I disagree becuase the chromebook functions under the idea that 99% of what users need to do happens within the browser. OSX makes the guess that what the users need to do happens within the Apple Entertainment Ecosystem... (Disclaimer: I use both)
I agree in principle that claiming the path to A is by doing B is generally a pyramid scheme situation. However, this author came across differently because of his specific situation. I read it more along the lines of the Randy Pausch quotation about brick walls keeping us from achieving what we want.
'The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out; the brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. The brick walls are there to stop the people who don't want it badly enough. They are there to stop the other people!'
It's also important to note that almost every self help guru has a sad story about their former lives, then goes on to tell you how they used their 'system' to pull themselves out of it. This post is a classic example of that type of storytelling.
Also the growth is not necessarily all in engineering. For example, I think Twitter is going to be needing a sales team to help push any pending ad products.
Depends on the team. I worked at a few different ones at MSFT, and generally the position was - two machines. Two desktops? Ok. Desktop + Laptop? Ok.
Most developers went for the desktop x2 plan. PM's almost always went desktop + laptop.
Again, this was for NEW machines. I had, at my peak, 6. 4 desktops and 2 laptops. Most of these were random old peices of hardware that were fit for recycling (but still fully functional!) that I used for whatever side projects I needed the hardware for.
Everyone always complains about their PC hardware - but not once did I see someone who actually needed a piece of hardware go without it. Monitor upgrades, for some reason, were much rarer and didn't make sense at all.
Perhaps the type of people that would employee a man of this skillset are more likely to have a facebook account than the general population. It's also not that far off to imagine that those folks would be logged in already via cookies. For that target population the user experience probably works.
I saw the exact same thing. I had something like 1.25%-1.5% CTR from the mobile network, with no conversions. It was pretty terrible, and I disabled advertising on mobile networks (on by default) to save the wasted funds.
I've also now seen hundreds of networks where I get 100% CTR (2-3 impressions, all leading to clicks) on what are obviously junk/spam sites. Each of these only cost me a couple quarters, but it quickly adds up.
It's easier now to travel then it has ever been before. I can wake up in the US and decide to have dinner in Paris.
This versus having to tough a weeks long voyage across the Atlantic followed by months in wagons crossing unfriendly territory where I might die Oregan Trail style.
Sure, airports could be better. But if you think the difficulty of airports now outweights the benefits of travelling I am surprised our ancestors ever left their huts.
I think kylec was talking about leisure travel. People did not immigrate to the United States (or emigrate to Oregon) because they wanted a vacation, but because they wanted a better life. As a result, the mental calculus is different.
Also, one could argue that international travel in February 2001 was significantly easier and less stressful than a similar trip today.
I'd be interested to see the distribution of passports geographically across the US. Some parts of the United States just don't lend themselves to easy travelling. Other than Canada or Mexico it isn't as easy to travel abroad (or neccessary) as it is for Europeans. The US spans Mountains for skiing, beaches for surfing, jungles, deserts, you name it - we've got the geography for it. In fact, it would be interesting to compare these statistics to possibly europeans leaving the EU zone (since then we would have geographically equivalent sets).
In conclusion - get a passport, travelling is awesome!
Daily UV's are growing pretty well. Interesting to see the age skews higher then I would have assumed.