anxx

As a Turkish person, this is the best and most accurate analysis of the situation I've read.

Also, I would like to express my sympathy for the mentioned journalist Serdar and outrage at the media institution that fired him. It is truly frightening what the leading party can do now that it has such a strong grip on the media, police force, and legislative branches.

Same here. When I heard about the large Buddha sculptures in Bamyan Valley (Afghanistan) destroyed by the Taliban, my heart sank.

Is it normal for a company to go down with no indication of it on its webpage?

I am not sad for these particular investors, because they could've become very rich if it had taken off. With great chance for cash comes great risk of losing it and they knew it. I do feel for the early adopters, though; I hope Better Place finds some money to compensate them.

For future investors, Better Place will be a reminder not to invest in ideas that are too disruptive, even if the founder and the team seems right for the job. The companies that might never be due to this precedent is the real loss, I think.

Related question: is there a limit on email address length? Like a real fundamental limit, not arbitrary decisions Gmail or Yahoo folks might have come up with.

My Google interviewer was a HS-educated guy. My parents couldn't believe it. I tend to think - if he is as good at the job as me, what does his education matter? Why should I be offended that a HS-educated guy is in the same room with me?

Education is meant to produce a difference in job performance; it's good for the worker, not directly to the employer. If I with my college degree can't get a better job than a HS-graduate, it's on me to change.

My parents find my lack of ego around this subject so weird. Also, the world at large is probably more similar to my parents.

With the internet, most education is free. When we pay education, we mainly pay for 1) exclusivity (there are not a million other people attending Harvard) and 2) standards (standard exams within an accredited curriculum, so the GPA and major will mean something). Increasing the amount of online education preserves the standards, but removes / broadens the exclusivity. I am not sure this is a great thing for people from Georgia Tech; they now have to compete with a lot more people for similar jobs.

An online education with tough admissions would be better if one tries to preserve the brand (and thus provide insurance* to the program trainees).

* by insurance, I refer to insurance of employability, like Peter Thiel described in his PandoMonthly interview.

That depends on how often you do need to contact them. If you don't call/text/IM them, then you could have no contact info and not miss it.

I also think that it is relatively easy to find somebody's phone number once you do wish to call/text them. You can just ask a common friend or Facebook them from a throwaway.

I have gone cold turkey from Facebook, after years of checking/updating multiple times a day. And it wasn't hard, because I just realized that I wasn't interested in the lives of the 80% "acquantainces" any more. The fact that somebody I knew at some point got married is really not important to me (and my "Like" doesn't mean much to them). And I feel that if I need to contact a friend after a long time, it is rather easy to pick up where you left off.

That is actually a good point. I wondered why the US is so adamant about its citizens paying taxes while living abroad. Theoretically - you are not taking advantage of any of the US infrastructure like roads and parks while you're abroad. I kind of think a citizen living abroad should be taxed, but much less (because the cost is not zero - think embassy expenses).

replying to iNeal: really? My school turns my school.edu to alum.school.edu.

It's only in the US that I have seen advertisements for a product include direct bashing of a competitor's product. I am not talking about a list of features where you show in which way yours is superior; that is still acceptable (although also deceiving much of the time). I am talking about ads like the Nimoy-Quinto Audi commercial where Nimoy had stupid problems fitting stuff into the Mercedes.

This is such a jarring way to advertise, it's like watching a bully beat a defenseless kid - does anybody feel more sympathy towards the product this way?

True, but eventually the hardware PIN has to become a software PIN that will be transmitted. Why is it more difficult to sniff out hardware PINs?

This is curious, why can it only be entered in hardware? Is it a safety precaution?