: Infinite monkeys and infinite repos
#22Agreed that copycatting and lame ideas are to be discouraged, but the author makes one fatal error in my mind: consumers and venture capitalists have the benefit of "portfolio" thinking. Entrepreneurs have all their eggs in one basket, and a finite amount of time to make things happen. So while being totally zany might indeed be good for the whole, I can pretty much guarantee that it will be terrible for 99% of the entrepreneurs.
Re: Infinite monkeys and infinite repos
#23I thought this was going to be about the insane proliferation of "forks" of any given popular github repository. Some advice: just forking something and hacking on it is just the start. If you'd like to give something back to the open source community, be sure you communicate with the other people involved in the project about your changes. That may be a pull request, but for more complex things, might well also invo…
I thought the exact same thing.
Re: Infinite monkeys and infinite repos
#24This looks good from the perspective of a customer. This also looks good from the perspective of the rare successful monkey team (survivor bias.)
But for an average monkey before the startup experiment this looks rather bad. Unfortunately this is just the monkey you are.
Re: Infinite monkeys and infinite repos
#25Monkeys are not apes and vice-versa http://science.howstuffworks.com/zoology/mammals/monkeys-vs-...
When I read something about crushing skulls with monkey paws, I knew he was way off. A mandrill would be more likely to bite you!
Re: Infinite monkeys and infinite repos
#26You seem to forget about the infinite number of photo sharing apps and social media aggregators you would also have. And the infinite amount of monkey groups that invented monkeycrunch and the infinite amount of monkey startups that read monkeycrunch religiously.
Re: Infinite monkeys and infinite repos
#27Imagine an infinite number of 32GB microsd cards. One of those cards would contain at least 100's of the best apps out there for every platform, 100's of the best books, and 100's of the best photos, as well as 100's of the best blog posts. It would truly be original unlike all the software today that builds on previous ideas, or books that build on previous ideas, or art that builds on previous ideas.
It's not that bad a mere 2^(8 * 32 * (1024^3)) cards can get you there.
Re: Infinite monkeys and infinite repos
#28I like the idea of the article, but it falls apart in the real world, on the individual level. Each human has a finite amount of resources, time, and energy. Therefore we tend to invest in those projects that we feel will reward us in the way we need to be rewarded. For most people that is monetary, as people we like to eat, more than bananas.
If we had a social system that had a softer cushion for failure or a start-up incubator that rewarded ideas that were creative we may see a larger group of people taking risks and interesting ideas.
One of the primary differences between humans and monkeys creating start-ups is that humans have human lives. We have bills, families, responsibilities, higher wants and needs, and so much more. The start-up arguments seem to forget that we are all people, real human people. Even entrepreneurs are people, and they will have to address their humanity at some point.
Re: Infinite monkeys and infinite repos
#29> The... ecosystem [of random startup ideas] would be > arguably more diverse, more innovative and overall better > for consumers. Instead of having 8 million photo sharing > apps and 11 million social network aggregators, you would > instead have an infinite number of truly bold products. Somehow I think that there must be a better approach to creating more innovation than generating ideas at random, but I get his p…
I'm reminded of the story from "The Cyberiad" of the pirate who wanted to know everything (the name Pugg seems to ring a bell). The heroes of the story gave him a device which would continuously spit out facts. At first, the pirate was pleased, and our heroes escaped whilst he was busy absorbing facts. But these facts turned out to be random, practically useless information, and eventually the pirate was buried in them, unable to look away . . .
Re: Infinite monkeys and infinite repos
#30I really am sick of people making photo sharing apps.
Can we please make something different? Please.