
Paul Graham is Today's Prius - dfranke
http://p6.hostingprod.com/@www.ventureblog.com/articles/indiv/2006/001255.html
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staunch
Anyone know if there is a video/mp3/text version of that talk?

We seriously need a law requiring that all PG talks be televised and made
publicly accessible.

This information wants to be free even more than other information.

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danielha
Real-world RSS feed of PG? It's a little known fact that about a quarter of
this funding session's applicants are developing various software to do just
that. ;)

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Alex3917
PaulGrahamEatsBreakfast.com?

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Alex3917
This article has given me the idea for the ultimate startup. Creating an
online personal ads search engine to find dates for similarly tagged pez
dispensers from within their social network.

Seriously though, is there a word for noticing something everywhere you look
right after learning about it?

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notabel
Yes, actually, there is a word for that--sort of. It is essentially a special
case of confirmation bias. Confirmation bias is a concept from cognitive
psychology; basically, the human mind heuristically prefers data which support
(confirm) its nascent inferences. In this case, the inference being developed
is roughly the importance/prevalence of the word.

So, there isn't a word for this precise phenomenon (to my knowledge), but
you're welcome to coin one. If there's one thing cognitive psychology loves,
it's terminology. (Don't get me wrong, cognitive psych is delightful, but it
loves its lingo.)

N.B. Related phenomena are the cocktail party effect, and, in the large,
figure-ground phenomena, and selection bias. EDIT: And priming. Thanks to
python_kiss. (Wikipedia has decent articles on these things, but if you're
really interested, go to the library and get a good psych book.)

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python_kiss
+1 for the explanation. "Priming" is another term that describes this
phenomenon. From wikipedia: Priming in psychology refers to activating parts
of particular representations or associations in memory just before carrying
out an action or task. In a neurological view priming can be seen as the
activation of clusters of neurons. An interconnected cluster is surrounded by
other clusters that are more or less connected with each other...So when the
cluster that represents the concept of "flower" is activated, particular
clusters will be more activated then others (i.e. kinds of flowers).

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notabel
Thank you! I had the nagging feeling that there was a more precise bit of
terminology that I was missing. You've gotten it off the tip of my tongue. As
you pointed out, though, priming properly refers immediate-time phenomena.
Whereas priming arises from manipulation of operational memory, confirmation
bias arises from deeper heuristic phenomena.

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python_kiss
"But, as Paul notes, the easiest way to make something that people want is to
make something that you want. Yahoo! started out as a directory of Jerry and
Dave's favorite links. Movable Type was born out of Mena's need for a better
way to talk about herself. Jonathan started Friendster to find a girlfriend.
Zuckerberg started FaceBook to find a girlfriend. Joe and Alon started JDate
to find Jewish girlfriends. Ted started Dogster to find his dog a date. If you
build something you want, chances are pretty good that someone else will want
it as well."

Well said! :)

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nostrademons
The examples given also support JWZ's theory of social software: software
exists to get people (or dogs) laid.

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rms
I'd rather have a Tesla Roadster.

