I am an example of one of those people. I DID have a learning disability (officially tested for and documented). Failed high school and now I am middle aged, have my own business making mobile games for clients. Also went back to college late 2000's and 3.8 GPA. (I would have had a 4.0 for my BS like I did for my Associates but got struck with H1N1 virus).
I prescribe to the idea that all thought and language is metaphorical. Language and thought do exist separately but also combine in useful ways for all of us. This is why you can think of something but not find the word for it.
But just look at the metaphorical structure of language. Concepts are nothing but our ability to map our modalities in a way that become useful for our biological goals.
George Lakoff has some great books on metaphors. Metaphors we live by is a great book.
Behavior Consistency. I recently learned about this phenomenon. People make decisions on an emotional level and then logically support them afterward. In fact, there are studies where people who have had their brain damaged and no longer process emotion have a really hard time, or simply can't, make decisions.
Someone has to emotionally decide to put X amount of hard earned money on something before hand. The rationalization of this affects the overall experience. When an item is free their commitment to the app was zero.
There was a fascinating study about this.
Festinger, L., & Carlsmith, J. M. (1959). Cognitive consequences of forced compliance. The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 58(2), 203.
Where participants were given a task to convince other people to perform a long and boring task. One group was given $1 to convince people while another group was given $20. They found the $1 dollar convincers actually believed what they were saying where as the $20 group shrugged off their actions to convince people to perform the boring task as, "I did it for the money." $1 was too low to rationalize away.
I do believe many companies are employing this practice with freemium apps. There is something bigger happening here with freemium. At first we all called it "race to the bottom" pricing. And if felt like that. If felt like the value of our apps were dwindling to stay competitive.
But let's just look at how things were for a second. If you sold an app for 4.99 you making a promise to the consumer that you would deliver value equal or greater than your price. And you if you didn't keep that promise it was up to the consumer to get a refund or suck it up. This was largely a pre-internet thing. The internet has made distribution a non-issue. Now you can get your products and ideas out there for little to no cost.
What we are seeing is an opportunity to show initial value to our users and offer higher value at a premium. This increases the reach of our work and helps us to find those 1000 true fans. Of course, we have to nurture those relationships. It's a lot of work.
I don't think there is anything wrong with premium pricing. People are use to it still. Why aren't we just focusing on the value we bring to people and whether it's premium or freemium none of it would be an issue.
I enjoyed this essay and he makes some good points. There is this feeling though so much isn't said about context and results. The audience seems to be college students.
I have been an avid learner since I left high school but my college experience was more understanding closed systems of teacher/professor goals and requirements (3.8 computer science graduate). I really didn't learn anything except to be exposed to ideas. The real learning always starts after school. What I find is we as human beings are incredible learning machines and learn efficiently already. What the OP seems to really be saying is a watered down approach to making another person happy with what they think you need to learn. AKA, express results within that system.
Goals, curiosity and discovery are tools to learning.
Leadership vacuums create strong 'YES' and 'NO' types
I learned two decades ago about a concept called meta programs. Meta programs are filters that people use to understand their environment. Two of these are 'moving toward' and 'moving away' meta programs.
People are typically drawn to one or the other. They either filter their thoughts in moving toward or moving away first before considering the other. I have found that having both of these types of people on a project a very positive thing. You need people who can see the positive and you need people who can identify the pitfalls.
The problems start when either of these people think their position is always the correct position. The moving toward people want to take on the world and the moving away people are yelling you why you can't do that. Nothing gets done in these situation. And the reason why moving toward or moving away people become so strong in their opinion is because there is a lack of leadership.
You NEED to have that one person who can listen to both of these people, respect their points of view and make tough choices.
This is my diet as well. I find my mind is clearer, especially on a whole vegetables diet. Digestion of red meats, sugar and carbs makes my concentration tank.
I was diagnosed with ADHD as a kid. I received many different types of drugs and treatments that, IMO, didn't work. I barely passed the 3rd grade, failed the 6th grade and dropped out of school when I was a junior.
I was also a gifted artist, like my father, I could draw anything. I wasn't fantastic but it came easily to me. At 16 I picked up the guitar and quickly learned how to play and was proficient after a month.
These experiences made me question why I was good in some areas but failed in others. By the time I was 19 I gave up ALL drugs I was taking for ADHD and started my own treatment of "taking responsibility for my life."
This was the hardest thing I ever had done. At that time I was reading at a 6th grade level and has no prospects for jobs. I went to live with my grandparents and received the best education of my life. Discipline. They were farmers.
After 2 months I knew I had to leave and make a life for myself. I was scared and afraid but I had started reading self-help books and when tested again at the department of vocational rehabilitation I was reading 4-5 years ahead of my current age. My spatial skills were off the charts (their words).
I knew I had something special about myself that I could work with. I knew that if I worked hard I could do anything even if it took me longer to accomplish it I could do it.
I started by working my way up a janitorial company. I learned spanish in 6 months using Neuro Linguistic Programming techniques. I met my future wife and got married. I started putting computers together for the purpose of playing video games. I loved it. I was good at it. I eventually worked as a tech for a big box store and then worked in IT at a large insurance company when I found out I was going to be a father.
I learned everything I could about Active Directory. I then learned Perl as my first programming language and automated most of my job. I then started making games at home and learning as many languages as possible. I felt unstoppable.
Then my wife and I were having problems. Not huge problems but enough to get help. We sought counseling and happened to meet with a woman who studied ADHD as a specialty during her phD. Within 1 hour she said to me, "You know you have ADHD right?"
My heart sank. All those years of failure came rushing back to me. I thought it was crap. A ruse. A mis-diagnosis. How could I have accomplished so much. How could I have gone back to college and graduated with a 4.0 for my associates in comp sci and 3.8 for my bachelors. How could I learn all those languages and read over 500 books.
I had to come to grips with the fact that I still had it. But I made it work for me and it was unfortunately affecting my relationship with my wife. We were able to come to an understanding about who I am and accepting the way I think.
Now, I make games for iOS fulltime. From home. ADHD isn't a death sentence. It's only a disorder if it's making your life harder.
I LOVE how you presented your design. I got it right away. Very slick. I don't think I would use this because it might kill my productivity more than going to HN already does.
Ah, Yes. I use to have a strong mental model of our security infrastructure and could troubleshoot problems by just hearing the description of the issues and a couple of variables. I would literally see visual gaps where my knowledge of the system stopped if I was drawn there. I would then fill in those gaps.
Now as a developer I haven't worked on a model long enough (my excuse) to be able to do that. But now I realize I already have a process for identifying gaps that I don't use.
I work with a guy who can do this and recently he has amazed me with how he can do it. Contrary to this though, sometimes I think he works in outdated models that limit his creativity.
Since your in Denver I hope you are going to the 360idev conference. It's a great place to meet other devs, develop great relationships, learn new things AND find potential work.
To me this just feels reaching. Sure, he does a good job of highlighting a problem but doesn't really offer any vision for a solution. But why go to Microsoft? GOOG 635.15, MSFT 31.21
I feel that the end result of polished code isn't useful unless you can see the process they went through to get there. It seems difficult to retrace their footsteps.