My apologies. I never intended anyone to take the Discovery Institute paper as anything more than just a casual study of the subject (by a biased party). I certainly did not want to present it as academically rigorous…
Every day, I start up a computer running OS X. Then, I proceed to fire up virtual machines for two Linux distributions, Windows XP, and Windows 7. I occasionally play around with a headless system that I have running…
This graph is completely useless. It is looking at relative Google search query volume. Of course Node.js search queries are rising. There is a lot of noise being made about the platform, the platform is relatively…
I have to apologize. I fat-fingered the down vote when I originally meant to up vote your original comment. I think that my mistaken down vote was the one that initially sent your comment into the gray. This was…
Maybe I'm just weird, but all of this drama around a database does not make much sense to me. To me, it is simple. Do your research: * Go to https://jira.mongodb.org/ and look at the issues * Read the documentation at…
Overpopulation is a hard problem. There are complex socioeconomic reasons for why some countries have higher fertility rates than others. This is a heavily studied topic in health economics, but I am unwell right now…
It's gotta be a slow day on hacker news when this is at the top page. (Or, is this being upvoted because it is Cringely.) An entire article about web development past, present, and future without a single mention of…
This is a good presentation. It is a good demonstration that there is no magic bullet for database scalability problems. I love NoSQL as much as the next person, but turning straight to NoSQL when you are faced with…
The problem the USPS is having is not about prefunding pensions and pension plans. Their problem is that they are required to fund future employee health care benefits. No other company in America - public or private -…
> "means that they're the only govt institution that isn't a timebomb of future obligations" This was the spirit in which the requirement was enacted. I completely agree with the idea. My problem with this line of…
"Then go check the SEC filings." Which ones? There are quite a few companies in the finance industry. If we are going to paint them as good guys and bad guys, then it is important to note that those are subjective…
"Who gets to decide what the right outcomes are and whether they are efficient?" Whether or not an outcome is "right" is subjective, and is more in the field of law and philosophy than economics. Whether or not an…
The techniques in mobile web development are still young. A general knowledge of how to build a site for mobile interfaces has not come around yet. For now, it is understandable that you will see some imitation of…
I appreciate your thoughtful reply. While I am making the transition to a web developer at the moment, I have a graduate degree in Economics and I have spent some time working in the investment industry (Main St, not…
"There is a concentration of tech startups in SV because the internet lets them sell to the rest of the country without issue." I don't think so. If the Internet was all that was needed to explain this concentration,…
I am a recent coffeescript convert. When I first heard about coffeescript I dismissed it offhand as a pointless abstraction over javascript, which I judged to already be a high level language. (In retrospect, I am…
I didn't down-vote you (I think that its lame to ninja down-vote - it defeats the purpose of conversation), but I think that your initial comment was just a bit hyperbolic. I disagree with your edit too though. Who here…
"With PyPy the performance will get better, and they also have a GC, so that hinder is removed. I don't really know if PyPy has a GIL, I would guess that they don't." PyPy still has GIL:…
"It eludes me why any developer would be using anything other than a laptop." Based on my own experiences, here are a few reasons that I can think of: + Has a setup that involves 3 or more screens + Needs to use 2 or…
Thank you jswinghammer. This statement right here summarizes the whole problem with the OP: "The only jobs that are sustainable are the jobs that produce something that other people actually want." This is exactly it.…
Quote from the page you linked: "He also says they are working on ways to handle pseudonyms, but that will be a while before the team can turn on those features" I don't understand. Wouldn't the implementation of this…
I did not down-vote you (as a matter of fact, I up-voted you because I am not a fan of ninja down-voters and I think that you ask interesting questions). However, it is evident that you are not a formally trained…
There is a certain demographic that reads The Economist and it is not the mainstream. It is closer to the mainstream than Hacker News, but it still isn't quite there yet. It is nice to see this issue filtering its way…
The worst case may be coal, but the most likely case (for America) is that the additional electricity needs are met by Natural Gas. More specifically, natural gas derived from the oil shale deposits. Here's a link with…
I know that they have taken some heat for security issues of late, but, frankly, I love this company and their product and I am happy to see them doing well. The magic of Dropbox is that it strikes just the right…
My apologies. I never intended anyone to take the Discovery Institute paper as anything more than just a casual study of the subject (by a biased party). I certainly did not want to present it as academically rigorous…
Every day, I start up a computer running OS X. Then, I proceed to fire up virtual machines for two Linux distributions, Windows XP, and Windows 7. I occasionally play around with a headless system that I have running…
This graph is completely useless. It is looking at relative Google search query volume. Of course Node.js search queries are rising. There is a lot of noise being made about the platform, the platform is relatively…
I have to apologize. I fat-fingered the down vote when I originally meant to up vote your original comment. I think that my mistaken down vote was the one that initially sent your comment into the gray. This was…
Maybe I'm just weird, but all of this drama around a database does not make much sense to me. To me, it is simple. Do your research: * Go to https://jira.mongodb.org/ and look at the issues * Read the documentation at…
Overpopulation is a hard problem. There are complex socioeconomic reasons for why some countries have higher fertility rates than others. This is a heavily studied topic in health economics, but I am unwell right now…
It's gotta be a slow day on hacker news when this is at the top page. (Or, is this being upvoted because it is Cringely.) An entire article about web development past, present, and future without a single mention of…
This is a good presentation. It is a good demonstration that there is no magic bullet for database scalability problems. I love NoSQL as much as the next person, but turning straight to NoSQL when you are faced with…
The problem the USPS is having is not about prefunding pensions and pension plans. Their problem is that they are required to fund future employee health care benefits. No other company in America - public or private -…
> "means that they're the only govt institution that isn't a timebomb of future obligations" This was the spirit in which the requirement was enacted. I completely agree with the idea. My problem with this line of…
"Then go check the SEC filings." Which ones? There are quite a few companies in the finance industry. If we are going to paint them as good guys and bad guys, then it is important to note that those are subjective…
"Who gets to decide what the right outcomes are and whether they are efficient?" Whether or not an outcome is "right" is subjective, and is more in the field of law and philosophy than economics. Whether or not an…
The techniques in mobile web development are still young. A general knowledge of how to build a site for mobile interfaces has not come around yet. For now, it is understandable that you will see some imitation of…
I appreciate your thoughtful reply. While I am making the transition to a web developer at the moment, I have a graduate degree in Economics and I have spent some time working in the investment industry (Main St, not…
"There is a concentration of tech startups in SV because the internet lets them sell to the rest of the country without issue." I don't think so. If the Internet was all that was needed to explain this concentration,…
I am a recent coffeescript convert. When I first heard about coffeescript I dismissed it offhand as a pointless abstraction over javascript, which I judged to already be a high level language. (In retrospect, I am…
I didn't down-vote you (I think that its lame to ninja down-vote - it defeats the purpose of conversation), but I think that your initial comment was just a bit hyperbolic. I disagree with your edit too though. Who here…
"With PyPy the performance will get better, and they also have a GC, so that hinder is removed. I don't really know if PyPy has a GIL, I would guess that they don't." PyPy still has GIL:…
"It eludes me why any developer would be using anything other than a laptop." Based on my own experiences, here are a few reasons that I can think of: + Has a setup that involves 3 or more screens + Needs to use 2 or…
Thank you jswinghammer. This statement right here summarizes the whole problem with the OP: "The only jobs that are sustainable are the jobs that produce something that other people actually want." This is exactly it.…
Quote from the page you linked: "He also says they are working on ways to handle pseudonyms, but that will be a while before the team can turn on those features" I don't understand. Wouldn't the implementation of this…
I did not down-vote you (as a matter of fact, I up-voted you because I am not a fan of ninja down-voters and I think that you ask interesting questions). However, it is evident that you are not a formally trained…
There is a certain demographic that reads The Economist and it is not the mainstream. It is closer to the mainstream than Hacker News, but it still isn't quite there yet. It is nice to see this issue filtering its way…
The worst case may be coal, but the most likely case (for America) is that the additional electricity needs are met by Natural Gas. More specifically, natural gas derived from the oil shale deposits. Here's a link with…
I know that they have taken some heat for security issues of late, but, frankly, I love this company and their product and I am happy to see them doing well. The magic of Dropbox is that it strikes just the right…