MarkMc

98 ms·

811.
by MarkMc 9y ago
>> Are you saying that gold can be a currency but Bitcoin cannot? > No. Hmm... so gold cannot be a currency?
812.
by MarkMc 9y ago
> BY DEFINITION a free market in healthcare MUST kill people I'm not sure this is true. Does a free market in food require that some people starve to death? Right-wing ideology says that even the poor have enough to buy food, clot
813.
by MarkMc 9y ago
I agree that a 3% reduction in total health spending would not make a single payer system worth it. Hypothetically, if that figure was 30% would you be in favour of a single payer system?
814.
by MarkMc 9y ago
Some people are questioning your math - I think this is due ambiguity in the expression, "Administration of the US health system alone accounts for about 7% share of total spending". My initial thought was this meant 7% of GDP, b
815.
by MarkMc 9y ago
Banks make money by borrowing from one person and lending to another at a higher interest rate. They can do this in Bitcoin just as well as in US dollars.
816.
by MarkMc 9y ago
Someone once said that the price of gold is a 6,000-year-old bubble. There is no doubt that the price of gold far exceeds it's utilitarian value. The same is true of cryptocurrencies.
817.
by MarkMc 9y ago
> Without being a state (e.g. selling trust) or having huge amounts of gold to back up a new currency, the only reason someone would wanna buy it, is indeed, the future value that could hold Are you saying that gold can be a currency but
818.
by MarkMc 9y ago
The thing is, Google is not just a search engine - it's also a command line interpreter. When I type "translate goodnight to french" or "coca cola stock price" I don't want a list of web pages - I want a single
819.
by MarkMc 9y ago
OK but will Google stop reading my email for other types of ads? For example, if I write "I love coffee" in an email, am I more likely to see a Starbucks ad when I visit watch a YouTube video?
820.
by MarkMc 9y ago
> no witness testimonies are properly isolated. Can't we make them properly isolated? The article says you need 3 things for reliable witness testimony: 1. Do not repeat the lineup, 2. Ensure the suspect doesn't stand out, 3.
821.
by MarkMc 9y ago
Tesla: We can't place restrictions on fully owned vehicles? OK, from now on we don't sell cars - we rent them for 50 years. Now can we place restrictions?
822.
by MarkMc 9y ago
Actually, I'm not so confident about the ballpark. My link also says there are about 1.3 billion unique visitors per month. So in addition to 20 million Reddit 'addicts' there could be 1.28 billion less-frequent users. If
823.
by MarkMc 9y ago
I read it as 'Paris' too. Actually I expect this is a very common error. "Born in $place_name" has a much higher base frequency than "Born in Pairs", so our System 1 brain screams "Paris!" until Syste
824.
by MarkMc 9y ago
Relay For Reddit is not normal - most Reddit users see ads occasionally. Apparently 6 percent of internet users in the United States use Reddit in their spare time [1]. It is probably the same in Canada, Australia and the UK. If we assume $
825.
by MarkMc 9y ago
I can't see any sustainable competitive advantage in autonomous car tech. The iPhone has strong network effects and a luxury brand. But auto driving tech is strictly a commodity - if the next Ford Focus comes with a "Powered by Ap
826.
Ask HN: Website where I pay someone for startup advice?
1 points by MarkMc 9y ago|1 comments
827.
by MarkMc 9y ago
> I assume you meant the seller here. Sorry yes, I meant seller > You don't pay the agent, the seller does. So you don't have the power to offer a negotiated rate. I don't understand this statement. If there is no law a
828.
by MarkMc 9y ago
> Real estate agents only have the sellers interests in mind because the higher the selling price, the more they make. Hmmm...is that always true? What if the seller is asking $1 million for a house, then I approach the agent and say, &q
829.
by MarkMc 9y ago
Very true. And the mayor of London, a self-described socialist, introduced congestion charging to that city in 2003.
830.
by MarkMc 9y ago
How do you feel about a similar law for real estate agents? That is, the agent must act in the interest of the seller and cannot accept money from a buyer. Or a law that says lawyers must act in the interest of their clients?
831.
by MarkMc 9y ago
Try UpWork. In the past I have used UpWork to hire a programmer aged 19 or 20 and paid $23 per hour.
832.
by MarkMc 9y ago
I wonder if this could be good for Google because it has the money and expertise to counter this move by Apple, while smaller ad networks do not.
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by MarkMc 9y ago
That is easily solved by congestion charging.
834.
by MarkMc 9y ago
That's a great story - you obviously have a natural talent for coding. But it's still difficult to assess the counterfactual: Perhaps if you had gone to college you would now be earning $250k with bonuses at Google?
835.
by MarkMc 9y ago
Keep in mind that this young man will most likely support his family in Ghana by giving money to his brothers and sisters and acting as mentor to his nieces and nephews. Here's a hypothetical question: Suppose there is a charitable fou
836.
by MarkMc 9y ago
Part of the problem is unbalanced incentives between tax inspectors and crooked accountants. If an accountant helps a billionaire dodge taxes he can earn millions of dollars in fees. If a tax inspector exposes the scam he might get a salar
837.
by MarkMc 9y ago
Interesting that Trump estimates the cost of the Paris Agreement in terms of the economy - 3.5 trillion in lost GDP by 2040 - but quotes the benefits in Celcius - two-tenths of one degree by 2100. What exactly is Trump's estimate for t
838.
by MarkMc 9y ago
Great advice: "If you’ve been working on your startup for two years and have nothing to show, that’s a pretty bad sign." "Just get started and deliver now. You should have a long term vision but must also act right now, have
839.
by MarkMc 9y ago
Google Revenue: 2013 $57 billion 2014 $66 billion 2015 $74 billion 2016 $90 billion Facebook Revenue: 2013 $8 billion 2014 $12 billion 2015 $18 billion 2016 $27 billion If ad blocking has already won, I'm sure Google and Facebook will
840.
by MarkMc 9y ago
A newborn baby is also an unskilled, uneducated individual that wouldn't be able to speak the local language without months/years of language learning. Presumably there is a net benefit in this case. I think there is a net good to

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