It’s a lot of work, but it’s also really educational and interesting.

I am guessing it is not hidden from apple or anything, but that they (smartly) made it an easter egg because it doesn’t actually work super well – its COOOOL but not reliably useful yet, so making it a secret feature only nerds activate means nobody will ever complain that it is wonky/buggy/whatever, because its secret. interesting strategy!

mikehudack :

p. superamit :

p. The new Yelp iPhone app has an easter egg.

Shake your iPhone 3G S three times, and you’ll activate augmented reality mode.

This is the first augmented reality app you can download from the app store, and it may have snuck by because the feature was hidden. I’d download it now in case Apple removes it later!

(Requires the compass in the 3G S to know which direction you’re pointing)

Yelp app

Experience a little piece of the future, today.

p. Last month I wrote about an article outlining why old people think young people are spoiled . Well, the author has written a followup, this time outlining two more factors : Social mobility and increasing resource inequality. It’s another great and simple explanation of some economics/sociology stuff.

The best part, though, might be in the footnotes where the author wonders aloud about something that has been bugging me lately:

Why is it that everyone is so dead-set on having their children exceed them? From a logical standpoint, doesn’t it seem hard to understand how everyone’s children are going to advance forward? Especially when there are an exponentially increasing number of children on the planet; and at the same time technology is exponentially decreasing the need for human intervention in the production of our goods and services? As we go each day into the future we have more people to do work, while at the same time we have less work to do. How are we all going to find our kids well-rewarded jobs, when we just don’t need as many people working?

I hadn’t thought of it in exactly these terms, but I’ve been wondering about why so many people think they’re going to beat the odds. I mean I get why people think that way, but it’s still sort of mysterious that everyone believes it. If everyone was beating the odds the odds would change.

_Via: More Parents Thinking Kids are Spoiled // NoahBrier.com _

I think it’s because it’s fundamental to the human spirit. Progress. Growth. Evolution. Advancement. If the next generation doesn’t have a chance to do as well as ours, we have failed, in our time as stewards of civilization on this planet. That and just a deep love of their children. And I don’t think it’s impossible. We see even now in much of the developing world, things improve, year after year. Not by much, nothing revolutionary or that many of us would deem enough, but a little. Each year. Even with the population explosion, it’s happened. As we have managed to slow population growth, and as we manage to recalibrate our relationship with the planet, it doesn’t strike me as impossible to continue advancing humanity’s success. And even if it turns out to be impossible, it seems to me that having every parent want their child to do better than them is a great proxy for global beliefs and actions toward human advancement.