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sdh

277 karma · joined August 20, 2009

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sdh··on California is chasing wealth that has feet
Good plan. Raise property taxes so non-billionaires are forced to sell property to billionaires who have an insane surplus of wealth.

Billionaires aren't going to leave, they're going to acquire more property.

sdh··on How Universities Should Prepare Founders
Early internet founders were not CS majors. Most of them dropped out of college. They weren't seeking fortunes or careers. They were creatives, oddballs, outcasts, pirates!

Today, everyone is a founder. Founders of bubbles and bro culture. Herd-minds, chasing the Californian greed rush. Round 'em up, Angel Investors!

sdh··on The infinite scroll may become endangered if controversial Calif. law passes
Whack-a-mole lawmaking solves nothing. All this law does is ask social media companies to find another way for their platform to be addictive to children.

Here's how to solve this ...

Social media companies measure engagement. Decide what the safe metric is, pass laws that hold social media companies to that metric for whatever age or demographic. Apply fines proportional to revenue when they are found to exceed the metric. Fines can't be reasonable to the cost of doing business.

That stops any social media company from incentivizing employees to increase engagement for that demographic.

sdh··on Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees
Maybe you're not aware how these "unrealized" capital gains (at scale) are indirectly realized in the form of loans taken against value of the asset.

Massive wealth doesn't operate in income or even in typical capital gains advantages you're referring to. It operates at a scale where the value of the assets are so great, banks compete to give loans to them, which are not taxed like income.

It's totally absurd to argue that loans from assets isn't income. It's used to purchase more assets, to purchase tax favorable legislation, to buy media to keep us thinking this issue is about paying capital gains on your retirement portfolio.

If Bezos will "never get that money unless he sells stock" was a true statement, then where do all the yachts and houses and other assets come from? How does he buy them? If the IRS suddenly recognized loans taken against asset wealth or any exchange of assets as income, the tax rates of the super wealthy compared to the average American would suddenly look sane.

sdh··on Frinkiac: Simpsons quote search engine
needs a random button
sdh··on The Art of George W. Bush and the Importance of Play
I agree. The art doesn't have to be good or hung in a gallery to be of value.

The paintings represent an new, and perhaps candid insight into the thoughts and feelings of a former president. They might reveal something we wouldn't otherwise have the opportunity to observe. GWB may not even know what he's revealing about himself.

My take on the paintings is that they project a sense of loneliness, separation, and introspection.

very interesting.

sdh··on Video games don't create violence in society, they reflect it
you can't change anything without critical mass. it usually takes a national disaster or profound fear of something to mobilize support for popular change. depending on your point of view, that's either a feature or fault of our society.
sdh··on Making Yourself a CEO
Are these real CEOs or idealized CEOs? I've worked for CEOs who were horrible people and yet extremely successful (ie: running profitable businesses and having repeat success).

Sadly, the nice CEOs I've had were failures building companies.

From my observation, the quality that defines a CEO is that they are oblivious to their own faults and the feelings of others.

They are like bad dancers with confidence. They have no idea they look like an idiot or that they're making you uncomfortable, and if they did, they wouldn't care.

sdh··on Typing Practice for Programmers
cool, but what's this -really- for? ;)

recruiting coders?

optimizing keyboard layouts?

optimizing character usage for new language or framework development?

advertising open source projects?

sdh··on Disband the TSA now
In SFO, I haven't seen any of this and security seems pretty much unchanged, but recently going through San Diego was a completely different experience. There they were searching passengers and using full body scanners on children. I overheard a mom telling her kids, "just do what they tell you" waiting in line to be searched, and being a dad, was immediately sick to my stomach thinking of what these kids were learning. If you don't have children you have no idea that simple statements like that can become rules in a child's brain; rules that are likely to get applied out of context.

Just curious, how would you answer a 3-6 year old child as to why it is ok for a uniformed stranger to be touching them?

sdh··on Zynga to employees: Give back our stock or you'll be fired
Maybe the employees of Zynga who weren't offered this deal should sue Zynga for too little compensation for the value they've created. The hammer should swing both ways.
sdh··on Hire For The Ability To Get Shit Done
In my experience, the difference between a GSD engineer and an average engineer is the understanding that it is up to you to be motivated, focused, and effective.

And, I've worked with many GSD engineers, so they definitely exist.

sdh··on Groupon May Expire Sooner Than Expected
Groupon's model is only broken in the context of billions or trillions. At smaller scale, which sounds like what your friend is thinking, there is still lots of opportunity to innovate and profit.
sdh··on Are Golden Age Writers Worth It For New SF Readers?
hmm, should new painting viewers bother with rembrandt, michelangelo, caravaggio, da vinci, etc?

um, yes!

asimov, bradbury, clarke, huxley, etc are worth reading no matter what century you're in.

sdh··on The pitfalls of jargon and the damage it does to mathematics
I can't stand technical jargon or people who use without regard for their audience.

The only purpose of jargon is to make a conversation exclusive to only those who know the language. If your purpose is to educate or collaborate or truly communicate, then jargon is harmful.

Legal jargon is probably the worst example.

sdh··on Amazon.com Now Selling More Kindle Books Than Print Books
I'm starting to get really annoyed that the price of some ebooks is actually more than the price of the printed book. That is just ridiculous and publishers better check their greed quickly if they want people to keep paying for books.
sdh··on Sony blames 'Anonymous' for data theft
FTA:

"The attack that stole the personal data of millions of Sony customers was launched separately, while the company was distracted protecting itself against the denial-of-service campaign, Sony said."

Wow. I didn't think they could do better than "most people don't know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?" but I was wrong.

Sony Command: Quick! All security personnel are immediately ordered to drop what they're doing and guard against that DOS attack!

Sony Security: But Sir, won't that leave our user data "un-guarded"

Sony Command: We don't have time for that now, Soldier, now move Move MOVE!!

sdh··on Why 30 year old entrepreneurs are not over the hill
1. startups are not risky. there's plenty more

2. it's a lot harder to negotiate terms with an experience entrepreneur.

3. over 30s can hire under 30s.

4. is it techcrunch or techtroll?

sdh··on Amazon crash reveals 'cloud' computing actually based on data centers
you mean our servers aren't in the sky?!
sdh··on Why do apps from the same company look worse on Android than on iPhone?
"Android has more market share than iOS"

Where are they? I read this statement all the time, but I barely know anyone who has an android phone. Not a scientific measurement, but still ...

"Android emerging as the clear winner of mobile and iOS being reserved for the trendy/artistic/quality crowd"

I really disagree with this statement. First, you can't generalize iOS buyers like this, but more importantly, how do you define winner? Market share? Phones with Android installed on them? How many of these Android users are buying apps?

As a developer, the only measurement I care about is how many of potential buyers of my app are there. Android might have more installed OSes, but iOS has more app buyers.

That's the real reason you see companies focused on iPhone app development and not Android app development.

sdh··on Is it OK to Hire People from Your Friend’s Company?
Is it OK to hire from your friend's company?

Sure, as long as it is totally transparent to everyone. You can't force people to work for you.

Is it OK to recruit from your friend's company?

Definitely not.

sdh··on Quora meets SMS - Cloudy, social answers through your friends.
my feedback ...

first, the app is really cool. love the idea.

personally, I'd lose the head shots and job titles from your about page. instead, tell us why you created this, how you got started, etc.

what are you doing with this data? do you have a privacy policy? this probably won't stop your growth, but it might encourage adoption if you let people know you aren't evil.

sdh··on Introducing Amazon Simple Email Service
hopefully, this improves the deliverability of email that originates within amazon's environment. the service can be easy, but if the messages aren't getting through, then there is no point and sendgrid and others will continue to survive.
sdh··on Google already knows its search sucks (and is working to fix it)
"Over the past couple of years, Google has progressively added vertical search results above its regular results. When you search for the weather, businesses, stock quotes, popular videos, music, addresses, airplane flight status, and more, the search results of what you are looking for are presented immediately. The vast majority of users are no longer clicking through pages of Google results: They are instantly getting an answer to their question:"

Is this Google fanboy speak? Sorry, but I don't care how quickly the gamed results appear or how local they are, they still don't answer my questions.

This article is pointless.

sdh··on Android (and Windows 7 phones) leads to too much hardware choice
I'm more worried about developing mobile apps for all these different phones. Minor differences between hardware profiles and firmware versions can lead to major headaches for an app developer. If that concern leads to fewer apps, then it sucks for the consumer.
sdh··on How Pixar Bosses Saved Their Employees from Layoffs
don't worry! disney execs will finally figure out a way to get those layoffs to happen.
sdh··on The Wikipedia of Long Tail Programming Questions
how do you know those are newbies asking questions? A lot of Q&A content is either generated by code or outsourced content generated to capture long-tail SEO gaps.
sdh··on Uh Oh, Internet: Basic Mobile Video Will be YouTube-Only With MetroPCS Plans
hmm, I'd better find those America Online CDs....
sdh··on Why I'm not buying Facebook
1. because this article is on CNN and our formula for getting visitors is to find a popular current event and take a controversial or contrary point of view on it.

2-5. see #1

sdh··on Why your child's school bus has no seat belts
In a crash, "The child will go against the seat, and that will absorb most of the impact," said John Hamilton, transportation director for the Jackson County, Fla., school board.

How do you go against the seat when the bus flips over?

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