simonyun

Spindle Blog: Building the discovery engine for the social web

Tue, 22 May 2012 16:30:16 -0400

Spindle Blog: Building the discovery engine for the social web:

After nearly a year and a half testing crazy ideas, I’m thrilled to share a bit about Spindle.

At Spindle, we believe deeply that the world’s most valuable information lies within the social web. As nearly a billion people have embraced that it’s easier to share through Facebook and Twitter than…

"If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the people to gather wood, divide the work, and give..."

Tue, 08 May 2012 22:00:10 -0400

“

If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the people to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders.

Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.

”

- -Antoine De Saint-Exupery,

author of The Little Prince

(via trevorloy)

thatssostanford: Submitted by: Alexis Arnold ‘11, MA ‘12 How I...

Thu, 08 Mar 2012 22:09:12 -0500

thatssostanford:

Submitted by: Alexis Arnold ‘11, MA ‘12

How I miss this place so.

gotemcoach: 2nd St. and Avenue A. @gotem_coach Awesome.

Wed, 29 Feb 2012 22:33:03 -0500

gotemcoach:

2nd St. and Avenue A.

@gotem_coach

Awesome.

Two down, 10 to go. Well-stocked at @bifflabs. (Taken with...

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 13:26:57 -0500

Two down, 10 to go. Well-stocked at @bifflabs. (Taken with Instagram at Biff Labs HQ)

Photo

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 13:03:15 -0500

buzzfeed: A play-by-play of Harvard grad Jeremy Lin and...

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 13:01:20 -0500

buzzfeed:

A play-by-play of Harvard grad Jeremy Lin and Stanford grad Landry Fields’ new handshake:

Two quick high fives on opposite hands.

Landry Fields presents his hands to Jeremy Lin as though they are a book.

Lin “pages” through the book.

Fields closes the book.

Both Lin and Fields put their hands to their eyes as though they are glasses.

Both players “remove” their glasses and put them into an invisible shirt pocket.

Not sure what I think about this.

Taken with Instagram at Tenth Presbyterian Church - Center City

Sun, 01 May 2011 12:21:12 -0400

Taken with Instagram at Tenth Presbyterian Church - Center City

i miss jp's humor.

Wed, 06 Apr 2011 16:28:45 -0400

me: anyway, let's chat sometime soon
jp: yes, i will give you a call this wknd sometime
then we can play phone tag and hopefully talk by the end of hte month
me: sounds right

Packed @overtherhine show (Taken with Instagram at The Red Room...

Sat, 26 Mar 2011 01:09:30 -0400

Packed @overtherhine show (Taken with Instagram at The Red Room at Cafe 939)

The Gong Show: Push Notification Overload

Fri, 25 Mar 2011 08:08:07 -0400

The Gong Show: Push Notification Overload:

thegongshow:

Push notifications on iPhone are a total mess. The signal-to-noise ratio when my phone buzzes is quite poor these days.

Apple is doing the classic bad design cop-out move: give the user explicit, fine-grained permissioning and then dust their hands of the problem. I have 27 different apps I can…

At this point there’s a decent comment thread on the original post, but I still want to get my thoughts in. I agree that the current iOS notification system could be much better. The most obvious thing is to change the UX from modal dialogs (that are dismissed and never seen again) to some sort of non-modal notification log that can be recalled when the user is ready to check what he/she has missed.

But I don’t think using machine learning to determine which notifications are important is a good idea. You’d need a certain amount of training data for that user before the machine learning could/should kick in, which is fine. But an incorrect decision (based on machine learning) to hide notifications would result in hiding a valuable notification from the user; that’s the worst thing you could do.

Furthermore, machine learning can’t take a user’s context into account when making a decision about whether to show a notification. What if a user dismisses a notification that he/she would normally care about because he/she is in a meeting? What if there’s nothing more to view because the notification doesn’t warrant further action? The notification is important, but the user will dismiss it.

I think it’s right to leave these decisions in the hands of the user. If the UX were better, it wouldn’t be such a mess in the first place.

Shaved ice on a balmy Sunday (Taken with Instagram at Jo Jo...

Fri, 18 Mar 2011 15:46:20 -0400

Shaved ice on a balmy Sunday (Taken with Instagram at Jo Jo TaiPei)

a negative take on the valley.

Tue, 15 Mar 2011 04:16:00 -0400

a negative take on the valley.:

Even if Silicon Valley is on the downswing (I doubt it), it’s probably still the best place for a tech entrepreneur.

Maybe tech journalists in the Bay have grown lazy because they expect great companies to be everywhere.

It would be nice if tech journalists could provide more sober, balanced coverage instead of wetting themselves with excitement over every startup out there. Instead of churning out cheap click bait, writing with journalistic integrity would be good for everyone.

this girl's life, as she knows it, is over.

Mon, 14 Mar 2011 12:21:51 -0400

this girl's life, as she knows it, is over.:

And the autotuned video at the end is pretty funny.

vivek wadhwa responds via tc.

Fri, 04 Mar 2011 16:05:39 -0500

vivek wadhwa responds via tc.:

I think I understand why Professor Wadhwa is somewhat bewildered by the controversy. I don’t want to act like I’m better than anyone here in Boston. I am, after all, living here by choice. And Silicon Valley is pretty full of itself, more than it should be. There are plenty of idiots there starting stupid companies, just like everywhere else.

But there’s no debate … Boston isn’t even in the same league as Silicon Valley as entrepreneurship goes. There’s lots of data to back up the intuition of anyone who’s lived and worked in both places.

One of the things Pat talks about for Biff Labs is trying to add to the Boston tech scene. I would love to be able to do that.

fred destin weighs in on the vivek wadhwa fiasco.

Fri, 04 Mar 2011 15:58:00 -0500

fred destin weighs in on the vivek wadhwa fiasco.:

I love this Fred Destin article about the Silicon Valley vs. Boston brouhaha (clue: there is no discussion) over Vivek Wadhwa’s visit on Monday. It’s balanced and sober. Good read.

cherishing the early days as they fly by.

Fri, 04 Mar 2011 15:26:00 -0500

Sunday will be the three-month mark since Pat, Alex, and I started our work on Biff Labs. We’re now trying to raise a seed round and that comes with a certain amount of excitement/anxiety about the next few months — capital, implementation, growth, pivoting, etc. It’s easy to be excited about what’s coming because I really believe in what we’re doing.

I’m constantly anticipating our growth as a company, but I should also be cherishing these days. It’s three dudes and a dream. We quit our comfy jobs without even knowing what we were going to do; we trusted each other and hoped to do something awesome. I still hope we’re going to do that. But for now, this is really fun — just the three of us doing our thing: messing with each other and figuring things out, piece by piece.

I’ll have what @patkinsel is having (Taken with Instagram...

Fri, 04 Mar 2011 14:46:49 -0500

I’ll have what @patkinsel is having (Taken with Instagram at The Paramount)

Alex and his birthday cake from Flour Bakery courtesy of...

Thu, 03 Mar 2011 06:25:39 -0500

Alex and his birthday cake from Flour Bakery courtesy of @reedsturtevant (Taken with Instagram at Dogpatch Labs Cambridge)

this is why diets are impossible.

Thu, 03 Mar 2011 02:13:00 -0500

There’s no place like NYC. Those marshmallows look ridiculous.

jeannn:

Because in this city, there are such things as “Hot Chocolate Month.” And on the second-to-last day of this so-called month at The City Bakery, H and I shared a pretzel croissant (delish) with our own cups of Happy Hot Chocolate. Yes, those are homemade marshmallows. And I don’t even usually like marshmallows! How could I say no?