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Steve Jobs - Three Stories

05-Feb-08

I came across this video when Jon Gruber posted something he’d read about giving a presentation, and how that differed from giving a speech.  The post he linked to itself contained a link to this video, which I found incredibly interesting.

 

Steve is not terribly entertaining here, but it is clear he’s being incredibly honest. And it has nothing to do with Apple, really. Just Steve reading some notes, giving a speech. 

 

Steve Jobs Stanford Commencement Speech 2005

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Nobody’s /home at Twitter?

05-Feb-08

I didn’t take it - I swear. I was nowhere near that server.

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I’m supporting Obama

02-Feb-08

I really hope he gets the nomination.  As I live in Denver, I’m going to try to get involved in the convention. 

I was IM’ing with a close friend today when he asked me who I supported for President.  I replied ‘Obama’.  Turns out he does do, and he immediately turned me on to this video.  When I watched it, I got goose-bumps.   This guy - when I hear him speak in a context like this - simply blows me away.  I can’t recall ever having that reaction to any living politician.

Ever.

EDIT. The video is at dipdive.com, but I’m simply embedding it here.  It looks like that is OK.

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@ev: Twitter is throttling again

31-Jan-08

Dear Ev,

Frankly I’m baffled.  As I type this, Twitter is throwing a 503 error back to twitterific and is showing the newly idiotic "Something is technically wrong" web page at the home URL.  This is the morning after yet another period of system maintenance or upgrades.

Your goodwill is rapidly deteriorating.  The service is notoriously unstable, and in fact just yesterday I saw someone begin advocating against depending upon Twitter for emergency communication.  Why?  Too undependable.  This is quite a turn-around from the period during & after the San Diego fires, where Twitter was embraced by fire dept folks for use in just this type of situation.

It would be easy to say "You get what you pay for" - neither I, nor any user, pay to use Twitter.  And you’d be right.  But you’re trying to make this a business, and so I respectfully suggest that you begin running the operation as though *everyone* is paying.  Bring in some experts.  Redesign - from the ground up if necessary.

Once folks develop a habit of use, they begin to feel entitled.  They show up, you provide a workable twitter service, and somewhere along the way you figure out how to monetize.  That’s the value exchange.  But when they show up and all they encounter is a timeout (there’s the 503 again just now in twitterific) or a condescending error page, they feel cheated.  People are funny that way. 

And they will leave.  As I’ve said before, I really like Twitter.  But the value exchange is currently askew.

(oh, and there’s that 503 again… three times while I was posting.  )

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Twitter’s Growing Pains and a Warning

30-Jan-08

Twitter - I like you.  Really.  But enough with the completely unstable platform already, ok?  You have the money and buzz to get whatever is necessary to stabilize your service.  Simply creating a new "Service is down" page ain’t cutting it.

Someone else will figure out how to replace you if you don’t get this right very soon.  Are you really off-line, like the 404 message indicates?  Or is your load balancing solution giving up the ghost?

Whatever the issues, they’ve been going on for so long that you’re now on the receiving end of the dreaded Open Letter to Twitter.   I want you guys to succeed, so please get your shit together.

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