Or maybe just nuanced communication doesn't work with most people independent of scale.

@MBCook you are correct. I have no problem with being able to make a choice. I have a problem having to make that choice out of the box between two pieces of software shipped by the same company. It's like they couldn't be bothered to settle it so they just punted the decision to me.

I would have thought this experience to be anachronistic as well as I thought Android had plenty of time to polish their experience since those stories 2-3 years ago. That's part of the reason I jumped into trying Android. I thought it would be a good experience - just different from iOS, which I welcomed.

As for doing good UX for apps on Android, i think that's almost no different than doing good UX for apps on any smartphone platform. Aside from dealing with the back button and a few other platform specific issues, it's the same set of challenges around touch-based devices and limited screen real estate.

Voicemail shouldn't be a carrier specific experience. Is there something so differentiated about the t-mobile voicemail experience vs. the verizon voice mail experience? Shouldn't there just bean android voice mail experience that the carrier can direct at their back end as appropriate?

I don't think it's unreasonable to expect that a core feature (like voice mail) should work out of the box with no additional installations on my part.

The author implies he wanted an app to get his Voicemail like iOS. Nowhere does he say VoiceMail didn't work. The regular voicemail stuff just works on any stock Android GSM phone - you get a notification for new ones and you can tap that or long press 1 to go to carrier voice mail box for your old VMEs. I have that working on 5 different unlocked phones at the least on 3 different carriers. If you want an app - yeah you gotta find it in app store if your phone wasn't a carrier branded version - the app needs to do carrier specific things to get your voice messages and present you a list.

My issue is not that I abhor choice. Choice is fine and sometimes good. My issue was that I was confronted with these choices out of the box. And the impetus for this was Google's business choices at the expense of a seamless user experience.

I don't disagree with the notion of being efficient and getting out of the way. But I do think remembering that you're talking to a human being is important.

To the author of the article, Mr. Clemens, and other academics annoyed by Mr. Khan's compressed description of important topics, I ask the following question:

Other than criticize this new source of education, what are YOU doing to address the needs of people hungry for learning other than continuing on the same well worn path that you've been on for decades?

Professional academics whining about Khan Academy ignore the fact that their customers are telling them something by flocking to Khan's videos. They're saying that higher education today doesn't always meet their needs, and they need these services packaged, priced, and delivered in new ways.

If Mr. Clemens doesn't like Khan's treatment of a particular topic, how about recording your own video that does it right.

It does seem easier to criticize and keep to your own cloistered little world rather than put yourself out there and try to innovate. But that's just my perspective.

Honestly - get over yourself. You don't have to pay him money, and he doesn't even mention sexuality in that article ('cept, if you really, really want to stretch it, he does mention underwear)

Yeah some of his believes are wrong, but this isn't one of them.

+1. If we only listened to people whose views aligned perfectly with our own, just imagine what a mess the world would be.

I would argue that has already happened (here in the US). Of course, then again, I'm cranky.

This seems to be an American behaviour I don't really understand; the inability to separate the things someone's said/written, from the person. If someone writes something you disagree with, why does that invalidate everything else they say?

Michael Moore seems to exemplify this perfectly. He holds strong opinions on a wide variety of (often orthogonal) topics, yet Americans seem to feel the need to either embrace everything he says as good, or be vehemently opposed to him on the basis of their disagreeing with him on one topic. Is it too hard to say "I agree on this" and "I disagree on that"?

I feel the same dichotomy. What people said below is correct -- he does not mention sexuality -- but it still tinges what he writes.

In thinking why this is, I have the following to offer: if it was "John Q. Random on Why Software Companies Die", there is a good chance it wouldn't rise to the top of HN quite so quickly. The accumulated reputation Card has is actually important for people reading this article. If this is so, then we must remember some of his reputation is being anti-gay-marriage: it is no less important to this article as is him being the author of Ender's Game.

You do realize that well over half the country is anti-gay marriage? So when you read online do you discredit every two out of three articles you read because that person is likely against gay marriage?

This is in jest but most of the time external beliefs don't matter to the topic at hand. Such as do you discredit the work of Schindler because he was a womanizer and from most accounts a jerk, or look negatively on others who write about coding because when they aren't writing about coding they are out supporting the tea party perhaps.

Not that I disagree, but I'd be willing to bet serious ching that half of professional writers aren't against gay marriage.

And I would probably not take that bet, because I am sure you are right as well.

Except that being the author of Enders game speaks to his ability as a writer. His views on gay marriage are completely irrelevant in this context.

One being anti-gay-marriage (or Nazi, Christian, HR manager) does not automatically disqualify one's every opinion in the same manner as being pro-gay-marriage does not make me an authority on quantum mechanics.

He's also vehemently opposed to good writing if any of his more recent books are any example. I have honestly seen better fan fiction.

That's unfortunate if true. His older books are really good.

It's true: the old ones are very good, the recent additions to the Ender series for instance are terrible, they're an obvious cash in on his brand, I suspect he writes them quickly so he can make some quick cash (or to fill up his existing publishing contract.) and spends the rest of the time on stuff that doesn't suck so hard.

A review I read of his recent story collection said his recent stories didn't have to try so hard, he knew they'd get published and he was more or less keeping a hand in, his earlier work he's working hard and striving for quality, this applies in spades to the rest of his recent work and may well apply to any entity's (sometime) fall-off in effort or innovation after they've succeeded.

I agree that Card's writing is not what it used to be, but I don't think he's crassly cashing in on his past success. I think he has simply lost his touch (or at least, he no longer has the touch that appealed to us).

His early works were written when he was still relatively young and passionate and had years' worth of crazy ideas swirling around in his head. Fast forward 25 years, he's written all the good ideas he originally had, and he's now a middle-aged Mormon father and conservative political activist. If you read his books nowadays, you'll find they're pretty much what you'd expect from that description.

The sad thing is that I really enjoy his books. His newer books aren't as good. Is that because they really aren't as good, or because my reading of them is tinged by my knowledge that the guy is a nutcase?

They're really not that good. While his personal beliefs are way way more conservative than his novels, he does keep a pretty good separation.

He really hasn't written anything that good since the late 90s.

The Red v Blue wars in America? Weird. The latter Enderverse novels could have been cranked out by current AI. Treasure Box? Enchantment? Snoozers.

You can actually see the progression in the original Ender quartet, since it spanned pretty much his entire career as a good writer.

"Ender's Game" in '85 and "Speaker for the Dead" in '86 — It's hard to decide which one was more awesome. They're very different, but both are really gripping and create two fascinating worlds. When I read those two books, I thought I had found my favorite author of all time.

"Xenocide" in '91 — Sadly, not as good as the first two, but still a pretty compelling book. Veers a little too close to becoming a paean to the wonders of marriage and fatherhood, but constantly course-corrects and is pretty successful overall.

"Children of the Mind" in '96 — It's a readable novel, but as the conclusion to the previous three books, I couldn't help but ask, "WTF?" It's way too involved in its own ideas to bother with compelling characterization, and it has this weird tunnel vision that essentially reduces all human interaction to marriage, divorce or some analogue for the two.

I read most of the books in the Ender's game series a few years ago, only having read the original before. There was a significant decline in quality in the later books, coinciding with more propaganda.

I really enjoy "The West Wing". Not fond of some of the politics and I regard Martin Sheen as a serious nutcase, but I still like the show. If you don't take the art on it's own terms then you will have to avoid a lot of stuff in this life.

So essentially, my little corner of Seattle is wasting the equivalent of a gulf oil spill EVERY YEAR!. Ugh. At least there's no damage to the environment from our waste... oh wait... :(

Exactly.