Interesting approach. If this was part of a series and perhaps in a different material + color-mapped (think Shapeways full color sandstone for instance), I could see someone very passionate about algorithms wanting to buy/own/print them.
Great timing and submission, thank you for posting!
I've been meaning to get more in depth knowledge on distributed systems, but despite having access to several academic (text)books, I felt overwhelmed and didn't know where to start exactly and what sub-topics I might want to focus on.
Just downloaded and sent to Kindle 'Distributed Systems for Fun and Profit' as a free PDF written by an engineer currently working for Stripe, a book recommended in the article. It's only 62 pages and doesn't feel intimidating!
I would've liked testing this, if the signup prompts weren't so... aggressively displayed ? I almost never do signups, especially social signups via GitHub/Twitter/etc anymore for beta products because it's happened in the past that they ended up semi-abandoned with no way of deleting my profile/account, as well as for other reasons.
The alternative is of course, signing up with a temp email address and data, but it makes me feel uneasy going this route.
I suggest considering to make hyperdev.com/about the homepage instead (perhaps that's already the plan, once out of beta) or adding a link to it from the current homepage. People can read a bit about the product first, before deciding to signup, it seems more honest and empowering.
At least maybe display prominently on the homepage that this is a FogCreek product, I think it would make it easier for users to trust.
Try imagining a homepage visit is your first encounter with the product, having known nothing about it previously. It asks for your data, but it doesn't even tell you who made it. You have N other sites to visit or work to tend to.
sorry to hear that :( We are aware of this and completely understand it. Nevertheless, we preferred to take this route in order to test HyperDev in a "controlled" way. The experience we plan to have short after this testing period will be way more polished far less "email hungry" :)
When you think about it though, it's unlikely she nominated herself for the award or asked for it. Can we really hold someone accountable for another group of persons' actions?
With that in mind, I briefly researched the 'Horatio Alger Award', it's being offered by the Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans, a nonprofit organization. I checked their site and merit of any kind is only part of the story.
As I understood things, when you're awarded the title, you automatically become a member and it's not possible to gain membership otherwise. This prize ensures growth and continuity for the organization, along with potential funding.
I read the 'Become a Member' pdf document from their site and while it appears anyone can be nominated, as long as the nominee is 'on brand' with the organization's ideals of remarkable achievements, the new member/awardee will, in turn, have to support the association in as many ways as possible, either by contributing to the program (activities with an administrative or promotional purpose), AND/OR financially.
The form states that it 'must be completed and signed by the nominee and the nominator. If the nomination is confidential, the form may be completed and signed by the nominator only. By signing this form, the nominator and nominee acknowledge their understanding and acceptance of the responsibilities associated with membership in the Association.'
I think the more questionable thing here is possibly exploitation of the desirability of status and prestige.
Most little-known prizes are basically scams, offering gloss and publicity to companies in exchange for cash at one point or another (in Alger's case, after the award). Everyone with half a clue knows it, so you end up picking the awards that fit your particular agenda and the image you want to project. In this case, Theranos' management wanted to look saintly; hence inevitable schadenfreude.
It's been 5 days since you commented and I've only just seen it unfortunately, although no longer relevant, I can assure you it does work. ML runs in parallel with Canon firmware. If there's a card in the camera with ML installed on it, it will attempt to run. No card with ML on it, camera boots normally. I've tripled checked both solutions. This post has also been promoted by @autoexec_bin, the official ML Twitter account. You either did something different or your camera is running a different version of ML than mine on a different camera model.
* Timetabling or scheduling apps like Doodle.com - subjects pertaining to Graph Theory
* Travel comparison sites that can find you the fastest flight route from A to B (and/or cheapest or some other type of constraints) - Graph Theory
* LinkedIn network analysis apps such as Socilab.com - Graph Theory
Basically Graph Theory is extremely important, with applications in domains such as: networking, linguistics, (bio)chemistry, pathfinding & GIS, social network analysis, matching (dating apps, organ donation, medical residency matching) etc.
Edit: Another application is PCB design. The circuit to be printed is the graph itself, it should not allow edge crossings that would result in a short circuit.
Considering the post submitter hasn't been more precise, I interpreted 'popular' as meaning less advertised or trendy. You can even use Graph Theory for image processing & analysis, yet another application.
In my opinion, what's important to some categories of users is high information density. This is what makes the 'ugly' Craigslist design useful to its users, the ability to have a bird's-eye view of potential navigation paths throughout the site because it reduces the number of steps needed to perform towards a certain goal and makes evaluation easier, without distractions.
For potential readers: this comment's content is a gross overstatement and does not reflect reality.
For example, over 50% of the population lives in an urban environment (see the CIA Romania Factbook which is very up to date). Even so, it would be wrong to assume that just because some of the country's citizens live in the countryside, they 'get around by cart and donkey'. Also, for the sake of accuracy, where such transportation is used, horses would be much more common as opposed to donkeys.
As for the 'half built palace that occupies half of Bucharest', I presume you're referring to the Palace of the Parliament, with an area of 365000 m2. The urban area of Bucharest occupies 228 km2, or 228000000 m2, significantly more than the area of the building you mentioned.
Edit: I double checked some data in regards to the Palace of the Parliament, the FLOOR AREA is indeed 365000 m2, but since the building has multiple floors, the actual occupied area is smaller. Check the Technical Details on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palace_of_the_Parliament
To be fair, I was last there six years ago, spent most of my time travelling through the the countryside, a few weeks in Cluj, visited friends in Sibiu, and got robbed when I went through Bucharest on my way to Moldova.
So yes, my view is far less accurate than yours, as it's from about six weeks six years ago - but the only place I saw comparable levels of overt corruption was Kyrgyzstan, and I've visited most of the ex-ussr and associated states. This is no judgment on the Romanian or Kyrgyz peoples - this is a sad fact of life after economic oppression - corruption becomes a way of life.
I'm sorry for your personal experience, but you should be able to realize that traumatic personal experiences can cloud your opinion about a very complex topic such as a whole country.
I visited the US and I wasn't really impressed, for example. But I wouldn't judge the US based on just what I saw in a couple of weeks, considering what I've read and seen about it.
Oh, I don't have a dim view of Romania though, I loved my time there, I fell in love with Sibiu - actually, a big chunk of what I said/think comes from a buddy from Cluj who I've known 25 years or so - and I hadn't heard about the anticorruption initiative, that's good news.
I had a knife stuck in my back at a cafe and had my camera stolen, and the police officer I found then took my passport and wanted (and got) a bribe to return it. Not a unique experience, I've been held up and hijacked variously around the planet, but it did go to reinforce the Cluj guy's "don't bother with Bucharest, you'll get mugged" anecdotes!
Oh, and driving around rural Romania on single track roads, I guess the donkey carts kinda stick out, as you get a nice long view of the back of them! Selection bias...
That would heavily depend on what type of crime you're talking about.
For example, corruption is a very serious form of crime. Romania ranks #58 (below Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Croatia, and Greece) on Transparency International's corruption index, compared to the US at #16.
With Romania having such extreme corruption, how can you be certain its crime stats are worth taking seriously? How under-reported is crime - rape, theft, violent crime etc - likely to be in a nation with corruption problems that are that bad? From other countries with even worse corruption (eg Venezuela or Brazil), what we do know is that there tends to be a direct correlation - for extremely obvious reasons - between high levels of corruption and poor crime reporting.
I'm not sure that the police reward system is based on crime stats over here. I.e. the police chief gets more money if he reports fewer crimes. Considering the way people in our public sector think, it's more likely that the police chief would want to report more crimes, since he can hire more people, get more resources and likely more bribes.
And my anecdotal evidence says that Romania is truly a safe country. I probably know 1000+ Romanians and I know 1 that has been robbed while being threatened with a knife and several that have had things stolen from them. This feeling of safety is one of the few things that's reported constantly by people I know, either in rural areas or in urban areas: violence is not wide spread. We even have a proverb that says: "mamaliga explodeaza greu" ("it takes a long tine for mamaliga to explode": mamaliga is a local dish, a sort of corn porridge; the meaning of the expression is that we don't get aggravated quickly; we do talk a lot, curse and threaten and whatever but we tend to not actually fight that much... maybe we're cowards :) ). Most people over here would find the US gung-ho mentality quite threatening ("don't take my guns", "stand your ground").
What does happen constantly, and what the agency I posted above tries to fight, is wide spread practice of asking for bribes for any kind of service performed by a public servant. Which has a huge negative impact on small businesses, especially.
Interesting point you make re: small businesses - my friend runs a web development shop, and he was telling me about how they keep accounts, and "accounts", because declaring a profit is a good way to ensure a tax inspector will arrive and won't leave until you bribe him to go away.
Interestingly, this phenomenon isn't limited to Romania - a Latvian friend running a furniture company does the same thing for the same reason - for the first two years of his business he filed genuine books - the first year, they came asking for a bribe, he refused - the second year, they raided him and took all the machine tools - so now he just "makes a loss" every year and they don't bother him.
Similarly, a Lithuanian friend who used to run a telco found himself stuck in the middle of a lover's quarrel between the state telecoms regulator and another telco who had paid a bribe to win a tender, which he then bid for and made things awkward.
Corruption is no joke - I think many underestimate the chilling effect it has on everything from civil liberties to tourism to business to tax revenue collection - if your tax collectors are corrupt, you are well and truly on the road to hell.
Re: Romania feeling safe, you're right - which is in no small part why my experience in Bucharest was such a shock - it was at total odds with the Romania I'd experienced up to that point.
They've started sending doctors, cops, clerks, etc. to jail for taking bribes. They're encouraging people to organize stings when asked for money. It is a struggle but things are actually changing.
You have to remember that Romania wasn't all that "clean" even before Communists came and Communism is basically "the state as a criminal organization". Old habits die hard.
You visited the US and "weren't impressed"? Where did you visit exactlY? Its a very large country with over 200 milion people. What weren't you impressed with? What was lacking? Also where are you from thats more impressive?
San Francisco, San Jose, Seattle. I plan on visiting New York this year or maybe next year.
> Its a very large country with over 200 million people.
I think it's over 300 million now :)
> What weren't you impressed with?
Well... homeless people. The fact that cities don't seem to be very "walkable" (and from what I've read SF is one of the best US cities in this regard). Food in supermarkets. Various other minor aspects.
> What was lacking?
I wouldn't say "lacking". Instead I'd say that I like other things more.
> Also where are you from that's more impressive?
I'm from Romania (not hard to guess, considering the topic). It's not "impressive" either.
What I find "impressive" instead is Germany.
And you seem to be bothered by a part of my previous comment. So I'll repost another part which you might have missed:
> But I wouldn't judge the US based on just what I saw in a couple of weeks, considering what I've read and seen about it.
Ha, yeah that was a typo : ) I think its closer to 330 million these days.
The homeless problem in SF is really terrible and particularly glaring. Homelessness in general is a problem in many major cities in US however the intensity of it in SF is not not at all representative of the rest of the US.
I'm not impressed by either SF or San Jose either, but I wouldn't say the US doesn't impress me. The North East Corridor of the US is very different from the places you visited as is the South, the Midwest etc.
You don't need to defend it, you know. That was the point the poster was making - that just because he had a subpar experience he shouldn't judge the whole country by it.
The US is very much like 5 to 12 different countries pretending to be one.
Personally, I'd classify the culturally distinct areas as Pacific Coast, Big West, Mormonland, Deep South, Mid-Atlantic, North Mexico, Eastern Megalopolis (Washington DC to Boston), Middle Neutralia, Flori-duh (aka Murica's Glans), and Cajun Country.
Having visited most at least once, and lived in three for at least a year, each are impressive in different ways. It isn't always a positive impression.
It is unbelivable how much the society changed in the last 6 years; ouvert corruption is still visible in Romania, but now there is a growing social stigma associated with it, as it should be in a western-type civilization. The gap in mentality is still there, because it isn't easy to eradicate 50 years of bad influence (communism, I'm looking at you!). But the gap is closing, and now it is common to see cabinet-level people ending up in prison, sending strong messages throughout the society.
Can you give some examples of corruption that actually hindered you? I consider corruption to be a minor-to-non-existent problem for areas like IT/tech here.
The main problem to me is the lack of entrepreneurship and the fact that there are lots of "stealth-startups" in Romania that will probably not even be incorporated in Romania ever, so they'll never show up on the radar as "Romanian startups", they will simply "pack up the whole team and move" abroad after the first big foreign investor spots them and invests/acquires with a "relocation requirement".
There are also entrepreneurs that run their companies disguised as outsourcing-shops while the real startup is actually the outsourcing-shop's client registered somewhere like USA-Delaware/Hongkong/whatever because it leads to better perspective from the customers. Of course, this is also a short term arrangement before the team of the company is swallowed by a bigger fish.
There is a lot going on, but int this part of the world very few of what's happening actually shows up on the radar as what it is.
Also... coming back to corruption, imho the greatest problem is lack of entrepreneurial spirit because the society and education actively discourages smart people from becoming entrepreneurs... so they end up engineers, doctors etc. ...or emigrate. Corruption really makes little difference because real innovation doesn't happen while working on projects for the state anyway. I think that a certain level of corruption can even help economic growth if used selectively - ie a bribe that sabotages a bigger international corporation from getting a contract for a state-financed development project in favor of a local startup (where, for example, one of the investors happens to be a local senator or whatever... probably not the best example but to get the point across) can actually result in more money funneling back into the local economy and fueling its growth... Everything can be a double edged sword in the bigger economic game.
The American obsession with corruption in other countries is imho more out of fear of being out-maneuvered by foreign local businessmen in the international economic game when it comes to uderhanded tactics :) (see http://www.amazon.com/Confessions-Economic-Hit-John-Perkins/... for context)
It's easy to acquire a skewed impression of any country as a foreign visitor, so I completely empathize with you. Unfortunately getting mugged/robbed would be possible anywhere in the world, even in the poshest of places. As for the status on corruption, there's active progress being made, as an example, see an older article on the subject http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/05/opinion/romanias-anti-corr...
Romania I think is a good case study in a country that has a oppressive regime that gets removed, suddenly gets given loads of money to improve itself (EU in this case) and then corruption sets in. Loads of examples, in both Eastern Europe, Russia itself and Africa.
It has shown in the last couple of years that the people might be trying to change that with the way that it got rid of its previous president but it is a long process to change peoples mindsets.
I'm not saying there aren't drawbacks, but I can think of two benefits:
1. It makes some forms of investigative journalism easier. For example, there has been a lot of discussion about the potential problems of having most of the influential journalists in Sweden living within a very small "hipster" area in Stockholm.
2. E-commerce companies may decide to only ship to the adress where you are officially registered, making it harder to commit e-commerce fraud.
On the other hand it's trivial to change someone's official address. Just send a certain form by mail to the tax agency. (Not sure if they send a confirmation to the old address; but if they do, the perpetrator only has to pick someone who's on vacation; hello Twitter & Facebook.)
If you have registered an email / phone number they will send a message there about your changed address.
I don't know if they've done this yet but a while ago there were articles about them working on a way to disallow changing your address via the mail form:
