bokonist

53 ms·

361.
by bokonist 17y ago
Yeah, the basic idea is clever, but hardly novel. Back in 2004 my friend and I entered our college's business plan competition with a plan for a music site based on this kind of funding model. We originally got the idea from an article on
362.
by bokonist 17y ago
Please fix the title, the submitted title is different from the actual article in a way that completely changes the meaning.
363.
by bokonist 17y ago
1) Rhapsody (yeah, I know hackers are supposed to hate DRM, Windows, and Real Networks, but I really like being able to pay $10 a month and listen to any song, ever made, instantly). 3) news.ycombinator.com The comment section is almost
364.
by bokonist 17y ago
Here is my broader case against monetary dilution ( what you call inflation): 1) In the modern U.S. dilution happens as follows: First banks loan out the same money multiple times. Eventually, years later, they get called on this and there
365.
by bokonist 17y ago
If the economy suddenly switched from a 3% steady inflation to 3% deflation, than yeah, that would be very bad for debtors. Conversely, a sudden switch from 3% deflation to 3% inflation would be very bad for creditors and holders of dollar
366.
by bokonist 17y ago
The problem is that the word "deflation" has been corrupted to refer to two entirely different phenomena: 1) It can refer to generally falling prices due to increasing productivity. This is entirely beneficial. Video game consoles, transist
367.
by bokonist 17y ago
"Public" schools are simply giant, private boarding schools where the parents happen to live too.
368.
by bokonist 17y ago
Create an expanded group of users whose judgement you trust. If they flag a comment for being uncivil, then everyone who up-voted the comment has their voting power reduced (from then on, if their up-vote would count less than everyone els
369.
by bokonist 17y ago
This is really cool. About time that someone made something like this for the web. Wish I had this when I studied Chinese in college.
370.
by bokonist 17y ago
This is awesome. Anyone here ever built one? How well do they work?
371.
by bokonist 17y ago
My own definition: "Math is a language for describing phenomena that can be precisely defined."
372.
by bokonist 17y ago
blogs about politically charged topics are 'better source' than the NYT or WSJ? ;) I'd say they're equally horrible sources. Blogs in general have a much worse average quality than the NYT, but a much higher peak quality. The links I sen
373.
by bokonist 17y ago
And a layperson reading the WSJ hears the exact opposite. That's politics & demagogues, not climate scientists (in either case). That is true. I personally rarely read the WSJ or NYTimes because I don't find either effective sources o
374.
by bokonist 17y ago
This is often asserted, but is it true? Most alarmism that I have seen is coming from the media or activist organizations; the few times I've seen scientist alarm has been when recent measurements have been worse in some way than their mod
375.
by bokonist 17y ago
The problem is that the grant funded climate scientists all get more funding if they raise more alarm about global warming. Even more concerning, the distribution of grants, the peer review process, and the IPCC process are controlled by p
376.
by bokonist 17y ago
Exxon spends a ton on R&D, but very, very little of it is for climate science research. As far as I can tell, they're total amount of spending on climate science research the past few years was about $75,000 ( http://members.greenpeac
377.
by bokonist 17y ago
Part of the risk in buying a book, is in buying a book that you don't want to invest the time in, and that will end up sitting on the shelf. What Amazon really should to is charge by the page read. This will allow people to have a more en
378.
by bokonist 17y ago
Any investment strategy becomes less useful when large numbers of people pile into it. Not every investment strategy: http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2009/12/gold-an...
379.
by bokonist 17y ago
One was technical, one was not.
380.
by bokonist 17y ago
I joined a startup in a very similar position. I ended up taking 4-5% equity, and about 50% market salary. This was perhaps a bit low, as it was barely enough to get me and keep me on board at the early stages. But the salary went up as
381.
by bokonist 17y ago
Flagged, because there is no new information in the article, its purely political.
382.
by bokonist 17y ago
Flagged, because there is no new information in this article. This was already reported on the front page: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article693... I'm ok with GW articles being on Hacker News, because it is a very
383.
by bokonist 17y ago
Almost every single "market failure" in the economic literature is really an opportunity for a business plan. All Arrow's paper shows is that certain naive structures for health insurance might not work out so well. But there are plenty of
384.
by bokonist 17y ago
Basically, the current system is a local optimum for a large number of powerful interests. Also, the beneficiaries of a current system all are organized, while the beneficiaries of some major reform are not organized, thus their lobbying p
385.
by bokonist 17y ago
The American Healthcare is a guild and cartel system, not a free market: http://intellectual-detox.com/2009/09/10/the-perfect-healthc... Jingoism has replaced discourse. American Democracy no longer works. It's just a doppleganger of it
386.
by bokonist 17y ago
I'm more in the skeptic camp, but I don't find the comments cited in this article very suspect, especially without further context. The comments may just be warning users not to use the function past 1960. The most damning excepts from the
387.
by bokonist 17y ago
Well, I'm not a Senator. But one of my close friends works in the Senate, on climate change, and is responsible for briefing his Senator about the issue. And you know what? My friend doesn't really know that much about climate change. I
388.
by bokonist 17y ago
Wal-mart is a joint stock corporation. The chain of decision making goes: line employees < middle management < executives < board < shareholders. So on the big decisions, executives, the board, and for really big decisions
389.
by bokonist 17y ago
The issue is so heated because so much is at stake. The reason laymen have to weigh in on their opinions, is that ultimately, it is our tax dollars that will be spent and our way of life that will be altered. So at the end of the day, we
390.
by bokonist 17y ago
Would you advocate flagging all posts about global warming, period? Or just about skepticism? Would you advocate flagging all posts about science, or just scientific matters that are controversial?

More ›