imagist

28 ms·

211.
by imagist 10y ago
> Here in Germany, Deutsche Bahn (the rail operator) had a practical monopoly on long distance travel, all thanks to a special law granted by the police state. Said law has been repealed by the EU a few years ago (2009 or so), and the co
212.
by imagist 10y ago
> Its not always about shafting an individual so much as managing the entire business. I read this as: It's not always about shafting an individual so much as shafting all the employees who will let you shaft them.
213.
by imagist 10y ago
> The employee now knows that he could have gotten the same thing the employer is now offering before the counteroffer. This only matters if the employee was under the delusion that the company had the employee's best interests in m
214.
by imagist 10y ago
As of a few years back, the tenure of software developers when leaving a job averaged at 18 months. I'd guess that silicon valley drags that average down, and the rest of the industry drags it up.
215.
by imagist 10y ago
I'll add this to the list of reasons why recruiters' incentives are in direct competition with yours--and why you should not use a recruiter.
216.
by imagist 10y ago
> The problem with privatization is it often involves granting monopoly powers to a private company instead of opening up the market to private competition. Private competition almost always ends in monopoly or trust anyway. Private comp
217.
by imagist 10y ago
Your analogy between Citibank and Coinbase is telling. Citibank is, well, a bank. Coinbase is a currency exchange, and more analogous to those Forex booths you see in airports. There are Bitcoin banks, but putting your Bitcoin into a bank l
218.
by imagist 10y ago
The new title is worse than the first. Sure, it's easier and cheaper to wire USD to another country than it is to exchange USD for BTC, send BTC, and then exchange BTC to USD. Just like it's cheaper to wire USD to another country
219.
by imagist 10y ago
The non-profit model is not a guarantee against corruption, but the for-profit model is a guarantee of corruption. > look at SpaceX which has made more progress in a shorter period of time than just about anyone else to date. Toward what
220.
by imagist 10y ago
> This is a particular piece of rhetoric I find distasteful. If there are jobs that are structured such that only an illegal immigrant, who by definition exists outside the normal labor pool and its protections, will take, that job shoul
221.
by imagist 10y ago
> It is true. Counselling is not good enough though. Given how ineffective it is, it is essentially permanent denial. I disagree--in fact, I think a large part of the problem here might be this very conversation. It's unclear how mu
222.
by imagist 10y ago
Ugh, when you say "Lisp" you're talking about "Common Lisp"? AI industry has invested into a lot of languages, including Scheme, but also including stuff like C++/Java/Python/Ocaml. Trivially Google h
223.
by imagist 10y ago
> Unless you're proposing a large rise in non-profit foundations, these are mostly funded by for-profit corporations operating in a market. You bring up a deep problem that I admit I'm not sure how to solve. I'd love to se
224.
by imagist 10y ago
> I didn't state it should be the only mechanism. There could be others. Those class action lawsuits mentioned in the article prove there are some. But the primary mechanism is users' responsible choice. That's simply not
225.
by imagist 10y ago
If profit is defined as $income - $expenses = $profit, then you'd be using the word the way everyone else is using it, and you'd be participating productively in the conversation.
226.
by imagist 10y ago
Given the current state of computer security, a government program that fines companies for poor security practices could easily pay for itself.
227.
by imagist 10y ago
> And who are you to decide that that isn't a legitimate decision made by the users? If people cared more about security, they'd move away from Yahoo after something like this, and Yahoo would be more incentivized to keep this
228.
by imagist 10y ago
I don't think you need to even concede the idea that users are rational actors--there are plenty of reasons why a rational actor would prioritize another factor over security. For example, many people got Yahoo email addresses a long t
229.
by imagist 10y ago
The consequences should be that the company loses its ability to run a business. You've arbitrarily decided that the only acceptable mechanism for this happening is users choosing a different company. There are a whole host of reasons
230.
by imagist 10y ago
Security is all about managing risk for you because you've already chosen to compromise on security.
231.
by imagist 10y ago
I posted this elsewhere, but I think I intended to post it in response to your post: Well, there are a few possible solutions, and they don't all involve corporate incentives: 1. Government regulation 2. Technical solutions (alternativ
232.
by imagist 10y ago
> My immediate reaction is "Of course". A return on investment or risk analysis should drive activities on both the corporate and the government level. You're looking at this in only monetary terms, or at least Yahoo is. B
233.
by imagist 10y ago
Not enough that it isn't in Yahoo's favor to take that risk (you can't argue this--this is what happened).
234.
by imagist 10y ago
I think the missing piece in what you are saying is that there's an unspoken question here: "Secure against what?" Let's use your examples to explain: > You can support login over HTTP, which is quite insecure. You ca
235.
by imagist 10y ago
Well, there are a few possible solutions, and they don't all involve corporate incentives: 1. Government regulation 2. Technical solutions (alternatives to communication that have end-to-end encryption, for example) 3. Eschew corporati
236.
by imagist 10y ago
That's true, but a company can only play that game so many times before it catches up to them. "Never disclose" isn't a workable policy because eventually someone will leak the data. It's also worth noting that you&
237.
by imagist 10y ago
The problem here is that the people who pay the costs of security are different from the people who are hurt when security is breached.
238.
by imagist 10y ago
> That's the current mindset of the technological world, estimating whether the cost of atoning for the problem is lower than the cost of securing the systems. And for the record, this will always be the mindset of corporations wh
239.
by imagist 10y ago
> Sure we know what McCarthy developed Lisp for: as a tool for AI research. It's already mentioned in the very first paragraph of the 1960 paper on Lisp. > Sure there are several Lisp dialects and a bunch of derived languages, li
240.
by imagist 10y ago
But on what basis would you consider them to be bad?

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