665 karma · joined December 15, 2011
$45M * 380 * 7% = $1.2B split 4 ways?
Congratulations for creating so much value and giving so many of us a great community.
Additionally, programmers would do well for to adopt an accountants mindset toward explaining and justifying the reasoning for everything. My father's a tax acct/atty Who worked for the IRS for ~10y and now runs his own practice. I'm a "highly paid" programmer in Mountain View. I see a lot of parallels, but the difference in the business model is most glaring.
EDIT:
Perhaps a better word would have been "potential," as in potential revenue. The conclusion that spending $Xk on engineering will generate $Yk revenue is never guaranteed. This is what a typically tax accounting conversation sounds like: "I will save you $Xk in taxes for $Y." Conversely, engineers at best can predict that they will generate $Xk revenue while necessarily costing $Y. This is the distinction I was making.
Before proceeding, here is the list of tests I took:
Sophomore Year: Geography
Jr Year: Calculus BC, Micro & Macro Economics, Government, English Language
Sr Year: Computer Science AB, Physics C, Statistics, English Literature
I also had amazing teachers, many award winning including a NASA scientist and a former Defense Department programmer.
First, most of the best colleges limit the scores they are willing to accept in exchange for credit. When I attended college, 5s were required in major specific studies in order to receive credit at Texas A&M, which if I recall correctly was how it was at MIT, the Naval Academy and various others. A 5 on an AP exam in my opinion is par for a passing grade in a college course. When I started at Texas A&M as a Mathematic/CS dual major, I started in Calculus 3 and CS 211 (~3rd semester equivalent). Material-wise I was more than capable of handling the classes, and even found that my background had been far more rigorous than many of the other students.
The only problem AP courses caused for me were an issue of my advisor who allowed me to take 15 hrs of sophomore level courses my first semester as a Freshman including: Discrete Math, Cal 3, CS 211, Statistics 211 and Biology 101. In retrospect, this was a huge mistake. Emotionally, I was not prepared to handle the course-load and struggled. This was exacerbated by the fact that it had actually been a year since I'd taken any Calculus since I took the AP Cal BC exam my Jr year. I would have been much better off with the minimum course-load (12 hrs) and a few lighter classes. Unfortunately, due to my entire semester's worth of earned credits and a dual major, I had little to no "lighter" courses left to take in my degree plan.
All in all, to hear someone claiming AP exams are a "scam" is absurd and laughable to me. They saved me roughly $20,000 in in-state tuition & board at a public university! I expect the savings to someone attending a private university would be far more profound (on the order of $100k). If anything, the biggest problem with the AP system is that schools do not sufficiently equip students to either take the exams or made sufficiently aware of the benefit they offer.
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3D...
I believe the ultimate theme of Watchmen is this:
"In an irrational world, only the irrational becomes rational."
_ Regular people donning masks to fight crime at little personal gain and great personal expense.
_ Horrific and violent crimes disregarded as minor indiscretions of a time past.
_ An all-powerful god, resigned to do nothing due to the ineffectiveness of doing anything.
This theme climaxes when Ozymandius, the universally recognized "most intelligent man in the world," (translated, "most rational") illustrates exactly this point when in order to save a world on the brink of irrational self-destruction, theatrically stages an alien invasion, something which simultaneously changes nothing, yet everything, in order to save it.
Even the all powerful god recognizes this seemingly illogical and horrific solution as the ultimate most perfectly rational means to save an irrational world from itself.
In the end, the story's hero, Rorschach, the consistent (and author appointed) voice of reason amidst a delusional world, is rendered ineffective and unable to make a difference, an impediment on the path to salvation to be destroyed by its god, Dr Manhattan.
Let that last point sink in for a moment, and you'll understand the implications of this theme; it's the final scene of an epic novel:
__the world's last rational man is an obstruction to the survival of an irrational world.__
The theme itself is startling in its simplicity, and the impact of watching its very real once impactful characters, heroes and anti-heroes, struggling to come to grips with their irrelevance in an irrational world can be moving and profound in its implications.
Watchmen is a postmodern thesis. Whether you share in the postmodern sentiment, understanding the context is incredibly rewarding, emotional and thought provoking.
Tragically, the movie's creators did not understand this and lost the the whole point and very soul of the novel, transforming the antihero, Ozymandius, into a lunatic and villain. Understandably, this is likely the source of your misunderstanding. Ironically, the replacement of the antihero with a villain could itself be construed as an unintended commentary on the persistence of our world's delusions.
The theme itself is metaphorically mirrored internally within the "Tales of the Black Freighter" story. The Black Freighter is a tale of a hero's lamentable decent into darkness as he loses his grip on reality to become the villain he was running from by ultimately in ignorance murdering his last tie to his world (the light), his wife. It's a commentary on the world of Watchmen itself (the world in which the heroes exist, not the heroes themselves), and the manner in which they metaphorically murdered their once heroes and only hope of salvation to descend into irrational darkness. Make no mistake too, the salvation brought about by Ozymandius is no salvation, but instead the coup de grace of a once rational world's beyond salvation ultimate embracement of the darkness, the conclusion of the novel.
The greatest tragedy of all though, is the spiritual death of its heroes. Alan Moore sums it up well with his inversion of the famous satirical quote, modernly taken as a criticism against political corruption, "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" ("Who watches the watchmen?"):
"'They're watching out for us, who's watching out for them?'"[1]
Or do we embrace the darkness, as Ozymandius did, or as so poignantly put by Harvey Dent / Two-Face in The Dark Knight:
"You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain."
This post led me to read a little more on Moore's own interpretation of his work, and while Alan intention is for us to question the need for heroes, and a call to personal responsibility, specifically anti-Reagan, I don't find this to be inconsistent with my analysis. I would add this:
My romanticism of the heroes may at first blush seem inconsistent with Moore's intent. However, as you can see in my conclusion, I point out that the heroes themselves become corrupted by their own roles in a world that rejects them. Moore himself is equally inconsistent in his own analysis of his work, claiming it to be a criticism of the Reagans ("invulnerable" "heroes") of the worlds that lead us to the brink of madness, yet it's the world that rejects the heroes in its madness that drives itself to brink of extinction.
Moore said writing Watchmen allowed him "to purge himself of his nostalgia for superheroes." Something I feel is best illustrated in the inconsistencies between his own motivations and my analysis.
[1] http://www.tcj.com/a-portal-to-another-dimension-alan-moore-...
Anyone that's interested in this should checkout domains, now shipping as experimental in v0.8 or the async trycatch module (mine), http://github.com/CrabDude/trycatch.
The absurd part of this that this would imply FB stock is intrinsically worth less, which makes the current already over-valued trading price look that much more ridiculous!
I built a demo a year ago that let you store personal data and exposed a postmessage API for storing and sharing permissions and personal data with sites as kind of the beginnings of a poor man's client-side only Oauth.
Offering a conducive environment will always necessarily benefit others. If it didn't it'd simply be called a reward. Gay marriage proponents obviously call these assumptions into question, but unfortunately offer a worse alternative.
While there may be reasoning to support limiting marriage perks to those who procreate, that only hurts their argument that those benefits should instead be extended to gays who are least worth incentivizing.
There is no more infertile a couple than one that lacks the ability based not on imperfections, but upon their intrinsic biology.
Personally, you have to address why the government is involved in marriage at all. From my understanding, it is for the purpose of encouraging the family unit and the perpetuation of society through offspring. Gay people can't have offspring unless you count lesbians and artificial insemination, but that takes the conversation down a whole other tangent.
My main point simply being, there are non-human-rights justifications for not endorsing / encouraging gay marriage, so judgment is premature.
Any post-sophomoric software engineer will lament an over-designed system they helped create, lauded for its superior design, only to have it become unwieldy and unmanageable under its own monstrous complexity, and then refactored to a far simpler and more intuitive solution. It's no coincidence KISS is taught in every Engineering 101 class across the country.
I found the article to be light and refreshing, reminding me that as an engineer, often I am my own worst enemy...
Or the very least, the enemy of that tragic racquetball launcher I built in Freshman engineering that _literally_ crumpled under its own weight on demo day. Lol.
That is the _opposite_ of libertarian desires for freedom from the desires of others. Why would any libertarian desire this?
I'm going to speculate, as I'm not well versed in the history of libertarianism, but I suspect it grew out of anarchism inasmuch as it was a righteous rejection of government abuse. You see this occurring today with the Occupy movement; the government has failed and rejected its duties, therefore they reject the government. I consider this throwing the baby out with the bath water.
With regards to the NAP and force, the American founding fathers regarding the 2nd Ammendment did not even believe the government should have a monopoly, but instead the whole of the populace should hold its propensity for tyranny in check with its own force so to speak. This is consistent with the libertarian value of the right to defend oneself. Force is therefore permissible whenever necessary to rectify the violation of one's rights (contract law being subsumed by this). As far as whether violating my (property) rights is an initiation of force, according to the NAP[1] it is:
Specifically, any unsollicited actions of others that physically affect an individual’s property, including that person’s body, no matter if the result of those actions is damaging, beneficiary or neutral to the owner, are considered violent when they are against the owner’s free will and interfere with his right to self-determination, as based on the libertarian principle of self-ownership.
This in my mind is the most unimaginable tyranny of all, and thus I see socialism as fundamentally incompatible with libertarianism.
At the core of the issues is the use of force and the NAP. One way this is often contentiously illustrated in the US is with government protected labor unions. As a libertarian, I view labor unions as the to-be-encouraged populist counter to incumbent monopolies, yet I find myself all too regularly unwilling to support them due to their violation of the NAP and insistence on socialist values/tactics. This is unfortunate, since it seems to create a de facto support of wealthy "capitalists" by libertarians in the view of detractors.
Government protected labor unions are the populist equivalent of corporatism, corrupt by definition, allowing workers to explicitly violate employment agreements without repercussions. Until government protected labor unions are abolished, they'll consistently fail to receive support from a large majority of the people that may share their otherwise noble intentions, pay for the value you create. The problem of course with socialists though is that value should be objectively decided by others, aka the _free_ market.
The software community and Silicon Valley seem to have gotten at least this part right, an oasis amongst many tragically morally unsupportable industries. (I would absolutely _love_ to whole-heartedly embrace support of the teachers union, but cannot.)
Nonetheless, in order to use a library, you must either read the documentation or the source. The biggest issue is that most CoffeeScript projects document with CoffeeScript. Technically, you could read the compiled source, but that's usually a non-starter unless I truly need your project. Otherwise, I'm more likely to find someone else that's solved the same problem, but has written their docs / source in JavaScript.
My original point still stands that this is a mislabeled title. If this is JavaScript, and I know JavaScript, then I'd be able to understand the code without learning something else. Yes, again, I _could_ go learn that thing and thus understand the documentation as I almost certainly eventually will, but how disingenuous of the CoffeeScript community to refuse to call CoffeeScript by its name, expecting _everyone else_ to learn CoffeeScript in order to treat it as equivalent, when it very clearly is not. Just be straightforward and call it CoffeeScript _because you think CoffeeScript is awesome_.
Why on earth is this disturbingly so objectionable?
First, I'll establish some modest authority on the subject by pointing out that I've worked directly with Tim Caswell, who helped create CoffeeScript, at multiple jobs now. He's explained to me how they developed it and we've discussed the merits of it.
Second, I don't believe CoffeeScript is lacking merit. I make no claims of such. I'm actually happy that CoffeeScript exists in that I hope it brings more people into the JavaScript fold so long as it does not detract in ways like this.
Third, I understand what CoffeeScript is and how it works, but have chosen not to learn it. That's my prerogative and I make no claims to the superiority of that choice apart from my choosing it.
Fourth, I _could_ talk about how time is not free. Installing a CoffeeScript compiler, learning CoffeeScript, undertaking the mental frame of reference change necessary to switch between context, are equally not free, but I don't feel the need to further this defense as it has been made many _many_ times before, especially here on HN.
In reality, this is about none of the above. This is labeled as JavaScript when _it is not_. I repeat, CoffeeScript is _not_ JavaScript. To the many responses this will incite, I'd direct you to my points above. This is not intrinsically a bad thing. Far from it, if CoffeeScript was not different, it would not be relevant. It is its difference that makes it relevant. I will likely eventually learn CoffeeScript when it becomes necessary or worth it. In fact, I attempted to previously, but setting up auto-compilers, etc... took about 20 minutes too long, and given the insufficient value proposition, I didn't bother to finish learning it.
I come across many node/JavaScript/Github projects regularly and don't have the time to bother learning or using 90% of them, but I bookmark them because they are intriguing and I hope to have them if and when I do need or want to use them. That's 9/10 _JavaScript_ projects that I don't get to just because I don't have the time.
I'll repeat my main point because that is all my original comment was ever about, if CoffeeScript is not different, there's no point in it existing; if it is different, then it's a positive reason otherwise it would receive no attention; if it is positively different, then why not market it as such? It's obvious that those who point out that CoffeeScript is a dialect and compiles to JavaScript so it is therefore an acceptable mis-labeling are attempting to have their cake and eat it too at the expense of people like me that either have not taken the time to learn it yet, or do not care to for _numerous_ philosophical reasons which I defend are quite valid, though being a pragmatist, ultimately will not factor into my reasoning.
My comment is civil and explannatory. You may not like my sentiments, but down votes are not intended for unpopularity. Not only that, but in this case, my comment serves to reinforce the standards of HN regarding mis-titling of links and it is being downvoted.
A house divided against itself cannot stand.
Please don't call something JavaScript if it's actually all in CoffeeScript (even if it's just the documentation). A lot of us have not bothered to learn CoffeeScript and a good many of them have no intention of doing so. My time was wasted following a link that says "JavaScript", a language I know well, only to discover it was in CofeeScript, a language I have not bothered to learn, nor do I plan to anytime soon. I would down vote this if I could merely for the mislabeling. If you love CoffeeScript enough to use it as you obviously have, own it, advertise it openly and stop being in denial that CoffeeScript as a written language is different from JavaScript as so many CoffeeScripters seem wont to do.
function Breakfast(my, args) {
if (!(this instanceof arguments.callee)) return new arguments.callee(arguments);
if (Object.prototype.toString.call(arguments[0]) === '[object Arguments]') arguments.callee.apply(this, args);
} var a = new (Breakfast.bind.apply(Breakfast, [null, 'bacon', 'eggs']))
a instanceof Breakfast // true
var a = new (Function.bind.apply(Breakfast, [null].concat(['bacon', 'eggs'])))
a instanceof Breakfast // true
Or... (works with Crockford's Object.create)
var a = Object.create(Breakfast.prototype);
Breakfast.apply(a, ['bacon', 'eggs']);
a instanceof Breakfast // trueYou probably won't like this, but those businesses existed because of what Microsoft created and it deserved to charge whatever it liked to its customers. We are speaking here of rights, not virtues or morality, so you'll find my "self-righteous indignation" to be in short supply. Just as Microsoft was free to charge what they liked for the fruits of their labor, OEMs were free to not attempt to profit off a product Microsoft created. Microsoft made its money from selling software, an intangible thing of no value without hardware to run it on. Those OEMs existed because they were able to create hardware better than Microsoft. Obviously though, it was Windows that was of more value (more difficult to create) of the two, which is why Microsoft held more leverage. This is a _good_ thing to have success rewarded.
No company has a right to profits. In a free market they must compete by the merits of the value they offer to free men.
This isn't my disagreeing with the judge, this is my disagreeing with their right to try Google in the first place, a power which _no_ government should have: the right to try and punish someone for a future intention of exercising one's property rights. It is France's violation of these human rights which I find reprehensible.
Regarding "monopolies" having no restrictions placed on them, this is true in the extent that the government is concerned. The government should neither help nor restrain individual businesses, and should instead create an equal environment where property and contract rights are enforced, and companies are not found guilty of success by the greed of others with a government that sanctions such greed.
I highlighted the definition of a monopoly, because everyone is throwing that word around without any regard for its meaning. Google does not have exclusive ownership of maps through any legal sanction; It does not have command of supply as a Google map is a combination of bits and knowledge of information that is freely available to _anyone_ that would take the time and had the incentive to assemble them; There is no concerted action as there's no 2nd party with which Google has been acting with.
Finally, I never said a monopoly is beholden to _a_ customer, but instead to _its_ costomer_s_. A company in a free market cannot exist in perpetuity without providing some value for which someone will trade their money for. So long as both parties are free to trade value for value, no monopoly exists.
I enjoyed your response by the way.