mcbaby

I don't think STEM reflects market demand as much as it does our new understanding of 21st century skills. While the gov't loves the "college = success" equation, I think it is somewhat valid for STEM students, as it introduces a much more practical skill set and mind set to students.

Skimming over Arin Dube's paper, I can't help but wonder why he doesn't address any of the lurking variables. His time frame, 1990 to 2012, represents a period of vast technological change throughout the US and the rest of the world. I admit I did not read the entire paper, but it seems Mike Konczal and a lot of us are using "causality" and "correlation" interchangeably, which doesn't seem appropriate. This is not an empirical science... lengthy extrapolations don't tend to hold their ground in real-world economics. There are so many other factors and variables working that it seems silly to make these extrapolations. Again, I did not read Dube's entire paper-—he's obviously put much more thought and time into that paper than I have this comment. With that said, that is just my .02

I disagree that those "counter-arguments are even more ridiculous." Of course, I don't think every CEO will flee the country——they are bogged down by inertia. Some will, but when you have a family, a home, etc, it's a lot harder to do that, even if you want to. I think what these counter-arguments importantly point to is that soon-to-be CEOs, the leaders of up-and-coming successful, young companies—-the future of the French economy--will leave.

While it's a gross simplification, it is still interesting to think that 200-300 million is the price tag that the French government is willing to put on it's future generations of CEOs and successful companies, which is disappointing to say the least.

And like many others have stated, this may just be for political points. I would bet a large group of this demographic has no problem deferring salary for the next two years (thought it will be interesting to see if the tax is extended).

I don't think it's fair to make that kind of teleological evaluation... Yes, RapGenius may be the best solution for google's customer. However, if Google permits shady SEO tactics simply because the ends justify the means, then what kind of precedent are they establishing? They would be encouraging that kind of behavior. As a heavy RapGenius user, I'm upset with what occurred, but from an objective standpoint, it makes sense why Google made its decision.

While I'm sure Andreessen Horowitz feels some tech-world pride in this investment, they are still a venture capital firm. This article is a bit too sensational, self-loving to really portray the importance of the investment.

I think TechCrunch nailed it in their article today, where they wrote, "Think of it as a filing system for every draft of a document." Github right now is limited to code-sharing. But it's potential is so incredibly huge. Like the article stated, imagine applying it to PSDs, Word Docs, Excel sheets, any document imaginable. IMO that would be THE killer enterprise prodcut.

it's sad to realize that once blossoming companies fueled with innovation and hope, like Google and Twitter, have resorted to promoting anti-trust litigation because they feared their product couldn't stand on its own merit

Evernote is obviously a very successful company, and I'm sure Phil Libin is a smart guy, but he comes off as a total snob saying this...

> "I think you know what it is: it’s to change the world" Most people who start a company start it to MAKE MONEY. Of course, he presents us with a false dilemma: you can either aspire to change the world, or have the desire to make money, earn power, etc. These are not mutually exclusive options. It's noble and all to want to change the world, but most people probably are out there trying to make a living...

> "If you’re smart enough, if you’re talented enough, if you have the drive, if you have the ability, and you’re motivated by making money, then you should just get a real job instead, like become a banker or an investor or a consultant or something." I'd be fine with this if he finished the sentence with "become something you're passionate about." If you have all the qualities he mentions in the first part of the sentence, than pursue something you're genuinely interested in.

As a side note, I'd be interested to see a list of some entrepreneurs who started companies with the sole intention of changing the world...

If the NYT shut down can you give a few examples of some of the "implications"? Granted, the NYT is a prestigious, old publication, but you've given me no reason to believe there would be far-reaching implications "far-reaching implications for the US as a society, as a political body, and as a culture." Honestly, that sounds a bit farfetched to me. The New York Times is a newspaper. It has a print circulations of less than 2 million people. If Facebook were a country, it'd be the third largest country in the world. Hundreds of millions of people use it daily, the New York Times--even in America--doesn't have nearly that type of penetration.

But "worth" is such a subjective word. Instagram is only worth 1bn to Facebook, whereas the NYT's value is derived from its market cap. And being "one of the finest news sources in existence" (which I don't believe) does not necessarily denote monetary value. With that said, I'd assert that Instagram's value does not truly reflect its market value—it's only the value that Facebook saw in it. The NYT's value does reflect its true market value, as it's a publicly traded company. Again, I'd still invest in Instagram over the New York Times any day of the week.

The New York Times, according to a quick Wikipedia search, has a (print) circulation of <2,000,000. They also have several hundred thousand users subscribing online (this number is to be taken with a grain of salt, it's my own estimate after perusing Google). The NYT has been around since 1851. Instagram was founded two years ago, and already has 27 million users--and its Android version is not even a month old. I know owning a company is different than investing in one, but if we stripped away their names and cultural stigmas, I think most people would innvest in--and own--Instagram over the NYT.

The ironic thing is, if any legislator who supported SOPA was exposed to the complexities and realities of copyright/IP legislation as this guy was, I'm sure SOPA would have never seen the light of day. Sadly, like most legislation that our elected officials pass through, their understanding of complex issues are never more than what their (unelected) staff has debriefed them on, and what (unelected) lobbying organizations pay them to believe. I'd love to read the internal MPAA memo concerning this.

DuckDuckGo

I'd like to point out that if we replaced the "Womens" perk with the "Perfect Fuel" perk, nobody would be complaining about how this insulted people who don't eat dark chocolate. Obviously not every guy cares whose serving their drinks, the same way not every guy attending the event cares to eat dark chocolate. They're trying to get people to go to their event. I'd imagine most people going to Hackathon's are heterosexual males. It makes sense for Sqoot, and it's saddening for me to see how we blindly kowtow to the PC police.

Couldn't have said it better. It's their entire approach to the process is wrong.

Vaccines and antibiotics are not the only ways, and certainly not the most effective ways, to fight bacterial infections.

What we should be focusing on is developing bacteriophage technology (namely phage lysins).

As every human (a eukaryote) is prone to certain viruses (which can act only on eukaryotes), every bacteria (a prokaryote), this includes strep throat, TB, etc., is vulnerable to certain viruses (which can only work prokaryotes). These viruses are so specific that they only work on one type of bacteria, and they evolve at nearly the same rate as a bacteria evolves (which is how TB has become antibiotic resistant).

http://www.rockefeller.edu/vaf/phage.php

this should not be treated as a victory, because the entire piece of "legislation," if we can even call it that, might as well read in lobby-dollars from the old media titans to the cogs of Washington's political machine

Calling this small concession a victory implies that we acknowledging some form of legitimacy in the bill.

(I do think some of the issues SOPA deals with are ones that need to be addressed, but SOPA, in its current form, does all but adequately address these problems)