Wow, that's awesome. You know, when USB3.0 motherboards and drives become commonplace, this will open up a whole new possibility which is (to this day) pretty unexplored... you could easily fit a virtual machine on that drive and carry around your own PC in a pocket. When you get to work - just plug it in the stationary machine there, and voila - you're just where you left off at home. Perhaps the next generation mobile devices will be usable in the same fashion, since they already have an USB port and a built in memory. In fact, you could probably build some kind of "seemless sync" on top of that - basically your phone would be your entire workspace, but when you plug it in your PC via a traditional USB, you suddenly get all the same stuff on your PC that you have on your phone, plus all the power of the PC.

@Omnisu - What is a new idea? I've come to the realization that it's pointless to try and sort ideas in "new", "old", "original", "stolen", etc. Every idea out there is just a mix of old ideas. There hasn't been a new idea in the world since the invention of the wheel, and I strongly suspect that they copied that one too. Instead I think that we should rather focus on classifying ideas in "works" and "don't works" categories, and to hell who came up with it first. (P.S. I'd love to see an article by Jeff about this)

Sounds like you need the LG ET83 Touch, which will be out in a couple of weeks... in South Korea. It's a 23" IPS multitouch monitor. Can there be a better fit?

IF you can get Markdown's parents to agree and mention you in their page, you have a chance. Otherwise, as others have pointed out, you're just the 15th standard where only 14 existed before. Also, if you do try to do this thing, I'd advise making several Markdown "profiles". The "basic" profile would cover the current Markdown without any additions (as you've said), while the "extended" profile will add all the new features and bells and whistles. I'm in the camp that thinks that the basic Markdown is too limiting and needs more features (like tables, colors, fonts, etc) There are many different use-cases for a language like Markdown, and trying to make a "one size fits all" solution rarely works.

I'm not an expert, but it sounds to me like you need some... professional help, Jeff. I know I would probably seek it (for the first time in my life) if I had an experience as traumatic as that.

The only way I see that PHP could be displaced is if you take PHP and fix its faults... and then make it so, that the new JeffPHP can run oldstyle PHP and newstyle PHP side-by-side in the same file. This would offer both an easy migration path for existing code and an easier learning curve for old-time PHP coders.

@Robin, @Jeff - As I said - what's the project, who are "we", and where can I join? :) That is, if it's possible, of course. Since it's opensource, I hope that the development will also be open-ended, and input/code from outsiders will be welcome.

Heh, this reminded me of the good old post about Magpie Developers: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2008/01/the-magpie-developer.html Especially David Megginson's process, which starts with " Elite (guru) developers notice too many riff-raff using their current programming language, and start looking for something that will distinguish them better from their mediocre colleagues." And the first thing that comes to mind is that this whole JeffScript idea is yet another iteration of this process, but there's another thought which emerged from this statement. No matter which language becomes The Next PHP, there will be a lot of riff-raff programming in it. In fact, that's what makes PHP so popular. It's so easy for mediocre and beginner programmers (and even non-programmers!) to write something in it, with little effort. So, if you want to make the The Next PHP, it has to be even simpler for these people to get their shit done. Otherwise you end up with yet another footnote in history. And somehow it has to manage to stay mind-numbingly simple, while fixing all the pitfalls of PHP. And that's the hard part, IMHO.

A thought just struck me - ok, so maybe you can build your perfect "PHP killer" - but how will you get it adopted in the world? PHP is like a social network - people come because everyone's there, and everyone's there because they come. It's the classic chicken-and-egg problem. How do you intend to get the "critical mass" of popularity to get it rolling?

So, Jeff, where do I sign up for the team? :)

@Pixelbart - I've always wondered how this advice applies to people like pedophiles and mass murderers. No, I'm not saying that this advice is bad - it's actually pretty much on the right track - just that... it feels like there should be a few exception cases listed and alternative suggestions for those exception cases.

I think that what the author meant by that was that most people are so afraid of failing, that they don't even try to become awesome. They avoid the necessary risks and learning in order to gain stability (illusory as that might be). And as long as it stays so (which is probably forever), the few who do gather the courage and bite the bullet, eventually do come out on top (mostly), because there's still enough room for a few more awesome people. If everyone started doing this, then yes - nobody would become awesome, because awesome is defined as "above the average", as you already noted.

@Seth - well then, I guess the right approach would be to try and become AWESOME, all the time having a Plan B for the (likely) eventuality that it doesn't work out. Like buying a lottery ticket every day, yet retaining a job which pays for the ticket and all the other expenses, until the day that you happen to win. Right? :)

@Seth - Exactly! And that's the real problem - nobody know what the actual chances are. If you do EVERYTHING right, is it 1/10000 or 1/10? Call it optimism bias if you will, but I tend towards the latter.

@Seth Finkelstein - True. Still, (1) implies, that if you avoid failing altogether, then you most certainly won't be successful (well, there are exceptions as always, but they're a minority).

Wow. I've been getting this message A LOT lately, since I've started watching the videos on TED. It's like every successful person out there started with 200 failures, before he got to the one attempt that made him famous. And those 200 failures were also valuable and necessary lessons that allowed the 201st to succeed. If I can suggest, watch the two videos by Brené Brown: http://www.ted.com/speakers/brene_brown.html There are links to the videos on the right, and I recommend watching them in chronological order, because in the second talk she refers to the first one.

That was awesome! But in this and many other videos (including Bret Victor's) I see another interesting trend - we're finally about to step over some kind of threshold in processing power where we can truly SEE what we are doing WHILE we are doing it. I'd say that these approaches don't replace WYSIWYG - they are the next generation of WYSIWYG! Made possible by the vast amount of unused processing power we're starting to get in our computers. I'm excited to find out what else people will come up with the insanely powerful multi-core CPU's of today and tomorrow!

I wonder - aren't there even geekier battery chargers with USB option? I mean, not for charging (USB doesn't give enough juice), but for control. So that you can hook it up to your PC and have all kinds of different graphs representing your batteries; try out different charging patterns you downloaded on a commmunity website; support all kinds of batteries (not just NiMH xor Li-Ion); and so on. I'm no expert, but it seems to me that electronically it would be pretty simple - you just for each of the battery ports voltage/current sensors and voltage/current limiters (basic electronics); and a tiny controller for exporting all that data to USB (arduino would be an overkill).

@Rushyo - Indeed. Profoundly disappointing. Imagine where the sound effects could be today if the audio silicone had evolved like the video silicone did! Instead of a generic "thud" when a dead alien hits the ground, you would hear a multitude of "splotch"es as the limbs hit the ground and each other, all precisely calculated and reflecting in the room and around the corners as they do in the real life. You could literally hear your teammates breathe down your neck as you step softly down a dimly lit tunnel towards the muffled cries of hostages. Your cloak would rustle in the wind and you could hear the chittering of squirrels as it echoes down the hollow trunk of the tree. The virtual haircut (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUDTlvagjJA) would be a 5 years old demo on a dusty CD that came along your low-end sound-accelerator.

+1 about headphones being one of the most fragile components of my PC. My wife makes fun of me on a regular basis about the sheer number of them that I've broken over the years (she herself has broken none). I really want to find a pair with a metal frame. And decent sound, although an $80 set is fine for my tastes and budget. But what really puzzles me is your statement about "the very fanciest of 3D sound algorithms and HRTFs." Is the CPU really enough for that? And are games really using it for sound effects? Because it seems to me that, although EAX and hardware accelerated sound is truly dead, there has been nothing to replace it. It's like the game developers collectively decided that fancy sound effects are just not worth it. Which is, honestly, sad, because I still remember the difference in sound in Neverwinter Nights 1 with and without EAX. It was astounding! EAX really made a HUGE difference. It is my opinion that, just like there is always room for more improvement in 3D graphics, there is also always room for improvement in 3D sound. And a custom silicone would be very well warranted if game developers actually started exploring that realm. But there are currently some marketing rules in play here (game budgets are limited; most people care more about graphics than sounds; sound is harder to do than graphics; few people have custom sound hardware; etc.) which have all but eradicated efforts in this direction, and returned us to the place where we were nearly 15 years ago, before A3D and EAX.

Oh, and I forgot to mention - a quick one-step registration for a website beats OpenID-based registration any day. I groan in pain every time I need to use my OpenID to register somewhere, and seriously reconsider, whether I want to go through all that bother. Note: I picked Verisign as my OpenID provider. Pretty much by random, though theirs is the name I trust most in security. And their process isn't complicated or anything - it's just way lengthier still than a typical one-step registration.

Way too many comments to read them all. Here's my 2¢: I use a strong unique password for a few critical websites that I use (like my email, paypal, bank, etc.) and a common password for all those dozens upon dozens of websites where I simply don't care if they get hacked or not. This, I believe, is way more secure than a centralized OpenID or whatever other identity provider. For one thing anything can be hacked, for another - I really don't want to entrust my bank account access to any 3rd party except my wife.

Here's a question about StackExchange: What about localized communities? For example, I'd like to see something StackOverflow-like (but more generic about computers in general) in my own language (Latvian), but getting the required amount of votes will be practically impossible. The target audience is relatively small and many of them don't know English language, let alone SO/SF/SU/SE.

All this discussion leads me to three thoughts. First - It seems that success depends on a great deal more factors than just the idea and execution. Luck, money, entrepreneurship, timing, choice of market, advertising, tweaking are just a few from all. The more of them you get right, the more successful you will become. But the list itself is long, and there are probably very few people on the planet that understand but a half of it. Second - I think what we can conclude from all this is not that the execution is the most important factor, but that it is more important than the idea. And that the best way to get a great execution is to make a great team. Third - it's "Vilx-" with a minus sign and all, not "Viix" or "Vilx". XD

Nice point from Alan Pritt. Projected on myself, it's true - I do feel more like an employee than an entrepreneur. I'm one of those types who is a programmer and has very little wish to ascend to management. And I hate to take risks - well at least ones where it's likely that you might fail. I guess that rules me out as an entrepreneur and thus - getting revenue from my ideas. Funny though - does it really mean that the only people who can actually profit from ideas are entrepreneurs? It's a point which I didn't seem to realize before, although in retrospect it's pretty obvious. The only person with the idea AND execution will be the entrepreneur that keeps it all together. Individual people might have one or the other, but it takes an entrepreneur to put it all together, execute, box it, wrap it and sell it. And the entrepreneur will be the one who gets the profits in the end. Not the employees. Sucks to be like me. :D