Hey Aaron, for that, I'm going to have to take the blame and offer my apologies. (I think I apologized before, but here it is again). Your nitpicks were actually really great feedback and addressed the kind of design details that make all the difference between what's good enough and what's great in an interface. Unfortunately, they were 1) covering stuff that was near the bottom of our priority stack because we were just trying to launch at that point 2) I was still an asshole during that period and hadn't fully learned the value of users yet: http://particletree.com/notebook/reflections-of-an-interface...

I offer no excuses. Thanks again for taking the time to help us then and I'm sorry that I left a bad impression for my reactions.

Give me a break. I lived in San Francisco for a bunch of years, starting after my first company got bought out --- I've experienced the city both totally flush with cash and living paycheck to paycheck. Allow me to retort:

* Public transportation in the Bay Area is a shambles, and, in particular, getting between any two points in the (tiny) city of San Francisco involves interaction with the worst bus system in the country.

* Housing is spectacularly expensive, which, in hacker teams, simply means you're going to be living in half the space you have now, with no amenities.

* Office space in San Franscisco? I already spent the modifier "spectacular", so let's go with "catastrophically" expensive, meaning: your office won't be in the city, it will be in San Mateo, which despite its relative proximity to the city, will still be an hour and a half commute. Unlucky enough to wind up in Santa Clara? I was. My commute from SOMA often exceeded two hours each way.

* Half to 3/4s of your friends are going to live in the South Bay. No matter where you choose to live --- San Francisco or the suburban Mallhalla of the South Bay --- you are going to be 45 minutes to an hour away from anyone you want to visit.

* An ongoing dispute between the dispatchers, the city, and medallion owners keeps taxicabs artificially scarce, so that you are going to wait 20 minutes to catch one on Folsom or downtown.

* There isn't one good place in the city to see a show, but that doesn't matter, because your favorite band skips San Francisco.

* Last call in San Francisco? Earlier than other cities.

* Weather? Choose between "brown" or "wet".

* Streets? Laden with human feces and garbage. Am I being hyperbolic? No.

Almost any other city in the country, save Los Angeles, can lay a better claim to being a destination for long-term lifestyle companies than San Francisco.

I've always liked this list. BVP is no different from most VC firms in this respect. What's unusual about them is that they're so candid about it.

I was just talking to some founders about what terribly bad judges VCs are, compared to how confident they seem. They're in the same position as governments. All governments are horribly inefficient, but they don't realize it because their only competitors are other governments.

Come to think of it, this may be changing. Now that startups are so cheap to run, companies rejected by VCs are increasingly likely to survive to embarrass them.

I will make a shameless, shameless plug.. (disgusting)

I have been working on a simpler spaced repetition system (the Leitner System relies on a simple yes/no response) implemented as a wepapp: http://flashcarddb.com

The article mentions the popularity of spaced repititon software in Poland. And sure enough a large number of my incoming users are from Poland and a few other European countries that are familiar with the concepts.

Another open source Supermemo alternative is Mnemosyne.

I have thought of adding the option of a more complicated rating system for grading answers but most new users tend to be relatively new to the idea of spaced repetition. So, for now, I am keeping it relatively simple.

You could start by giving us the link.

* Public transportation in the Bay Area is a shambles, and, in particular, getting between any two points in the (tiny) city of San Francisco involves interaction with the worst bus system in the country.

- Public transportation is bad, unless you've ever been to houston, phoenix, dallas, detroit, los angeles, or anywhere else in the US outside of NYC, Boston, Portland, Chicago, or D.C. As bad as it is, SF's public transport is probably the 5th BEST in the country.

* Housing is spectacularly expensive, which, in hacker teams, simply means you're going to be living in half the space you have now, with no amenities.

- Yes.

* Office space in San Franscisco? I already spent the modifier "spectacular", so let's go with "catastrophically" expensive, meaning: your office won't be in the city, it will be in San Mateo, which despite its relative proximity to the city, will still be an hour and a half commute. Unlucky enough to wind up in Santa Clara? I was. My commute from SOMA often exceeded two hours each way.

- My office space on Howard street is cheaper than what I would pay on the peninsula or in Chicago. I think I lucked out, though.

* Half to 3/4s of your friends are going to live in the South Bay. No matter where you choose to live --- San Francisco or the suburban Mallhalla of the South Bay --- you are going to be 45 minutes to an hour away from anyone you want to visit.

- uhh... i guess if your friends all work at Yahoo!? I don't really see this unless your friends are all married or dorks.

* An ongoing dispute between the dispatchers, the city, and medallion owners keeps taxicabs artificially scarce, so that you are going to wait 20 minutes to catch one on Folsom or downtown.

- this is pretty much true.

* There isn't one good place in the city to see a show, but that doesn't matter, because your favorite band skips San Francisco.

- this is true if your favorite musicians are Jack Johnson or Britney Spears. If you are cool and listen to interesting music there are at least 6 decent mid to large clubs and dozens of smaller spaces. The music scene is better in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Chicago but SF is on par with everywhere else.

* Last call in San Francisco? Earlier than other cities.

- except it is the same as Los Angeles, Portland and Minneapolis, an hour later than Seattle and Boston, and about the same time as when most bars in Chicago now close. If you want to stay out really late your only choice in the US is Manhattan.

* Weather? Choose between "brown" or "wet".

- more like "cold and windy" or "not quite as cold and windy"

* Streets? Laden with human feces and garbage. Am I being hyperbolic? No.

- it sounds like someone's office was close to 6th and Market. SOMA is slimy in parts but gentrification happens and the poo is mostly confined to a few select corridors these days.

Poopy streets to avoid: 6th between Market and Folsom and associated side alleys. Capp between 15th and 17th. The tenderloin bounded by turk, mason, leavenworth and o'farrell.