We have a distributed team of 4 engineers in 3 different locations. We have been using lechat.im for the last month and it has improved the information flow dramatically. Before lechat.im we tried hangouts, Skype and gTalk and those all fall short of the features that matter for a distributed team. Things that I love about lechat: search, SVN and git hooks (checking go into a separate room as messages), notifications, chat history.
Thanks for the advice. I think, we'll do that too. Personally, I don't like when people come up to me in the street and demand attention, but maybe that's just me.
Yes, the app is Citybot. It isn't in the app store yet, but we can deliver it via Testflight and as an APK file. The app lets you create custom itineraries in seconds.
what bothers me is that giving any money to the gov-t is the least efficient way, because the gov-t is not efficient with money. That brings the question, do we really need to raise taxes or open more opportunities for charitable foundations to do what gov-t cannot.
As a friend pointed out. This guy is unemployed by choice and his 2011 income is probably $0. On the other hand, if this gov-t got around replacing income tax with a consumption tax, that would actually tax those who can afford it.
Large patent portfolios owned by big companies represent the most danger for small companies trying to make something new. Big companies can afford to fight each other with armies of lawyers and settle on large piles of cash. However, if your startup gets a threatening letter from Google telling you that you are infringing on their patent, you are done. Google is a public company, so they have an obligation to their shareholders to turn their investments into profits. Hence, I don't see any reason, why Google's lawyers won't google through their newly acquired patent database to see how they can extort some juice settlements or shut down some small players.
I don't think Facebook's valuation is "bubbly". However, the valuations of many early stage startup companies are inherently speculative, because they are based on projections which rely on assumptions, and only time will show whether this assumptions were true or false. This bubble is only as "bubbly" as these assumptions are overly optimistic. This is why investors learned to bet on people and teams, rather then on ideas, because the quality of the team is a better predictor of its success then the business idea.
IMHO, it is very easy to distinguish between a "social" smile and a genuine smile. When the smile is just on the lower part of the face - it's fake or protective, when the eyes are smiling - it's genuine.
Once, a co-worker told me post-factum that the biggest hesitation about hiring me was that I didn't look excited enough. Luckily for me it's a known stereotype and there was someone who said "he is just Russian, they are all like that".
It took me a few years to get used to the American smile, and then couple more years to get used to the meaningless "how are you?". What I still cannot get used to though is the "stranger nod". Every time you look at an American, they nod at you and say "how are you", even a stranger in a shopping mall. Once, when I was visiting Moscow, I tried looking at a stranger and nodding. The most friendly reaction of a Muscovite was a confused look, the least friendly almost got me into a fight.
Maybe it is just me being "Russian", but to me this nod and the meaningless "how are you", and the protective smile mean the same as a Muscovite's angry "what do you want?"
When I first came across Agile Manifesto, it sounded to me pretty much the same.. except for the PF references and mathafakas. IMHO, when you do not obscure agile method with management processes, agile is "programming, motherfucker!".