stiva

I am a political scientist by education, working in a planetarium.

- Downloadable Content, the Penny Arcade Podcast

- The West Wing Weekly

- GovLove (from ELGL, about local government)

- Pod Save America

- Main Engine Cut Off (about launch vehicles)

- Are We There Yet? (general news about space exploration)

- Orbital Path with Michelle Thaler (recent space/astrophysics news)

- Skytalk with Dave Heller and Derrick Pitts (astronomy news)

> The tax that hurts the poor the most is obviously the sales tax.

Right, which is a flat, or proportional, tax.

There has never really been a compelling scheme for a flat tax that solves the problem inherent to it -- that a flat tax hurts those with a lower ability-to-pay.

> I'd argue that having a 'war chest' is actually detrimental to agility [...]

I believe that's what the parent is saying as well. I read it as saying that larger companies with a 'war chest' are able to weather the problems caused by reacting more slowly, and so agility is not as highly prioritized, while smaller, newer companies have to react quickly or die.

Networks, by and large, do not intercept messages like this. The only reason someone running an IRC network would see your messages is if they are in the same channel as you.

This really is an interesting story, but I wish he'd taken it to a journalist instead of writing it himself. The narrative is choppy and has a lot of holes in it. I would have loved to see this done as a feature from someone with a lot of experience writing about technology. That might also have given some extra credibility and context to things.