dbul
Joined 18 years ago
Karma
993
Submissions
306
Member since
Jan 30
Recent submissions
Comment · 13 years ago
A shocking data point about how things are going is that the median real net worth for households headed by someone under 25 dropped 68% from 1984 to 2009, to $3,662.
I remember hearing this on NPR a couple days ago. It's actually 35.[1]
To all who write blog posts: please cite your stats.
[1] http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2011/11/07/the-rising-age-gap...
Comment · 13 years ago
This is unbelievable: it looks like they are faking child births, too! The rate is up a whopping 15%.
http://web.archive.org/web/20120203092942/https://www.cia.go...
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/...
Also, from my experience smoking seems to be rare both in Tokyo and the countryside, so I'd like the see some statistics about Japanese being "smoking fiends" before I assertTrue().
Comment · 13 years ago
Both of you seem to think he said "instead." Consider the clauses rephrased: "Maybe we should start by examining our own community, before ..."
Why? I'd guess because the blog post refers to celebrity hackers bullying another hacker. The community -- more than just these few guys -- can't even behave civilly. It's a case of the pot calling the kettle black.
Comment · 14 years ago
From https://balancedpayments.com "no redirects. no iframes. no external accounts." That's the unqiue, killer feature right there. If some M&A were to happen between those companies, the existence of this feature is imperative. Specifically, if I have a marketplace I don't want my customers to do any more than a) type their paypal email or b) type their bank account details.
Edit: if you happen to seriously be confused by what I've written, please visit the url and ctrl/cmd f for the quote. Then, take a look at what is below. That is,
curl https://api.balancedpayments.com/v1/credits \
-d amount=10000 \
-d description="Math lesson" \
-d bank_account[name]="Johann Bernoulli" \
-d bank_account[account_number]=9900000001 \
-d bank_account[routing_number]=121000358 \
-d bank_account[type]=checking \
-u 7b7a51ccb10c11e19c0a026ba7e239a9:
Comment · 14 years ago
Excellent. Not too long ago I asked a partner at a very well known VC firm if they would consider investing a small amount ($x00) in many "startups" to see if the founders would use the money effectively and follow up with a more serious investment if so. He looked at me as though I was asking sarcastically rather than sincerely.
I'm confident that these six new Pinboard/Ptacek/A16Z companies will have excellent return on investment.
Humor aside, there are many smart founders but being brilliant and being money-minded are orthogonal.
Comment · 14 years ago
The "working with people" comment makes me wonder if they are working with Rethink Robotics.[1] That would be an even more interesting take on this shift.
[1] http://spectrum.ieee.org/robotics/industrial-robots/rethink-...
Comment · 14 years ago
Translation is as much of an art as it is a science, so I wonder where this project is headed. Le Ton beau de Marot is a great book for illustrating this point.
In college I had studied Japanese and a friend introduced me to the anime cartoon Initial D. His copy had the original Japanese with English subtitles, and so I could assess the translation to some degree -- it was very good. On Netflix you can watch Initial D, but after 2 minutes I had to turn it off because the English dubbing really failed to capture the characters.
As someone noted in this thread, the presenter's synthesized voice in the linked video doesn't seem to reflect his own. If he could have said something like "Wo hui shua putonghua" and had the machine output say the same, it might have been more convincing.
Comment · 14 years ago
In theory, I absolutely agree; however, in reality I disagree unless you can show some data that indicates money being spent this way is more ethical than inhibition. Considering the competition for apparel, ample supply of workers, and what actually goes on in factories, if I have the option I will buy from a place that is more likely to uphold human rights.
If you would like a glimpse into my position and haven't already watched the PBS documentary China Blue, I recommend it.
Comment · 14 years ago
The focus seems to be on pricing, and understandably so considering the nature of people. The implied ethics behind the manufacturing is something I appreciate: I've bought clothing from only countries with better than not labor laws for the past several years. Recently, Burberry has retired their UK-made products in favor of more dubious manufacturing locations; so I've stopped buying Burberry.
I hope this becomes a mainstream designer brand. American Apparel had their own target audience. But I just couldn't understand why no one was able to develop aesthetically pleasing clothing made in the US on par with other designers you may find in Saks.
Comment · 14 years ago
Create a new email account. Sign up on every form you come across on websites selling various products and services. Get ready to be spammed. When the sales guys get in touch, get them on the phone using a blocked number or a temp. While they are trying to make a sale, instead try to ask questions to get them to admit they have the problem you are solving and you can instead pitch them your solution.
Comment · 14 years ago
Set up a stripe account today. Ask people to donate an amount that they would pay assuming a monthly rate. Analyze their usage data and payment data to assist you in coming up with payment plans.
Comment · 14 years ago
So it happened that in my junior year of college, I came across the web site of one of the many finals clubs on campus, the Fly Club.
It's "FINE-UHL clubs" not "FINE-UHLZ clubs."
And he shockingly did not understand why information privacy might be a controversial issue.
And then
He had been searching the houseSYSTEM Facebook for the twins' profiles
So much for privacy.
Aside from the Facebook, the sites had overlapping features for course schedulers, photo albums, message boards, digital posters for student groups, and eventually exchanges for buying and selling on campus and mapping your network of friends.
Irrelevant. People only used Thefacebook for obvious and simple things: connecting with people they knew, poking, messaging, and photos. No one used mapping your network of friends (which sucked, incidentally, and also was faily most of the time) and no one even used the course scheduler. To state the obvious, facebook was not successful for its features, it was successful because how it was executed!
This was claimed to have been written for historical significance, but I know that every time an article is written by this author and about this subject dozens of people are thinking the same thing: move on. Create a successful company first, then retire and write about this topic. I'd love to see blog posts regarding Think Computer's technology. As it stands, this blog post gained a lot of attention but there isn't even a a sidebar with "Hi, I'm Aaron Greenspan and I'm the CEO of Think Computer. We have this product, click here to learn more." It's a marketing failure to not capitalize on such an opportunity.
"If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them." Walden