firasd

70 ms·

781.
by firasd 11y ago
Interesting read. The "counter-thesis" I disagree with most is about whether mobile can be distinguished from PCs as an ecosystem. It's not visually clear in Evans' original article, but after each thesis he links to mor
782.
by firasd 11y ago
You're close: Paypal is a bit hamstrung by regulations in India, but the domestic mobile wallet industry has been growing. My prediction is that China & India will (continue to) leapfrog credit cards in favor of mobile payments. (P
783.
by firasd 11y ago
I think you somewhat overlook the nature of transnational global culture. People in Iran read David Foster Wallace and look at Rothko paintings, just as (on a more broad level) people worldwide buy iPhones and watch Tarantino films. So when
784.
by firasd 11y ago
I wonder if you could apply some substance on the skin or needle so that after the prick it doesn't heal up instantly? Keeps the blood flowing for a few seconds.
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by firasd 11y ago
The kicker is right after your quote: He added: “This is product development, this is how startups are built.” The reply ended with an edict that the “only email on this topic I want to see from you going forward is an apology that I’ll pa
786.
by firasd 11y ago
When this thread started off with the comment saying apps being isomorphic/universal leads to them being "SEO friendly and fast rendering times on first visits" it wasn't about React rendering speed , it was about page
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by firasd 11y ago
The main problem with client-side rendering is not the parsing time, the problem is the HTTP requests that have to complete before you can start parsing. Whereas parsing on the server side is done in milliseconds by any dynamic document, in
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by firasd 11y ago
Client-side: HTML starts loading, browser makes more http requests at various times (JS, CSS, images, etc.), React library loads, data loads, components are initialized, components are rendered. Server-side: HTML starts loading with compone
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by firasd 11y ago
It doesn't make sense to me to restrict access to common diagnostic information based on the risk of people attempting treatments not approved by the NHS. The potential list is endless: Weighing machines, because some people are anorex
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by firasd 11y ago
No personal experience but I've seen some things online: wellnessfx.com and directlabs.com
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by firasd 11y ago
Yes, the customer-friendly blood testing in India would be incredibly "disruptive" to American lab tests. Not only does the US have different costs and regulations but the medical industry is based on extracting money from insuran
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by firasd 11y ago
You can just start writing JS on an existing page to output components rendered by React. Fair warning though, React is focused on rendering and initializing, so it doesn't come with a bunch of handy JS functions like YUI or jQuery. Bu
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by firasd 11y ago
Along the same lines, I was making a web app with React and found that while the ability to be creative in putting together components is exciting, I'd like a more integrated stack I can reuse for other apps. While I haven't tried
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by firasd 11y ago
I'm quoting your phrases to contrast that the fact that, notwithstanding governmental failure and corruption, the reason Facebook can do this at all is because the spread of mobile phones and internet access in India has been a major s
795.
by firasd 11y ago
He's probably just dividing their revenue (or some other financial metric) by the number of users.
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by firasd 11y ago
What makes you think Free Basics is doing anything about electricity or connectivity? It is just zero-rating for Facebook & partner apps, riding on top of infrastructure and services built by existing telecom networks in the country wit
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by firasd 11y ago
The current campaign in which Facebook v.s. net neutrality activists are asking people to write in to TRAI (and the other stages of this campaign over the last year) is about exactly what I described. The regulator's consultation paper
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by firasd 11y ago
Okay a few things: 1) I understand that people want free WhatsApp (etc), but I can't base internet policy on crowning WhatsApp as a free service. Indeed my whole position is that ISPs should not price-discriminate based on apps. 2) The
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by firasd 11y ago
Yeah, I see people reference colonialism in general as well as the EIC in particular.
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by firasd 11y ago
So you’re fine with the idea that every time you load news.ycombinator.com your ISP charges you $0.10 extra, but if you load TMZ.com it’s free? That would not be “the internet” in my books, and I’m glad that across the world, from Obam
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by firasd 11y ago
Yeah T-Mobile just started doing this—decades after the web was created—and it’s already causing problems (Youtube counts towards data, and Netflix doesn't, so now Google is concerned that T-Mobile is downgrading Youtube resolution.)
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by firasd 11y ago
The problem is once you've tried this "impure" method there is no turning back. Once an ISP finds out they can offer some apps free but make other apps count towards data usage, the whole nature of the internet changes. Note
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by firasd 11y ago
I don’t have much to add after the last couple threads on this (my concerns boil down to the importance of net neutrality, and the obscuring way free Facebook plus a few dozen apps is presented as philanthropy) but it’s interesting that aft
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by firasd 11y ago
Making sure there aren’t stagnant pools of water in houses is also an important part of the policy in India. I mean, the vector is mosquitoes, which breed in such spaces, so I’d say it’s a low-cost/high-impact strategy.
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by firasd 11y ago
Not, it isn't. It would be more innovative if it was forced to compete with Facebook. Just FYI, startups in India already go head-to-head with Facebook and Amazon. What Free Basics does is make them compete for preferential treatment
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by firasd 11y ago
His twitter just has his first name but from the nature of his tweets he seems like someone working on internet.org
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by firasd 11y ago
I had this exchange with a VP at Facebook: https://twitter.com/firasd/status/679620676286693377 Me: if you guys prevail in enabling zero-rating it even damages Facebook. WeChat could be zero-rated & unde
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by firasd 11y ago
If internet.org is about Free Facebook, they should at least drop the veneer of philanthropy. Argue in favor of zero-rating with everyone else who wants to cut these deals. In the end such exceptions will be a disaster for the tech industry
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by firasd 11y ago
I think network operators around the world are receptive to ‘zero-rating’ certain websites (which is all Free Basics really is) whereas making free data available with a usage cap or speed cap would be something new. Facebook is not actual
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by firasd 11y ago
Just to be clear, Free Basics runs on top of existing mobile internet providers. It’s just free access to Facebook plus a few handpicked websites.

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