Dave McClure might not be a familiar name in the skeptic community, but he’s pretty well known in tech. A self-described “late bloomer,” he’s a guy who held various software industry jobs before founding the popular accelerator 500 Startups. He blogs and speaks at conferences and the like, typically with eyeball-peelingly bad slides and some foul language to boot. And today... »
Ah, the wisdom of crowds! Two heads are better than one, so hundreds of heads must be super friggin’ smart. As we know from experience, people getting together always results in really smart things being done. Er, most of the time. Sometimes. Once in a while? Anyway, we’ve seen before that crowdfunding has the potential to do great stuff, like fund scientific research and awesome art, among other ... »
It’s not a Facebook phone, exactly, but the new Facebook Home is a home screen experience and app launcher that makes your phone all about people instead of all about about apps. Is this going to make using Facebook closer to a religious experience, or closer to religion itself? While people drive most of our interactions, information can too. And if the ability to start interactions from the basi... »
Lo, once again it is bad chart Thursday, and this week the chart “creation” (too easy!) has been done for us. Behold: It’s the best bad chart of all time! Not only do all of the variables change mid-chart for no apparent reason. Not only are some variables not actually dependent (ALL THOSE NAMED ADAM NOW HAVE 950 YEARS LONGEVITY). Not only is a label missing from one axis (new ge... »
You may have heard about TED talks. They’re pretty popular amongst a certain sect. They appeal to people for a lot of reasons: they’re fun, flashy, and emotionally appealing. They feel really important, almost life-changing, in no small part because they’re aggressively branded as such. And above all, TED talks are short, typically requiring less than 15 minutes of your boring day to l... »
Steve Jobs was famous for using the words, and perhaps in part due to his legacy, it can seem like almost every major new technology these days has to be “amazing” or “magical” in some way. Whether it’s an amazing iPhone case or an amazing laptop that can’t even download any desktop applications, if it ain’t amazing, it ain’t getting covered. »
