Heroku does this - they have a nice console interface for pulling down the logs from your deployed app. Granted, it is not quite the same as Gmail, but it's always a start.
Maybe it's a business idea: email for geeks. I'd use it. :)
Putting aside all discussion on the validity of software patents, Apple really has an obligation to step in and muscle Lodsys to the ground. And I expect that is exactly what they will do.
I doubt anyone at Apple thought it would be a good idea to push tools onto people that would then get those people sued. So most likely, Steve is in the process of releasing the Kraken, telling it to head straight for Lodsys HQ.
By Monday, Lodsys should be a smoldering heap, sunk to the bottom of the ocean by the all-powerful leviathan.
And there shall be much rejoicing.
As an aside, I started to write a thoughtful comment but this stuff is so inane that it really just requires Apple to apply some ass-kicking-fu and make this crap go away.
I think it goes back to the learnings from the original tech bubble: companies with a real business plan survive, those with a nebulous product don't make it.
For example: Amazon was a rising star during the late-90s tech bubble, and it's still around today. And it's very much a player in the tech space. How many of us use AWS?
Google has a solid business platform and has definitely made it by all measures.
Netflix is another example. Good product, has upset the industry, sky's the limit type stuff.
Could all of these golden companies fail? Absolutely. For example, look at Microsoft right now - they are still innovating in some spaces, but really struggling in others. Will they go the way of IBM? (Hey, I hope so, but let's not start dreaming now).
Then there's Facebook and Twitter - arguably the stars of the current tech bubble. Are they worth what people say they are? Really depends on what happens over the next few years. Both are definitely becoming platforms that people do all kinds of interesting things on. But at the same time, people could get tired of social networking. (That's my personal bias shining through).
Amazon was definitely one of the companies people were referring to when talking about the last bubble, though.
It's hard to predict the future. A bunch of companies that people have thought could never be worth their outlandish valuations turned out to be. And vice versa.
Agree! Another example of this that my old music teacher used to give all the time was John Coltrane. Everybody agrees that he was a great player, but he wasn't a prodigy. He was notorious for practicing day and night to continue improving his craft.
Even Miles Davis thought he was a bit boring because all he (John) wanted to do was practice. :)
How about a rotating group of admin users? Every 30 days a new batch of X users with greater than N karma get to bury/downvote/ban poor quality submissions/comments. This group would be forcibly rotated so that you don't get the "entrenched elite" problem.
It would encourage admins to be wise and for others to respect their wisdom.
If I were to rephrase the question on this thread, it seems to me that it could also be stated as "how do you keep HN comments from turning into Slashdot comments"? I don't say that in jest - I used to read Slashdot, but after a while I got really sick of 1) the vitriol and 2) the inanity of the comments that were on the first page. Granted, some folks had really interesting things to say, but truly funny/insightful comments seem to be a rare commodity.
But look at it in a positive light - the comments on HN could never be classified in the same - or even near the same - bucket that comments on sites like YouTube and Yahoo! News.
Have a homepage with 10 most recent posts
- Post can have many comments
- Only users can comment
- Users must be logged in to comment
- Only you (an admin) can log in and make posts. Or anyone else with credential.
- Use SSL to encrypt your login.
Extra credit:
- Posts can have tags. Harder than you think.
- Comments can have comments. This is harder than you think.
Extra extra credit:
- Implement it once using an SQL database. SQLite/MySQL/Postgres will be fine.
- Implement it using a NoSQL database. MongoDB will probably be the simplest.