holdenc

19 ms·

151.
by holdenc 16y ago
Yes, the US economy is better than most places where entrepreneurship is a necessity. But it's also a world of paperwork, high tax and stifling administrative work -- and that's if you happen to be making a profit. The problem is that the
152.
by holdenc 16y ago
Of all reasons to spend the night on the street -- a new iPhone? The economy must be getting better...or maybe I am just getting old. I feel embarrassed knowing that in some places hungry people are lining up like this for food.
153.
by holdenc 16y ago
Based on my own experience, kind professors can be more inspiring, and are often times successful people.
154.
by holdenc 16y ago
They have this in America too -- it's called a CEO.
155.
by holdenc 16y ago
Agreed. Did he really buy this house with money from premium megaupload subscriptions?
156.
by holdenc 16y ago
Here's some advice from a fellow non-developer who was once your shoes 5 years ago (sans grant money) with similar revenues and skills... Since you've managed to cobble yourself together a prototype in PHP that people will actually pay for
157.
by holdenc 16y ago
How to tell you are applying for a bad job: you are asked to sign a letter promising not to kill yourself.
158.
by holdenc 16y ago
Here's a pretty good video showing that: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIdufnmoeeY The dome was pretty small and made of metal. It seems like if the dome was very large and heavy it would work. My point in all of this is to argue that i
159.
by holdenc 16y ago
I am sure that my idea is gross oversimplification, but am also pretty sure that some variation of this would work just fine. It seems to me just a matter of making the cone larger or heavy enough. Obviously it's not an easy problem to sol
160.
Oil Spill Fix Idea
3 points by holdenc 16y ago|8 comments
161.
by holdenc 16y ago
When you join an elite school as an academic you become a bureaucrat in a bureaucracy. Want to spend the institution's money? Make an important decision? Get people to help you? Get ready to grovel, and sacrifice much of what you believ
162.
by holdenc 16y ago
Today I am also procrastinating -- working on marketing material and brochureware. Ughh. Sometimes I give myself a break by working on an interesting programming problem or just walking around outside. My rule-of-thumb though is to make
163.
by holdenc 16y ago
America has an ongoing corporate love affair with the "seasoned ceo." It's visible in the way that seasoned ceos hop from company to company leaving a wake of failures behind them. It's championed by advisory boards, venture capitalists a
164.
by holdenc 16y ago
I disagree here. Facebook did a few things incrementally better than its prior contemporaries. Remember when Friendster and MySpace had more users than Facebook? Facebook won social networking because it essentially fixed a few problems
165.
by holdenc 16y ago
The reason people have donated so much is because they are upset with Facebook's new privacy policies. How diaspora can succeed: do the same thing Facebook does, but fix the privacy. How diaspora can fail: by making some pie in the sky soci
166.
by holdenc 16y ago
I applied, but was rejected. It could be a strong bias against single founder companies, or that my application was written with black marker on cardboard. I fear I'll be driven towards re-enfranchisement.
167.
by holdenc 16y ago
You'll think different when you have a child.
168.
by holdenc 16y ago
Also curious to know of any S3 bucket failure stories out there. I would assume this is uncommon, but I also assumed that the EBS failure rate was much lower prior to reading this.
169.
by holdenc 16y ago
Successful advertising actually makes you feel something. This is just another example of an uninspired ad stuffed in someone's face.
170.
by holdenc 17y ago
The Foreign Earned Income tax credit if $91,500 for 2009. But more than likely you'll still be on the hook for Social Security and Medicare (depending on the country) so you'll likely be paying a minimum of 15% tax. Anything over the $91,5
171.
by holdenc 17y ago
This is the kind of guy who wants to be instant friends just to get his computer fixed.
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by holdenc 17y ago
Congrats to you. The sweetness of each self-earned dollar can outweigh the multiple dollars earned working for someone else. And in many ways, those first few dollars that validate one's ideas can be the sweetest of all.
173.
by holdenc 17y ago
It does seem strange, but here are some reasons why this happens: - When you hire BCG or McKenzie to (for example) value a business segment or recommend an acquisition, their feedback can be touted as expert and unbiased. - BCG will do what
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by holdenc 17y ago
This story is written with a wonderful naivete. Consultants like BCG exist only to lend credentials and competent temporary labor. The companies who hire these consultants are looking for affirmation and peace of mind -- most of them too
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by holdenc 17y ago
This happens to me sometimes, and my personal solution is: 1) Sit in a comfortable chair 2) Put on a nice pair of Bose headphones 3) Blast Kanye West. If that doesn't work, blast Glenn Gould. (Music and art are the cure for a bleak world.)
176.
by holdenc 17y ago
This article follows nicely on the heels of Clay Shirky's post that touches on why complex societies fail. The current system of patents desperately needs simplification, but bureaucratic and legal complexity hinder this.
177.
by holdenc 17y ago
I'd say one of the worst things a start-up (or any company for that matter) could do is tie their core business to a proprietary hosted technology -- free or not. The nice thing about most cloud hosting is incremental scaling for open and
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by holdenc 17y ago
Firstly, excellent execution of a very useful little tool. I could really use something like this on my site. That said, I think I could probably build a less polished version in about an afternoon, and having something native provides pea
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by holdenc 17y ago
College admission is very much up to chance. My graduate school applications went to 10 very mediocre schools with money for teaching fellowships, all located in nice relaxing places. I figured they'd leave me alone and I could concentrat
180.
by holdenc 17y ago
A few unrelated thoughts: I've seen some of the brightest people get shipped back to their home country after their "practical training" (the year allowed for work after a foreigner's college graduation). This is the worst type of protectio

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