jlangenauer

Yes, as someone who's interested in this, I'd love to read any links or papers about this aspect of it.

These are not "something for nothing" services. They are paid for by taxes. And in doing so, these services are generally supplied on a cheaper basis with better social outcomes than the private sector is able to.

Yes, but even if you were to build a tunnel from Lithgow to Emu Plains (on the Western edge of existing Sydney), there's still another 40-50km (as the crow flies) before you reach central Sydney.

37Signals (Yes, yes, I know it's called Basecamp now) would be valued north of $1b. Though they did take an investment of $1m from Jeff Bezos at one point.

The preferences on quota surplus votes are transferred at a fractional value, so every ballot is counted.

It didn't always used to be though - prior to computers, to establish the fractional vote transfers, a "sample" of surplus votes to a quote used to be randomly selected.

In the "About Us" section, you've mis-spelled "EventGrid".

One of the worst aspects of Australian business is its default to rent-seeking in the face of any adversity. Look at the car companies and their blackmail for handouts over the last decade. Look at Alan Joyce's recent attempt to get a government debt guarantee for Qantas.

This attitude infects start-ups in this country too, though this article isn't too bad. The demand for special tax treatment of start-up investors is regularly made, and the demands for government grants is equally regularly made.

Neither of these should be considered - the first from a position of mutual obligation, where those investors who profit from startups need to contribute to the society that makes those start-ups possible.

The demand for funding is best looked at by seeing what actually has been funded by Commercialisation Australia grants, and - to put it politely - there's not a lot of stuff there that is "commercial". Instead, there's a museum of half-baked ideas that were able to cobble together a business plan sophisticated enough to fool bureaucrats. My favourite, from memory, was one for several hundred thousand dollars to develop software to help manage car washes. Car washes!

(And by the way, the funding scene in Australia is vastly different from what it was 5 years ago - seed capital is very much available from private investors, even if subsequent round VC money is still a far harder boat to catch)

Isn't ConfirmedGrouperEmails here just an Interactor / Service Object anyway, but one that is derived from ActionMailer?

To my mind, this code is much clearer, which proves the OPs point.

Github has iPad-based robots that allow remote workers to wonder about their SF office. Obviously, that $100m VC money has to be spent on ~something~.

Compared to that, a text editor is a mere bagatelle.

Whenever I hear the phrase "the dignity of work", I'm reminded of Jeffrey Bernard's quote:

"As if there was something romantic and glamorous about hard work ... if there was something romantic about it, the Duke of Westminster would be digging his own fucking garden, wouldn't he?"

http://www.rense.com/general56/thevirtueofidleness.htm

In some cases, as nl points out, it's because the strong growth and expected future profitability means the investors are happy paying the founders for value they've created.

Other times, it's simply a case of founders transferring investors' money straight into their own pockets.

It's a very, very useful skill as an investor (or employee, for that matter) to be able to distinguish the two.

Or the monkeys learn to live with what they have.

A word of caution regarding Rentify: I had some email correspondence with their CTO, Buff, last year when they had previously advertised on a "Who is hiring?" thread here, as I was then looking for something new in London.

They asked me to complete a coding exercise, which I spent a Saturday afternoon doing ( https://github.com/jasonl/property_search )and submitted it to them, and then I did not hear back - not so much as a single email reply! - despite repeated follow-ups.

If you're a Rails coder in London, you can definitely do better than a company that treats prospective employees as disdainfully as this.

Al - the case

S - probably a component of the Al alloy, it helps with machinability

Li - the battery, possibly also the case alloy

B, P - semiconductor doping

Cu - Almost certainly used somewhere

Pb, Sn - solder

Anything else?

I was at the Formula 1 in Melbourne this year, back in March, and definitely noticed the unusual engine notes of the RBR cars as they accelerated out if corners.

But it was definitely both cars making the sound, so both Webber and Vettel had the system, if it did in fact exist.

Remember, though, that article titles are often created by sub-editors to be short and pithy, not by the original author of the piece.

I wish I could upvote this more than once: As soon as you see the first signs of unethical behaviour, get the hell out of there. You'll thank yourself later.

I go one better than this: I have my monthly salary paid directly into my savings account, then I "pay" myself weekly into a current account the amount of money I actually live off. Your savings can accrue surprisingly fast like this.

I'd add my agreement to this point as well. I'd have one less talk on the night (which can stretch a bit long, I think I've left early a couple of times), and more time for mingling and networking.

I'd guess that India doesn't appear on a whole lot of people's "places-to-visit" lists, but it really should.

I spent 11 days in India last December, and was utterly enthralled, repulsed and fascinated in about equal parts. It's an eye-opening experience to see how the majority of the world lives, and Indian culture and architecture is wonderfully rich. I definitely plan to go back again, as I was only able to scratch the surface of a tiny bit of southern India in 11 days. I'd encourage anyone else considering it to go.

Shameless plug: Here's the blog post I wrote about my trip.

http://jasonlangenauer.com/2012/12/india/

Have you written a blog post or something more about this setup? I'd certainly like to know more about it.

Do you have a reference for the "injecting human DNA into animals" claim you make? It would be extremely disturbing, if true.

That's actually using Delta's account for Timatic data. I doubt they'd look kindly on my scraping it.

Finding an actual authoritative source on Chinese visa requirements has been difficult - there's a lot of second hand information around, but nothing official that I can find.

You get denied boarding - airlines have access to the ESTA system at check-in. Glad to have been of help!

The first one of those has some rather questionable information, so I wouldn't plan your trip based on what it says. For example, it claims Australians can get a visa on arrival in East Timor, which isn't true.

I've not come across visamapper.com, but it looks good.

Not right at the moment, but I might put that in later once I've got more of that information. Wikipedia already has this, though:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_requirements_for_United_St...

I'll add that information shortly - for things like EU citizens travelling in the EU, I try to put a little more information than just "no tourist visa is required".

Actually, I'm putting data in for Nepal right as we speak. And Irish citizens don't need a visa before arriving in Nepal, they can get one at the border.

Yes, that's definitely on the "to-do" list.