This is a re-post of an earlier comment but I think it's very applicable to this article:
The Chinese explored the Middle East and Africa almost 100 years before the Europeans. Every expedition consisted of 300 ships, some as long as 400 feet with 9 mast and an armada crew totaling 28,000 men. After 30 years of doing it they realized that they were spending too much money on these grand expeditions. The succeeding emperor ended the program. The Europeans on the other hand would send out just a few ships and try to find ways for the expeditions to be profitable (Slaves, gold, land, colonies) in ways the Chinese never thought. These smaller European expeditions could not be stopped by one emperor because Europe was not a unified empire like China. The smaller European kingdoms also competed against each other. This not only made the expeditions sustainable but thrive for the next 500 years. Right now I think we are in China's situation 600 years ago. We stopped the moon landings for the same reason the Chinese stopped landing Eunuchs in Africa. Unless we find a way for these space programs to be profitable I don't see humans colonizing space anytime soon.
The rocket engine was still running after separation and we could not see when it stopped propelling the rocket so it is difficult to really understand its motion by just using its interaction with gravity and the athmosphere as our only variables affecting its behavior.
I was wondering what that buildup of cloud was and then I saw the velocity breaking 760 MPH and realized it was breaking the sound barrier. Pretty awesome stuff!
Yes but we rarely even know ourselves. We don't know our limits until we try to reach it. We don't know how far we'll get until we take the journey. We don't know if our ideas will work until we try it. You can only theorize about an idea so much, at some point the time for theorizing is over and the time for doing it begins. The trick is figuring out when that is. I think it happens very early....
Yeah you're right. I don't think Hitler was sincere when he negotiated with Neville Chamberlain on the annexation of the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia. No one was listening to Churchill who has been warning for years about Hitler. Who would listen to a drunk discredited politician? This time pragmatism failed.
I did not say sincerity is not a virtue, I said it is overrated. I don't think Santorum is even close to being Hitler, I believe he is overall an honest man who believes that he will do good for the country. My problem with him is that he is so certain with his beliefs. He's too dogmatic for my taste. “The most harm of all is done when power is in the hands of people who are absolutely persuaded of the purity of their intentions” – Milton Friedman
The professor was giving a generally good advice for average people. (though of course I do not consider anyone going to Harvard to be average)But the professor is also ignorant of what is going on with the internet (trend) and never saw what Zuckerberg was seeing. But Mark was also lucky because part of the success of Facebook is the continued screwing up of MySpace. I remember Sean Parker saying that Facebook would never have succeeded if MySpace corrected all the little issues they had with users because they already have the network. Network is difficult to break, no matter how good your features are and how much money you have, just look at Google+.
I am also in finance working full-time. I spend about 2 hours a day working on our payments platform. 6 months ago I cut off my cable and it's amazing how much I'm actually getting done! People who use "lack of time" as an excuse to not get anything done should seriously consider adding up all their idle time, you'll be surprised!
This is so awesome! I am not a scientist but I know a quite bit about astrophysics that I have a hunch that you can accurately predict a supernova explosion (of massive stars) by simply knowing how much neutrino the star is emitting and the rate of change. Of course you would need to know its exact mass, and the only way to do that is to figure out its distance which at this point are just rough estimates. Maybe I'll try to raise funding for it one day through this.....
Fraud is hard especially for a small eCommerce store because of chargebacks. Unlike a brick and mortar store who can show the credit card association physical receipts with signatures, a video recording of a customer purchasing an item from a store, or ask a customer for an ID, online merchants can only show shipping receipts. These are often not enough. Chargeback policies are skewed towards buyers. The funny part is that this is only mostly true in the US, Canada, and Europe. If you're a credit card owner from another country (especially in Asia) it is very difficult to file for a chargeback.
Another thing I would like to add is that as much as I would like to, "private property" can never be absolute. I had a few friendly exchanges with some of my libertarian friends who argue that "private property" is sacred. While I do believe that in principle no other group of people should force individuals to give up their property, it is a principle that would be difficult to fully implement because of the simple fact that we live in a small planet with limited resources. The atmosphere is a communal property,so are the riches of the world's oceans. Suppose for example I am the shrewdest businessman on the planet and managed to own 70% of the world's grain output, in theory it is my property, should I be allowed to burn them all to ashes (assuming I figured out a way to burn it without polluting the atmosphere) since those are mine anyways? Capitalism brought the greatest explosion of wealth in human history because it "chose" those who can manage resources more effectively through the market system (instead of an appointed bureaucrat). Bill Gates will never consume $60B worth of grain and he can only wear 1 pair of shoes at a time. But because he took the chance countless millions benefited from his endeavor. I also don't mind wealthy people buying $5M diamond rings while "millions live on $2 a day", considering how many people were employed and paid to sell them that piece of rock with little practical use. But the "illusion" of absolute ownership is powerful enough for people to take chances. The trick now is trying to figure out when the rest of society can say to an individual that "you cannot do that!" when it comes to his property. I am not sure we'll ever figure that out.
It's amazing to see how developing countries simply jumped to wireless technologies without having the need to build expensive cable based phone networks like what developed countries had to go through. I read a story of a farmer in China who sells his crops to a shady middleman who lies to him about the market price of grain. Finally when he got a cellphone and was able to subscribe to a messaging service that gives him live updates on prices he was able to negotiate better and improve his standard of living. This is truly empowering.
With the right level of self discipline any one can benefit from this tremendously, pretty much like everything else in life. The difference now is accessibility to virtually everyone.
That is the beauty and curse of entrepreneurship, there is no clear goal post, no absolutes, just approximations. It takes a lot of toughness to go through the emotional roller coaster of excitement and enthusiasm to frustration and disappointment. That is why most fail, that is why most don't even start. Resilience is the name of the game.
It is not off subject. This is very strong evidence for speciation. The discovery of such fungus has wide implications, from industrial applications to proving the theory that life adapts and continue to evolve. It is related because the very existence of this life form proves a scientific theory.
I apologize if the way I said it was offensive. But I will not apologize for telling the truth. The idea that we evolved is not just an opinion, it is a fact backed by evidence. I couldn't say the same about the doctrine of special creation.
Hate? is telling the truth hate? Religion is an idea. Like any other idea it should be subjected to scrutiny and criticism. Unfortunately in our culture criticizing religion is considered wrong. I did not even criticize any religion in particular but criticized a specific idea, an idea contradicted by scientific evidence. Religion should not be untouchable when its teaching contradict science. No Hate mongering or vitriol here. Implying that the doctrine of special creation is flat wrong is not hate mongering, it is simply telling the truth.
Whoever voted negative on this comment does not fully understand my point. I am pointing out how ridiculous it is to believe that all life started 6,000 years ago and all species were already made exactly as they are. The fact that this particular fungus is surviving by eating plastic simply states that evolution happened and is still happening. Or maybe he did fully understand but just got offended by my mockery of the Judeo-Christian-Islamic version of how the universe, the world, and life began.
They are a third party payments aggregator (TPPA), just like PayPal when it started. They make it possible for merchants to accept credit card and bank transfers without the need to setup a merchant account with a bank or card association. The aggregator provides the means for facilitating payment from the consumer. The merchant is paid by the aggregator.
You are absolutely correct, it is a promise. But it is also a guarantee. There are regulations regarding money laundering that we will have to comply with of course. Users are required to fill out certain forms if the the amount of a transaction exceed 3,000 for individuals and 20,000 for businesses. And these are not just "per transaction", it is per month. As with scams our system is specifically designed to prevent users from falling into the trap scam sellers or buyers. Of course it will never be absolutely fool-proof, but it does significantly reduce the incentive for fraudulent activities on both sides. Unfortunately, I cannot give out too much detail on how we do it. We are launching our beta system sometime around March and you will be more than welcome to try it out as a beta tester.
No we won't freeze, close, or withdraw money from people's accounts. Once it's open, it's open. Once the money is cleared, it doesn't go back. This is an ironclad promise we can make to users because of the unique way we process payments. Right now the model for peer-to-peer transactions is that after one party gets paid the other waits for his merchandise or services to be delivered (eWork projects). We solved this problem by creating a system that will give equal distribution of control to both parties during the entire process, disincentivising fraud on both sides. The system is specifically designed for people who outsource projects, freelance workers, and cross border peer-to-peer e-commerce. It would simulate the benefits of a face-to-face interaction by solving the problems created by the distance and time usually involved in these types of exchanges.
It's amazing how bureaucracy can make it difficult for large companies to make simple changes. I think we should create a better model for running large organizations. The "flat" model seems to be promising but is still not sufficient to fight the inertia that is built during a company's growth stage. Maybe decentralization if done correctly will work.
Actually it is the sellers that PayPal is turning off. Their dispute resolution policies are abstruse and keep changing in their attempt to protect buyers. They have relied too heavily in freezing, closing, and even withdrawing money from sellers’ accounts without prior notice. So many eBay sellers who have relied on PayPal had their entire businesses destroyed with one incident. A payment system that focuses on preventive security would not rely on such heavy handed tactics when resolving disputes between buyers and sellers. If all users (buyers and sellers) have an equal distribution of control during the entire transaction then incentives for committing fraud on both sides will be effectively eliminated. Right now one party gets paid then the other has to wait for his merchandise. PayGuard will solve these problems. The challenge now is to get people to start trusting new players in the market.
yup....PayGuard will rock the payments industry by putting an end to the localization trend in e-commerce and create a truly global payments platform.....of course I am biased for it.....LOL
The problem is that it is currently easier to measure math and language skills. It would also be difficult to teach because it is less mechanical. But I believe advances in CAD's and user interfaces would eventually help in creating a curriculum for developing spatial intelligence.