thailandstartup
Joined 16 years ago
Joined 16 years ago
Because I'm in Thailand, Paypal freezes my account regularly, and for CCs many places won't ship to a different address, let alone a foreign address because of the risk of CC fraud. Online shopping is set up to protect the consumer and so merchants are cautious and prefer to deal with the 90% low-risk transactions and turn away the 10% risky ones.
When you're in the 10% though - you want to just say - 'I trust you to ship. I'll take the risk. Here's the money. Ship it.'
A decent server side SWF->HTML5 would enable existing websites to offer the first class experience (the SWF) to Flash enabled browsers, and push a HTML5 conversion for non-Flash browsers (Apple mobile devices). It would shaft Apple (Why does this run so slow on the iPad?) and slow the move away from Flash (Adobe could still make a credible 'runs everywhere' argument).
It's great to have Flash there when you need it. So many sites still have integral Flash content.
Humankind is mis-allocating some of its most talented labour to what is essentially an arms race in financial market predictive algorithms. It provides some benefit for humankind - increased liquidity in markets, but the value of the marginal liquidity is small compared to the talent that is wasted.
Salman Khan is an excellent example - he left his job as a hedge fund analyst to start Khan Academy. How many new Khan Academies would we have if the incentives were right to have talented people working on useful projects instead of the financial arms race?
Sure, the incentives are right for an individual or country to specialize in financial markets. Think bigger - an alien looking at what we're doing here on planet earth would say we're wasting a lot of our talent on stuff that just re-arranges the pie instead of making it bigger.
If the shopkeeper says the loaf of bread was worth $200K and the the court doesn't question the amount because the shopkeeper has been billed $200K for replacement of said loaf according to a contract with the bakery, the shopkeeper and the bakery have legislated the punishment for the crime.
The position you're advocating is that a contract between two private companies should be used to calculate damages for a criminal act. That's a very bad idea - it makes those companies legislators.
This is a horrendous miscarriage of justice. 4 months internet access = approx $80.
I'm particularly interested in connecting with hackers and founders who are living, visting or interested in SE Asia.
gmail address - thailandstartup
Also interested in forming a hacker house in Thailand http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2432228