emmett

52 ms·

451.
by emmett 17y ago
Why don't you like people who do that? (Genuinely curious)
452.
by emmett 17y ago
When do the patents on H.264 expire?
453.
by emmett 17y ago
We use londiste (from SkyTools). It's excellent. From what I've read, londiste already plans to start offering streaming replication (vs. trigger-based replication) for the transport mechanism.
454.
by emmett 17y ago
ADBOC[1]. Your statement is technically true, but I disagree with the subtext. Factually, workers with no marketable skills don't have them because they didn't acquire them as students. Factually, it's not Walmart's fault that its workers h
455.
by emmett 17y ago
The key difference between the employment relationship and other mutually agreed contracts is simple: high switching costs that are mostly asymmetrical. Losing your job is extremely disruptive to an work, much more so than losing an employe
456.
by emmett 17y ago
To rephrase what I think you're saying: China is wrong because they're in the minority; essentially they're outvoted. If most countries didn't respect copyright but did censor, then that would be right instead.
457.
by emmett 17y ago
It's not a conflation at all. You really should have a reason why Disney movies should be censored from the internet, but Chinese dissident materials should not be. Clearly there could be such a reason, but there is a parallel. Obviously th
458.
by emmett 17y ago
Each incremental physical good deprives someone else of a copy of that good which could otherwise be gained. This is not true for digital goods, which have zero marginal cost. No tangible good has a zero marginal cost.
459.
by emmett 17y ago
Presumably because it's societally optimal for everyone to be able to consume as much media as they like (since it has a marginal cost of zero). He gains, no one else loses. Of course, there's a massive externality to deal with: how do the
460.
by emmett 17y ago
I'm not sure why everyone is so up in arms about this. I was actually very pleased when I got the email. Yay, they haven't folded! Yay, I'm going to get my WakeMate! Yay, they're giving me a free month of their premium analytics (which impl
461.
by emmett 17y ago
It's really easy to shoplift too - just like shopping without waiting in line. I don't see any reason to think the ease of doing something makes people forgive it. Maybe that's a small contributing factor? Seems unlikely to me, since there
462.
by emmett 17y ago
What's wrong is that the total cost isn't being disclosed up front. It's just like advertising "$10 iPod" and then charging $200 in shipping and handling.
463.
by emmett 17y ago
I'm not sure why you chose to pick on a single word in my comment above which is clearly not relevant to the main point. You have failed to address my main main point, which I'll restate here: People are outraged by this for a perfectly goo
464.
by emmett 17y ago
The fact that it is widely practiced is a defense. For the same reason that people would rightly object to a $675,000 tort judgment for speeding, or jaywalking, or smoking marijuana. Are they crimes? Certainly. But because they're widespr
465.
by emmett 17y ago
A very risky bet, with high payoff and low risk. AKA, a good bet. Chance of Success * Reward - Cost. Just because the chance of success is low doesn't mean it's a bad idea.
466.
by emmett 17y ago
In general, very few people have ever been compensated for their research in the past. In an era before the internet, you probably wouldn't have been published; if you had been, you probably wouldn't have sold enough copies to make any sign
467.
by emmett 17y ago
I believe you are correct! See http://www.texasbudgetsource.com/texas-budget-overview
468.
by emmett 17y ago
And after you add them in for Texas, it's $158 billion. You're comparing apples and oranges. Additionally, timr was correct to restrict his numbers to state tax revenue, which is the total under discussion. If you do the math, it comes out
469.
by emmett 17y ago
Calling kn0thing, calling kn0thing...
470.
by emmett 17y ago
Exponential doesn't mean "growing really fast". Exponential means "growth by a fixed percentage per year". The economy grows exponentially at around 2-3% per year. What evidence do you have that things are improving linearly rather than exp
471.
by emmett 17y ago
It's called countersignaling. Basically, you want to be seen as a wealthy person, so you buy the sports car. But if you were truly wealthy, you wouldn't brag about having a sports car because you wouldn't even consider it exceptional. For
472.
by emmett 17y ago
Prediction. The whole point of a recommendation engine is to change the set of apps you download in the future. Otherwise it might as well not exist!
473.
by emmett 17y ago
This is ridiculous and bogus. So many things wrong with it: 1. Self reported happiness varies greatly by culture; a society which reports low happiness may merely be less enthused. So the basic data is completely untrustworthy. 2. Taking th
474.
by emmett 17y ago
Presumably you already know how Netflix does that and you're asking this rhetorically. If you are actually interested in how Netflix evaluated submissions, you can read all about it on their contest page. I thought about the Netflix example
475.
by emmett 17y ago
Yes, you could definitely gather non-anecdotal, statistical evidence, but I think you're missing dschobel's main point. I think he's making a point about the inherently subjective nature of "quality of recommendation", not suggesting the
476.
by emmett 17y ago
Greg Egan is my favorite sci-fi writer. Read http://www.amazon.com/Axiomatic-Greg-Egan/dp/0061052655 and have your mind blown.
477.
by emmett 17y ago
Egan gets your point entirely, and laments that it hasn't been put in service of something better. The best technology in the world deserves to be joined with a great script, not a severely impaired one.
478.
by emmett 17y ago
Twitter needs to be off-the-charts profitable...eventually. In the meantime, ordinary profitability would relieve a lot of pressure to optimize for the short term in order to raise money.
479.
by emmett 17y ago
Justin is still with us - he's a founder! He just doesn't broadcast anymore.
480.
by emmett 17y ago
In the United States, you can form a contract in pretty much any medium. Even oral contracts are respected, and certainly an email contract would be valid. For certain types of contracts (especially regarding real property, like cars and ho

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