Towle_

There's a whole spectrum of ways to disagree, all of which have value in the right situation. Here, a good portion of that spectrum has been lobbed off in the name of niceness and nothing more. Is it worth it? Decide for yourself. I say nay.

Bonus disease: PG worship. Don't get me wrong, he's a brilliant guy; we're all here (directly or indirectly) because of him. But it goes too far.

At this point, I've seen far too many disruptive, innovative startups get acquired by Google, only to be quietly drowned into the abyss. Their game is keeping everything as directly linked to search as possible.

Only if Jules Verne happens again someday. If he does, ask him. Nobody's ever matched that guy. Dude predicted we'd literally use rockets to literally travel to the moon at a time when literally the only common application of rockets was for fireworks; they weren't even reliable (in any/every sense) enough for military applications. Every self-proclaimed technology soothsayer there ever was can pretty much suck Jules Verne's dick.

They offer a large number of even smaller niche services; you're sort of expected to make your own bundle of subscriptions that apply to you. But as you may guess by their name, their flagship publication is the quarterly one. Yeah, their big moneymaker is published just four times a year.

You know how much CQ charges for their services? Hint: this is their subscription page: http://corporate.cqrollcall.com/wmspage.cfm?parm1=79 Yes, that's like 30 different phone numbers you're looking at. No, they don't let you subscribe online.

When that happens, you're either dealing with someone living in the stone age or a hyper-niche publication that everybody who's anybody in the world of Federal politics subscribes to, despite its absurd pricetag (e.g., four figures for a one-year sub to just Quarterly). That subscription isn't a status symbol, it's a necessity. Their livelihood depends on the information Congressional Quarterly provides.

It doesn't matter how small your market is. If your product is only of value to a slight fraction of the population, then make it so good they can't live without it. And charge out the ass for it.

Quick! Somebody, anybody: who owns the AAAS? Is it the Rockefellers? The Rothschilds?

They're keeping ALL the habitable planets to themselves, I tell you.

Q: Which single line from the article should stand out above all others?

A: Were Mr. Stoller and his friend, Tal Safran, thinking of going to work for banks when they graduated? "Fuck no."

Extrapolate as necessary.

Right now, the #1 highest female ratio is showing up as... 1887%. Without making a dumb joke about how your math may be off (duh), I will say this: from a business perspective, if you're going to err on one side or the other, it may as well be this one. Haha.

Idea #1: You need to ask yourself why people buy gift cards in the first place. They buy them as gifts for other people, gifts to be given at a later date. Instant gratification is far less of a factor when it comes to gift-giving, which is inherently non-instant. The only reason anyone would ever need to print off a gift card would be if they totally forgot the need for it, with like 15 minutes to spare. While that may seem like a niche you can fill, it probably isn't. There are formal-ish standards for gift-giving, and the appearance of forgetting till the last minute is always, always, always avoided; the implication being that you didn't care enough about the recipient to remember to get the gift ahead of time.

Go for #2, and play around with the idea some more.

It's a tool, and like all tools, it's inherently neutral. If I use a hammer to kill a squirrel, is the hammer evil? No.

Note who's publishing this article. What do you think they want you to believe?

Got an economic idea you want to incept the public consciousness with? No matter what it is, you can find an economist somewhere who believes it. Then all you have to do is hire him to write a column.

Whether it's The Social Network or, say, any Judd Apatow film of the last few years, there's been no shortage of oblivious feminista blogger-types dying to tell you how offended they were by...(what are actually) figments of their own imagination/ the selection errors of their own narrow perception.

The Social Network is an exposé on Mark Zuckerberg. It is NOT a commentary on the state of gender relations in the social areas of either college or the tech community at large. As an exposé on Mark Zuckerberg, its main focus will be, you guessed it, Mark Zuckerberg. If you, Jezebel columnist Irin Carmon, happen to place your focus anywhere other than Zuckerberg, you are bound to find inconsistencies with the real world (movies, as portrayals of the real world, are inherently fake and inconsistent). Women never have ideas. Also, a disproportionate number of the lampshades are forest green; in FY 2004 forest green accounted for a mere 3.3% of lampshade sales in the United States, whereas in the movie, no fewer than 4 of 9 lampshades is forest green-- WHAT THE FUCK.

Maybe the roles women fill in the movie isn't some sort of perverse commentary on everyone with two X chromosomes. Maybe those roles are just the only ones available for women to fill in a movie about a Harvard computer hacker, his Harvard computer hacker buddies, and the tech company they founded together. Or does Sorkin need to manufacture a prominent female character who's smart, comes up with lots of fantastic ideas, actually happens to be the best computer hacker on campus, would never stoop to wearing slutty clothing to attract men, sometimes wears slutty clothing but lambasts every man who compliments her attire by asking why you don't compliment Joey on his rugby shirt because you're a sexist that's why, would never have an abortion because of her earth-shattering instinct for motherhood no matter what society says about the appropriate time and place to have a family, would definitely have an abortion if she wanted to because it's her choice anyway not that dumb jock's and who cares what her dad says anyway he's just a cog in the Patriarchy.

To such a sudden flood of flame-baiting.

They that have written this post are honourable:

What private griefs they have, alas, I know not,

That made them do it: they are wise and honourable,

And will, no doubt, with reasons answer you.

I come not, devs, to steal away your hearts:

I am no web guru, as Sarah is;

But, as you know me all, a plain blunt man,

That "get" the Walled Garden; and that they know full well

That gave me public leave to speak of them:

For I have neither wit, nor words, nor worth,

Action, nor utterance, nor the power of speech,

To stir devs' blood: I only speak right on;

I tell you that which you yourselves do know;

Show you Apple's app sales, tall tall stack'd bills

And bid them speak for me: but were I Sarah,

And Sarah user Towle_, there were a user Towle_

Would alter your thinking and expose the methods

To all the madness of Apple that should move

The foes of the iPhone to rise and applaud it.

I wonder how much PG and the others actually dislike the term. Are they against it on technicality grounds and nothing more? Or do they mean to make a statement about what exactly YC is and does by avoiding the 'incubator' label?

a) accurately define intelligence (good luck), and

b) know the motives of those who belong to that highest tier of intellegence (again, good luck).

Come to think of it, I've never personally seen a graph of tuition inflation with out-of-pocket payment, private loan payment, and federal aid payment all on top of each other, mapped over time. THAT would be a telling graph.

He needs to put on a Crusader uniform and act like he thinks those people are supposed to act: offended. He can't just BE offended, he must explicitly tell you he's offended, and start swinging his sword around so you know what a noble Crusader he is.

If he were responding to a blog post offensive to men, would he have used that language? No, because being offended for yourself isn't noble, it's being offended for others. And telling everyone about it as much as you can. How else will people know what an altruist you are?