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bdevani

17 karma · joined June 24, 2014

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bdevani··on Christmas Geotagging
I think what's missing here is that generally a phonebook requires that I know your first and last name, that you be the person listed in the phone book (and not, say, their kid or even their spouse), and that I can choose you from all the other Michael Smiths in the book.

Lastly, even then, your address is not updated by the second. It could be out of date. And I certainly wouldn't know what your living room looked like.

Instagram et.al provides your actual location. Often, at that very moment. Not the same at all.

bdevani··on US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program
It requires voting. and being informed. voting for publicly funded limited campaigns. and being active in the courts
bdevani··on Job brokers steal wages and entrap Indian tech workers in US
This is de rigor in India. Keep a job for less than a year, you pay the company. Its the most bizarre thing I've heard. Sure, many companies here will ask for their signing bonus back if you quit early into this job, but this is literally garnishing one's wages.
bdevani··on Job brokers steal wages and entrap Indian tech workers in US
These little power hungry kings are the monsters we made. These kings have one job and just one job, keep raising the stock price.

One of the quickest way to get liquid, meet your projections and so on, is to liquidate jobs. Get all that $$ back on the books. 10 ppl isn't just (assuming they make 100k each) 1m, its also the training and benefits, and social security, health 401k..etc.

A few dips in the stock price == dethronement, possibly disinterest and the looming specter of irrelevance/demise.

All corporations are about profit. All stockholders want them to be. All people, who often are also stockholders, find this at odds with being a reasonable, nurturing workplace

bdevani··on Who’s Collecting Kids’ Personal Data? Lots of People
The data would allow a person who is not capable of giving informed consent, to give consent. Its the same reason a kid can't be interviewed by a cop without informing an adult (for example).

More than this, it means you can track a person for their entire life. Regardless of where one stands on the negative impact of tracking, a person should be able to decide, and a kid simply cant.

Kids arent allowed to win contests either (some contests) or the lottery.

bdevani··on My Day Interviewing for the Service Economy Startup from Hell
The bigger question is, why isn't this a concern when investing in a company? Certainly if I were to open a b2c smb (small business) and have a horrible track record, banks and private investors would think twice. If I am a startup? Who cares?
bdevani··on Yahoo Hacked
Dude your screen name is really telling.

He reached out, and didn't have any luck. Companies truly need to learn how to deal with these breaches in a way that re-invites the public trust

bdevani··on In the medical response to Ebola, Cuba is punching above its weight
China can be considered capitalist, they trade actively with us, and honestly we don't have the ability go to against them. Saudi Arabia, needs to be on our side, to provide the natural resources we consume.

Cuba..that would be just us trading with a Communist country. It would mean allowing Americans to consider a communist country, instead of writing that idea off as crazy. Neither political party in the US wants that. Neither party in the US believes a friendly more transparent relationship with Cuba will strengthen American belief in capitalist democracy across all of society.

bdevani··on In the medical response to Ebola, Cuba is punching above its weight
I'm with dunder.

The flux of Asian immigration in the 60s, after the caps on these countries were lifted, was focused on skilled labor where there was limited US supply. AKA doctors.

We in the US still have this eye towards immigration of the skilled. While it is currently less in the medical field, it continues due to the lack of services in rural areas.

In Europe many Romanian doctors leave Romania and make much better wages in England and other countries. In India and so many other countries, many left for the US. Being a doctor had social weight and financial weight that it no longer carries here, in the US.

bdevani··on Square Raises $150M at a $6B Valuation
Its also a concern btwn the end user and the card. Credit cards, bc of the inherent line of credit and their ability to accommodate you into a large amount of personal debt, free the end user up to become a consumer beyond their means. Debit cards don't. I think a lot of what you're talking about, in terms of payment issues in the US, stem from this.

We're spending money that hasn't been earned yet, and there is a lot of space to disrupt that as the industry is held by legacy companies who give out credit.

bdevani··on Glut of postdoc researchers stirs quiet crisis in science
Since the private sector/industry work is competitive, it is considered market rate. The reason that post-docs are not considered market rate is that the institutions do not compete with each other, and the rate is determined without concern of the applicants.
bdevani··on Analyzing AngelList Job Postings, Part 2: Salary and Equity Benchmarks
This! I totally understand what angersock is trying to say. But if the market is allowing me to make more elsewhere at LargeCorp and the politics of the workplace arent magnified by a small team, like they are often at start-ups, it sounds great.
bdevani··on Show HN: JuliusJS – Speech recognition in JavaScript
Fantastic project and response time. Congrats on this.
bdevani··on New York Times APIs
I think it'd be totally worth reaching out to them with recs on how to update the on-boarding process.
bdevani··on New York Times APIs
I think this comment vastly underestimates the value of something, placing it only within a marketplace context. Investigative journalism, by actual journalists and not bloggers, is a cornerstone of what we need in a society. Otherwise institutions simply continue unchecked.

The API is the same as anything. NYT specializes in content, Google Translate specializes in machine translation of text. You pay for what you need.

We should be able to come up with some pretty cool uses for nyt api considering the insane amt of content it provides access to. the OP is just one.

bdevani··on Stripe and Apple Pay
It goes from one click to one depression. it is the mobile equivalent and steps right around amazon's 'patent'
bdevani··on Show HN: RandomStartup.org – Refresh the page to discover another startup
Very addictive and a neat way to see what is going on out there with a quick browse.

I'd suggest more modern look and feel for the top bar, maybe something like a black bkgd with opacity? Currently it pulls the feel of the site down a bit.

bdevani··on How I built an audio book reader for my nearly blind grandfather
This is a great project. Love that you did this for your grandfather.
bdevani··on How extreme isolation warps the mind
In general humans have a sense of time. This is why the graveyard shift is so incomprehensibly difficult for human beings. At the core humans require routine but beyond that thoughtful activities lend themselves to daylight.

Depression is also strongly related to being in the dark, probably linked to us needing vitamin D.

bdevani··on How Boston Police Used Facial Recognition Technology to Spy on Thousands
^ this. so now we know the govt may not be on top of it enough to really utilize this info, but it is all out there..and when these activities get privatized, there will be a larger cause for concern
bdevani··on Was Localizing Defender's Quest Worth It?
I think localization is so important and reaches beyond just translating a few strings (though really -- even that is something many developers miss). It's really about the small touches in the experience, for ecommerce, items that ship, taking tariffs and import/export rules into account. currency. for games, small hints like background and music and so on.

This effort is great and its awesome to an effort that speaks to a variety of audiences

bdevani··on In Ferguson, Washington Post reporter Wesley Lowery gives account of his arrest
and the amazing discordant 'reaction' by the police, armed with a variety of fringe all provided no doubt by the US military which probably had an excess.
bdevani··on In Ferguson, Washington Post reporter Wesley Lowery gives account of his arrest
If you're looking for a live stream of activity you can find it here: http://new.livestream.com/accounts/9035483/events/3271930

Anonymous has claimed that they will be releasing the name of the cop who shot Mike Brown if they recover it: http://www.salon.com/2014/08/13/anonymous_released_alleged_a...

bdevani··on In Ferguson, Washington Post reporter Wesley Lowery gives account of his arrest
"white people don't riot" you're right, when white people are on the streets its a protest.
bdevani··on Show HN: Startuplister – A startup directory listing service
It seems including those would give a more end-to-end feel rather than supplementing one effort with another. It would be a greater value add to have the largest sites also included.
bdevani··on The Youngest Are Hungriest
Women are also expected to care for their parents in India, but the definition of 'parents' varies. If you're a widow and your husband dies, you will be required to take care of your in-laws for the rest of their lives, and this is often not very pretty.

If you are unmarried and thus, by most Indian standards, live at home, you will be required to take care of your aging parents exclusively (minus financial matters), which also is often not very pretty.

Sons are expected to take care of their parents in terms of spending money. Daughters are not b/c quite frankly, they do not have exclusive control of any money in this system. Instead they are expected to wait on them -- and the rest of the family -- by cleaning, cooking, etc.

bdevani··on Online Tool for Young Bankers Raises $1M in Funding
Does thinknum have any plans for utilizing the models tracked by users to find larger trends? Wouldn't that be the largest concern after not actually having this info on company servers?