It started as a tool to help me figure out if I need to protect my plants or water them down here in New Orleans since we don't really have freezing season, but also have super hot days or rain issues.
I was raised on the internet and spent so much time playing MUDs which then got me to want to create my own and learn to code. I played Abandoned Reality http://abandoned.org/ and it was such an amazing experience learning to write and play pretend. My wife and I met playing Abandoned Reality and turned out only lived 45 minutes away from each other.
I hope a few people try it out and get hooked because of your post.
I got my hands on the source code of a MUD. It was incredibly flat. Most of the code was if/else and output text. The data was in flat text files as well (1 line = one unit of data, an integer, range or an element of a list, similar to a .env file). The game dumps all the data at every save. It surprised me because I tried to be clever while making my own MUD engine but the result was exactly that, an engine, not a MUD.
Very interesting. Do you remember which source you got your hands on? I dabbled in CircleMud as someone else posted, but mostly Envy 2.0 or 2.2. I can't find those codebases quickly these days, but this is a link to a mud based on Envy 2.2 https://github.com/DikuMUDOmnibus/Ultra-Envy
It's from 10 years ago, a French MUD called Multimud. It's closed source because the code contains too much information about the game. It's surprisingly simple, a Perl socket-select single-thread process with no dependencies.
Some indie games that got open sourced after sales dropped off are the same way. Everyone who looked at Terraria's or VVVVVV's code knows it's terrible, and yet, those games exist and are fun, while clearly coded games are less common.
Digg failed; he threw his employees under the bus.
He went to form milk, that failed and he took money from people. Oink failed.
He got acquired to work on G+, very quickly after got booted to Google Ventures - and apparently didn't do too well there.
A lot of people have put him out there in good faith, figuring he was not a one-trick-pony - and that he had more in him, yet, now, we are talking about how he failed at investing in a runaway success.
So, really, why? This guy is like the valley's version of Kim Kardashian where Digg was his sex tape.
Look - I appreciate that he has done well for himself. But he has not created anything amazing, nor done amazingly well for others.
After all this, his best accomplishment is interviewing Musk, perhaps.
Its a waste of energy. let me know when Kevin really innovates.
Yes, it did. It had been starting to fail for some time though, and they tried to reinvent it. It didn't work. It was mismanaged, but you see this thing all the time. Hell, Microsoft is doing it with Windows 8 right now. It's hard to know how something will go until you try it.
He went to form milk, that failed and he took money from people.
Milk was acquired my Google, how is that "failing"?
Oink failed.
Oink did well but not well enough. The initial plan was to "fail quickly", and they did.
He got acquired to work on G+, very quickly after got booted to Google Ventures - and apparently didn't do too well there.
I don't know anything about this, so I will not comment. But as far as I know Kevin is still doing just fine at Google Ventures. Why do you use the term "got booted"?
I mostly take issue with your post because of the overtly negative tone, and not providing a single source for your claims. I used to see Kevin as a bit of a schmuck, but I think he's turned into somebody to watch now rather than somebody who just got lucky. He picks companies well, and I think he's in the perfect spot right now.
Digg created social news. The company ultimately failed because of some missteps, but the concept is still thriving on the Web today and can be seen with Likes, Retweets, Upvotes, and others. Digg Labs was cool, they had a great API, and while I'm not going to claim it was the first website to feature this, it was at least the first time I'd ever seen a website with an RSS feed of search result pages. Getting an RSS feed (when feed readers were cool) for any search query you wanted to amazing as it allowed you to follow any topic you wanted to.
Overall, the early execution of Digg was brilliant. They just thought too big.
Maybe fail is too harsh a term. But my poin being that the idea that Kevin is some sort of visionary worthy of the level of hype he gets is clearly a delusion.
Digg was great early on, and very quickly became muddled and ruined. To the point where it died completely and was sold for practically nothing.
Overall, it's all pointless to keep saying "hey! Look what Kevin's doing now!"
The product is discounted compared to other devices in it's range and they did that by showing ads on the lock screen that is often unused by users. In the past Amazon's kindle ads have been quite tasteful and non-intrusive.
I came to say the same thing because things like "Click here for all the detials or to order" completely turned me off and made me think their mailing list got hacked and some new spam magnetic balance bracelet was being announced.
Though I have no idea how much has truly been donated to Rick Santorum, but I would bet that growing thermometer did help contribute to that. Perception is an incredibly strong tool that can be used to elicit reactions like donating "because everyone else seems to be". Sad that they're using such a tacky tactic.
I hope that some of the tech will be sold, opened or some how fall into other peoples hands. They did a lot of neat things with their prototypes and I think there is a chance that it can still help.
I think BOFA and other major banks are hand feeding people to credit unions in droves. I went today and set up my account at RBFCU and I can't wait to get far away from BOFA. Both my parents and I were with them for 20+ years.
It started as a tool to help me figure out if I need to protect my plants or water them down here in New Orleans since we don't really have freezing season, but also have super hot days or rain issues.