"Offensive Material: Link may contian offensive content such as references to religion, abortion, 9-11, or the devil."
First of all, there is a spelling mistake. Secondly, how is religion, 9-11 or the devil offensive? You may think it's an ironic joke, but most people won't get the joke, and frankly, it's not that funny. So if I were you, I'd not try to joke on that page, but give examples that genuinely describe what could be offensive.
All the same, it's a really great service, and I think it will be big.
I don't think this is a joke. Essentially, he means "content such as offensive references to religion, abortion, 9-11, or the devil." The topics themselves are not offensive, but it's easy to talk about them offensively.
Define "people". How many, how diverse? Are these 'people' in your target audience? Can you extrapolate the opinion of those 'people' to hundreds of thousands of other people?
Very frankly, twitter is half an idea, and while the half is pretty good, the lack of the second half makes it not keep users.
Even crappy TV shows grow on you. Twitter does not. It's like IRC - there is a large and dedicated group of people that use it, but it's not mainstream. Same with twitter, it will grow to a certain level, but it will be like IRC.
Many people just don't need the constant stream of textual information, and when they get that that's all twitter is, there is no point in staying on.
Technology startups require very specific knowledge about particular topics. For example, general business marketing is very different from marketing on the internet. You may think you know it, but if you've never done it, you don't know it. So how about starting a website or something online, and trying to gain the specific marketing (and content) knowledge to survive in the internet world? This way, you actually will be able to contribute, you gain a clearer picture of how boring the tasks can be, and you have something you can point at to show that you were successful.
Enthusiasm is not helpful. There is little worse than someone who is enthusiastic and thinks he has better ideas on how to design websites than website designers, better ideas on marketing than people who have been doing it for years, and knows exactly how to make money on the net, even though he never made money of it.
There is a lot of domain specific business knowledge required by startups. But learn it first before going out to apply in a start up. Actually doing stuff is a lot more difficult than wanting to do it, and if you want to learn it on the job, you'll be deadweight, and there is no guarantee you will ever enjoy the nitty gritty of running a technological business.
I think that business has to stay a bit neutral, because it's a place where people are thrust into. That's what etiquette is - it's a way of ensuring that different people follow a similar set of rules so that there is no friction.
If a person wishes to publish such a presentation on his blog, that's fine, but not at a conference. Imagine the presentation were about aborigines in a similar manner. It would be regarded as discriminatory, and similar rules should be used to judge sexism.
It's not sexism or any other -ism when it's funny.
Edit: why is everyone so easily offended nowadays? You have the right to offend and the right be offended! That's part of society. You can't stop this by making up political correctness rules.
"You have the right to offend and the right be offended!"
It's not question of rights, it's a question of what the technology industry believes is reasonable behaviour. My belief is that this presentation and the Rails leadership's response to it was way out of line. Martin Fowler's SmutOnRails post shows that he has similar thoughts.
Did you read the article? Martin Fowler addresses your comment. I'd like to see what you have to say in response to his thoughts on how such an attitude would lead to a community's decline.
I don't understand the whole community leadership thinks so and so thing. So what? If you don't like them or think they'll doing something bad with community, create your own community! Or assign another person to be your "community leader". Why follow someone you think has a different view? Who cares what kind of person is the language/framework creator? Why can't there be two or three Ruby/Rails communities: one that likes porn, another one that hates porn, etc? What's the problem? Stop fighting with someone's views.
Content creators can't make money... yet! Video content is expensive and difficult to produce because it has not become widespread enough for millions of people to actually be doing this.
For example, compare Word Processing to TV editing. Anybody can use a word processor on a PC...now. At the very start of things, a word processor on a PC was a specialised task. As the market grew, things became more automated and a lot easier.
YouTube and such are only a few years old. The software to make producing content really easy is not there yet - so there is still a lot that needs to be done manually. This software will improve and content production will get cheaper.
It's still going to be expensive to deal with actors, sets, animators, etc. I doubt better software is going to cut into the main portion of the cost of making a movie.
This model would lead to a lot of reality shows and things like that. Maybe machinima if it ever catches on.
Actors are cheap, you know. People with name recognition are expensive, but the actual acting is pretty cheap. Sets and animators can be replaced by software. Think stock sets, stock backgrounds, 3d programs that allow you create sets based of standard objects.
Reality show is the direction the industry is going in. People prefer reality! Seeing real stuff or stuff that appears real is way more entertaining than acted stuff.
>Actors are cheap, you know. People with name recognition are expensive, but the actual acting is pretty cheap.
In other words, actors that people actually want to see are expensive.
>Sets and animators can be replaced by software.
That may be true in the future, if filmmakers ever get the open source ethos and create a large library of models that covers most situations. Otherwise, anything short of strong AI is not going to replace the artist.
>People prefer reality!
Some people do, some don't. I don't. If everybody did, there would be nothing but reality programming.
It appears they're selling a specific line number, so as long as the total number of lines doesn't decrease below the number they've sold, it shouldn't be a problem.
My comment will get lost in the noise, but I'll give you an insight here that you will likely hardly hear again: You want a thrill of success. At the age you are in, your brain is hardwired to search for success. Programming gives you success, because when a piece of code compiles, you get that feeling of success. School is not doing so. So you will compulsively chase programming, trying to get your success fix.
Turn this around and get your success from school. See if you can become the very best at school, and become the most popular kid at the same time. If you can switch your priorities to that, you'll discover that the dopamine rush will keep you coming back for more.
Great advice. You don't realize it, but you have opportunities being handed to you now that won't come so easily later. I miss school (high school & college) for so many reasons. Having lots of peers right there to talk to. So many activites. A library full of books. Sports and clubs. A wide variety of subjects.
A mentor once told me to take advantage of everything available to you on your "school buffet". That's what it's there for. It's a great opportunity to be exposed to many different things, easily, and for free. How else will you know if you like it? Sure, you may not like the class in English literature or the ballet or playing soccer in P.E. But try it anyway.
Years from now you'll probably be sitting in a cubicle by day and changing diapers by night wishing you could experience something new and different once in a while. Now is your chance. Do it.
I like your advice but I think there is much more potential in college than high school.
In college I have resources available to me that were previously unknown to me, covering every profession, even startups and business.
College was definitely the right choice for me, you should try it and see if it is for you.
In large cities, you're still surrounded by many peers. While they may be harder to interact with due to distances, you'll likely also have the means to reach them relatively easily (car, public transportation). Tech meetups are really easy to find in nearly all large cities.
Of course, there are more responsibilities (the changing diapers at night part) when you're older, but more freedom (no parents that are cramping your style). I say these things with my own time struggle as I try overcome the cubicle by day and masters degree classwork by night. I really do miss the college student schedule with relatively low amount of time in class and a lot of freedom and flexibility in setting my day-to-day schedule.
In large cities, you're still surrounded by many peers. While they may be harder to interact with due to distances, you'll likely also have the means to reach them relatively easily (car, public transportation). Tech meetups are really easy to find in nearly all large cities.
Of course, there are more responsibilities (the changing diapers at night part) when you're older, but more freedom (no parents that are cramping your style). I say these things with my own time struggle as I try overcome the cubicle by day and masters degree classwork by night. I really do miss the college student schedule with relatively low amount of time in class and a lot of freedom and flexibility in setting my day-to-day schedule.
First of all, there is a spelling mistake. Secondly, how is religion, 9-11 or the devil offensive? You may think it's an ironic joke, but most people won't get the joke, and frankly, it's not that funny. So if I were you, I'd not try to joke on that page, but give examples that genuinely describe what could be offensive.
All the same, it's a really great service, and I think it will be big.