I agree... sort of. As someone who did not join live journal, friendster, orkut, myspace, etc, I too think Facebook is likely a fad. However, these days even I am tempted to get a Facebook and/or twitter sock puppet…
Reading this story makes me sad. There's also another story (google fails me) about a legendary IBM programmer around whom IBM built an entire team of testers, documenters, etc, all to keep this one guy's way above…
Combustion engines have over 100 years of wast R&D and real world usage behind them. We already have the infrastructure to move their fuel all over the world in wast quantities. This means I would not be surprised…
I don't think humans should be doing the text entry, too much room for human error. But of computers enter the text and then the printing is still done by cast metal, you could have an interesting business. I am sure…
Are there any examples of a kidnapping actually being profitable? It's very easy for kidnapping to be profitable. All you need is a state with a pathetic justice system. Start with a police force terrible at finding the…
It's hard to imagine. The best I can do is think of Rome's slave based economy. Obviously slaves can do anything the free Romans could, and they did. The Romans were either plebes, dependent on government handouts like…
It doesn't reduce the demand for high-end jobs, it might reduce the demand for the currently large variety of high-end jobs. I agree with you, but I had to read that sentence three times to realize that. I think what we…
You rarely get extreme excellence without things like mean leaders. Think of Apple and Steve Jobs.
Better than waste: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1945073/
Today, it seems like there is a plague of (fake) "libertarian" arguments for protecting essentially government-sponsored enterprises from ... the government. No this is old big co. lobbying, nothing new under the sun.…
(damage to society) <= (fine) * (risk of getting caught) This is nuts. If say a kid spray paints a tiny bit on an abandoned building at night, and then gets caught, by your logic we should ruin his life. We must…
I think this is called comunism I think communism is chiefly defined by public ownership. What I propose is an obviously crazy impractical outlawing of owning big houses with much better then average infrastructure. It…
Funny and quite true. And it is also true for many other countries, with a mostly poor population. All over the world, one of the big benefits of wealth is the ability to build your own "island" or castle. But here's an…
Guessing as someone who has very little clue about Scandinavia: Why have the Norwegian dialects diverged so much A rugged and wast geography tends to isolate people, this leads to greater drift between local dialects?…
And the catfish would keep the cod agile. But catfish are fresh water and cod are salt water fish?!
non-profits ==> competition is not exactly red in tooth and claw Are you serious? Competition for donations between non-profits in my experience is often even more extreme then between for-profits. Do you have any…
The best example I could find is about non-profits: http://nvs.sagepub.com/content/39/6/1057.abstract But I think the same principles would apply to for-profits. The only other examples I have are anecdotal.
With no consumer protection or standards, this is what happens. Not always, some times a wild market eventually results in some of the strictest standards which also happen to be self enforced. I say sometimes but some…
Oh I'll gladly trade color vision for this. Rainbows are overrated.
Inferential or renarrative mood: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inferential_mood Not always intended as sarcastic, but: The main body of the news report tends to use the renarrative correctly - but sometimes, again, it is…
You know, unlike English some languages have a sarcastic tense.
Bingo. Speaking as someone who was once a foreign student, generic descriptions of what Americans are like are almost useless. What is very valuable is to describe them in terms of how they are different from your…
But most of China's raw materials importing is driven by their huge expert market, how would a collapse of domestic spending affect that? Isn't it everyone else that's buying Chinese goods that's driving the demand for…
The spare time issue is as much a bad crutch as the tricky questions are. I work long hours for a company which has the "we own your life" clause. All but one company I've worked at has had that clause, ironically the…
This Patrick McKenzie sounds suspiciously like patio11, the submitter of this very link...
I agree... sort of. As someone who did not join live journal, friendster, orkut, myspace, etc, I too think Facebook is likely a fad. However, these days even I am tempted to get a Facebook and/or twitter sock puppet…
Reading this story makes me sad. There's also another story (google fails me) about a legendary IBM programmer around whom IBM built an entire team of testers, documenters, etc, all to keep this one guy's way above…
Combustion engines have over 100 years of wast R&D and real world usage behind them. We already have the infrastructure to move their fuel all over the world in wast quantities. This means I would not be surprised…
I don't think humans should be doing the text entry, too much room for human error. But of computers enter the text and then the printing is still done by cast metal, you could have an interesting business. I am sure…
Are there any examples of a kidnapping actually being profitable? It's very easy for kidnapping to be profitable. All you need is a state with a pathetic justice system. Start with a police force terrible at finding the…
It's hard to imagine. The best I can do is think of Rome's slave based economy. Obviously slaves can do anything the free Romans could, and they did. The Romans were either plebes, dependent on government handouts like…
It doesn't reduce the demand for high-end jobs, it might reduce the demand for the currently large variety of high-end jobs. I agree with you, but I had to read that sentence three times to realize that. I think what we…
You rarely get extreme excellence without things like mean leaders. Think of Apple and Steve Jobs.
Better than waste: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1945073/
Today, it seems like there is a plague of (fake) "libertarian" arguments for protecting essentially government-sponsored enterprises from ... the government. No this is old big co. lobbying, nothing new under the sun.…
(damage to society) <= (fine) * (risk of getting caught) This is nuts. If say a kid spray paints a tiny bit on an abandoned building at night, and then gets caught, by your logic we should ruin his life. We must…
I think this is called comunism I think communism is chiefly defined by public ownership. What I propose is an obviously crazy impractical outlawing of owning big houses with much better then average infrastructure. It…
Funny and quite true. And it is also true for many other countries, with a mostly poor population. All over the world, one of the big benefits of wealth is the ability to build your own "island" or castle. But here's an…
Guessing as someone who has very little clue about Scandinavia: Why have the Norwegian dialects diverged so much A rugged and wast geography tends to isolate people, this leads to greater drift between local dialects?…
And the catfish would keep the cod agile. But catfish are fresh water and cod are salt water fish?!
non-profits ==> competition is not exactly red in tooth and claw Are you serious? Competition for donations between non-profits in my experience is often even more extreme then between for-profits. Do you have any…
The best example I could find is about non-profits: http://nvs.sagepub.com/content/39/6/1057.abstract But I think the same principles would apply to for-profits. The only other examples I have are anecdotal.
With no consumer protection or standards, this is what happens. Not always, some times a wild market eventually results in some of the strictest standards which also happen to be self enforced. I say sometimes but some…
Oh I'll gladly trade color vision for this. Rainbows are overrated.
Inferential or renarrative mood: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inferential_mood Not always intended as sarcastic, but: The main body of the news report tends to use the renarrative correctly - but sometimes, again, it is…
You know, unlike English some languages have a sarcastic tense.
Bingo. Speaking as someone who was once a foreign student, generic descriptions of what Americans are like are almost useless. What is very valuable is to describe them in terms of how they are different from your…
But most of China's raw materials importing is driven by their huge expert market, how would a collapse of domestic spending affect that? Isn't it everyone else that's buying Chinese goods that's driving the demand for…
The spare time issue is as much a bad crutch as the tricky questions are. I work long hours for a company which has the "we own your life" clause. All but one company I've worked at has had that clause, ironically the…
This Patrick McKenzie sounds suspiciously like patio11, the submitter of this very link...