I don't especially want a drove[sic] hovering over me wherever I go. What if it crashes into me?
This type of fear is common for any type of new technology. I am sure people had similar fear when automobiles started to appear in the streets. They might have said "what if the car hit me while I am walking". Eventually, we will all get used to it and start to live with risks associated with it.
Aren't you agreeing with him? We don't just let anyone drive any homegrown vehicle anywhere with no rules.
Driving is highly regulated. You need a driver's license. Cars need to be equipped with certain safety features which must be inspected regularly. You're only allowed to drive on certain prepared surfaces, etc.
The only suggestion I have is that it would be nice to see the patient's profiles get updated after being funded and treatment was given. We all like to see how our donations are making noticeable difference in people's lives.
I really like what Watsi is doing. They even "eat the credit card processing fees"
This is probably the fee they charge the taxi owners. This way, the added cost of their service is covered by the customers rather than the taxi owners.
One suggestion I have for Refer.ly is that to create JavaScript that automatically convert links to affiliated-links for site owners. This simplifies the process of creating a link on Refer.ly, copy and paste it on a site they own. They can just embed the script and it should do all the work for them.
Thanks, I have also written the code to do it, too, and it is not very hard - but I'd suggest you sell it to other people who don't know how. There are entire businesses to be built on top of the Referly API and right now we are leaving this particular one to developers to build.
I was almost certain[1] that Craigslist was working on PadMapper like interface and it was the reason they sued. They should have done the right thing and hire/buy one person company PadMapper.
I don't see why the "right" thing would be to reward someone for breaking your ToS and stealing your database as a means of creating a potential competitor to your business.
On top of that, even if PadMapper had not been slimy, I don't see why it's "right" to pay a sum for something you're perfectly capable of building yourself for less time, money, effort, and headache than what an acquisition would cost.
No, of course, it's not like Craigslist has done some damage to PadMapper and now needs to buy them as recompense or anything. But buying them would be the... gallant thing to do?
That is, it isn't so much what Craigslist "needs" to do to be in the right, here, but it's what they could do to be in the very right. To be better than any other random classifieds company, to generate viral PR, to be something you'd be happy to say you use, etc.
Being gallant doesn't make you better than other random classifieds companies. It makes you more gallant. That might be worth something to a few users, but it doesn't seem like the majority care.
This has been asked and answered numerous times here, lets not have to go over this again. PadMapper was using CL data without a license, they are not 'reading it' they are republishing it in their own app.
Well, since you've clearly been over this more carefully than most of us, maybe you could be troubled just a bit to elaborate on these questions one more time:
* Is it clear that the kind of data that craigslist published can in fact be "owned"? Because no matter what their terms claim, the legal analyses I've read aren't positively conclusive.
* Why is what Padmapper did any different than a search engine? Contrary to some assertions, PadMapper was not republishing listings wholesale -- they published digests (making the ownership issue even less tenable) along with hyperlinks, which sounds a lot like a search engine to me (pretty much what they are). Or even a typical anchor tag itself: the contents of such a tag are generally a digest, the attribute presents the hypertext.
* If you agree these activities are something people shouldn't be able to do without permission, are you fine with a web where search indexing or even linking is essentially by agreement only? This is not an academic question, btw -- there have been lawsuits over linking: http://www.salon.com/1999/08/12/deep_links/
But that data doesn't belong to Craigslist. To the extent it's copyrightable at all, it belongs to the user who posted each ad. And even then, PadMapper only reproduced a minimal number of facts on its website: price, location, subject line, number of bedrooms, whether cats/dogs are okay. They linked to CL for the full ad, so no copyright was infringed.
One thing I missed after canceling pay TV is the way I used to watch news. You just turn on the TV and there is news. So I created http://tiltview.com to gather current news and play it without having to do any work.
I'm the opposite, I loathe TV news. It is especially bad now during election season. Drivel, platitudes, sensationalized crap, and one feel-good story about the local kid who saved a puppy or whatever. I can do without.
Tv news might be terrible, but there is definitely something to be said for having a certain selection of stories pushed at you. If nothing else it gives you perspective and context knowing what news everybody else is paying attention to. I noticed a terrible confirmation bias seeping in to my news when I got all my news from Internet sources.
I think quite the opposite, it gives you the illusion of being informed when in reality you are just viewing a tiny slice of the world as through a soda straw.
If you really want to be informed it takes a hell of a lot more leg work.
I can't remember who said it, but a favourite saying of mine is "isn't funny how the world only creates just enough news to fill 30 minutes every day".
I record the 6pm news on Tivo every night. Sometimes I watch it, mostly I don't. If something big breaks, I can watch it on the news.
Generally being alert to blogs and twitter will let you find out all the necessary to follow stories.
People waste far too much of their lives absorbing non-essential news items. In retrospect, most of us would be flat out recalling 4 big news events from the prior year.
I'm not saying you should get your news from CNN. I'm saying that if you get your news all from the Internet, you should turn on CNN from time to time to see the stories the rest of the world is paying attention to.
Bias is also very strongly present in television news (even news other than blatant lies as found on certain networks)...it may get worse as the most educated viewers leave to the Internet, and accountability for accuracy goes down.
Yes, bias is very present in broadcast news, but it is somebofy elses bias, and it is usually stunningly obvious, which makes it largely less harmful. When you introduce your own bias in to the news you consume, it is easy to think that the whole world sees things the same way you do. No matter how shitty and biased tv news is, at least it is another perspective.
Some folks do choose their television news source based on their own biases. It may not match your biases, as an educated, Internet-savvy, viewer...but you're not the norm. So, I can see how watching the mainstream television news could be useful as a tool for remaining in touch with what the majority is hearing and believing. I've been overhearing the news lately, as I'm staying with my folks for a few weeks to help out while my dad's sick, and I'm definitely getting a view of the world I hadn't seen in a while. I don't know that it is elevating my mind or spirit in any way, however.
So there's no bias on the Internet? Come on, that's not even serious. Even on HN there is a groupthink. In fact, most of the major new sites are associated with having some supposed bias or another. Can you just go to straight AP reports, sure? Could you just watch C-SPAN yourself? Sure, why not?
But if you're the kind of person that thinks alien abductions are real, climate change is not, evolutionary theory is a fraud, government should stay out of our lives except for abortion, and so on then you will probably think NPR is a biased hedonistic den of sin.
Here's a serious and legitimate challenge, find me a concrete example of bias in any of NPRs news programs. (Morning Edition, All Things Considered, Top of the hour news updates).
The more editorial programs on public radio (This American Life, On The Media) are more opinionated, and the quality of local news is only as good as your public radio station, but NPR News is as clean as an organization as there has ever been.
A far better recommendation than NPR, which is also "ok" but far from unbiased. PBS's coverage is generally far more even handed, far more informative, and far more thoughtful.
Not so much watching the news but having some kind of ambient noise that may be informative. It's the same reason I have NPR on most of the time in the background.
News provides the gestalt for what's going to be rattling around in other peoples' heads. It also gives you material to work with for small talk.
If your work or day to day life doesn't involve interacting with people even a little bit the utility of this is somewhat limited. I doubt there is a very large number of people for whom that is true.
Wow, this is really cool. I actually prefer this to watching broadcast news. You get the same feeling, but the ability to skip stories I'm not interested in makes the whole process way smoother.
I find listening to the news on the radio to be much more enjoyable than watching the news on TV. Really great to listen to while cooking/cleaning/doing laundry, etc. Plus the programming on my public radio station is just so damn good.
I don't bother with TV news but I did have a positive reaction to your site. I like how there's no screwing around - straight away it's giving you something to watch and easy buttons to skip ahead if you're not interested. Would be great if there were quick options to thumbs up/down a video to get more or less of that type of news (politics vs world vs sport, etc) or ignore a particular provider that has long, boring brand intros.
I'm sure it'd also be trivial to introduce skippable ads that were tailored and of interest (in an ideal world...) to viewers.
It's the way companies are willing to jump through hoops for Apple that they'd never for anyone else (BBC iPlayer is a particularly disgraceful example) that's been an effective flash replacement.
All the news you need can be heard for free on the BBC world service. It has a refreshingly internationalist perspective which is interesting to compare and contrast with countrys' national news bulletins.
