jordanb

50 ms·

931.
by jordanb 9y ago
Haha. Only if the US agreed to go back to being a colony!
932.
by jordanb 9y ago
If a spec isn't vague, incomplete and wrong then you could just make a compiler that compiled the spec into working code and skip the programmer. The job of a programmer is to map the vague notion of what the software should do, which
933.
by jordanb 9y ago
Yeah 2002-2005 or so the conventional wisdom is that there wouldn't be software written in America anymore -- that companies were going to beat a path to Asia just like they'd done in textiles and furniture. Economists explained t
934.
by jordanb 9y ago
"If these trends continue..." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6LOWKVq5sQ
935.
by jordanb 9y ago
Difference between the UK and the USA is white flight and racial/ethnic tensions.
936.
by jordanb 9y ago
I doubt you'd trigger ADA requirements if you're just installing a stage and modern fire equipment.
937.
by jordanb 9y ago
So like all the other "3d printed" metals this appears to be laser-sintered. This is the big bait and switches of the 3d printing world: You take a consumer process (heating up ABS and mushing it together) and conflate it with an
938.
by jordanb 9y ago
I think it's kinda interesting that the HN takeaway is that Eastman was killed by its unions: if it had just treated its employees as disposable it'd still be the juggernaut today that it was in the 20th century. In fact our econo
939.
by jordanb 9y ago
Thing about it is, the USSR could have stayed in power if they had been willing to get bloody enough. If Stalin had been in power (or even Khrushchev) the USSR would not have collapsed. There may have been another holodomor. There may have
940.
by jordanb 9y ago
The NeXT cube was a workstation, not a PC. The distinction is important, because workstations were office equipment and never consumer equipment. They had much fatter margins and a bigger industrial design budget. For instance, here's
941.
by jordanb 9y ago
We don't have these things in our Brave New World.
942.
by jordanb 9y ago
This is basically the point of the estate tax: people are already producing a balance sheet of all the wealth for the purpose of distrusting it to the heirs. So tax the wealth when the estate changes hands and all the accounting is going
943.
by jordanb 9y ago
The article describes how contractor culture is creeping up from facilities into the white collar workforce near the end. I think that's a buried lead. You and I, maybe we made the right decisions. I'm doing pretty well for myself
944.
by jordanb 9y ago
> I've also got my camping supplies, which includes a Coleman stove and a few small propane canisters. I have a Primus Omnifuel, which can burn propane, white gas, gasoline, kerosene or diesel fuel. It needs preheat using alcohol or
945.
by jordanb 9y ago
This is definitely true of my father. When he was young owning a car meant working on cars, especially for a teenager who couldn't afford to take it to the shop every couple of weeks. Cars are so reliable and take so little maintenance
946.
by jordanb 9y ago
I believe the GM Futurama city actually came out of Frank Loyd Wright's Broadacre City concept published in 1932[0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadacre_City
947.
by jordanb 9y ago
I'd argue that the monopoly action against Microsoft was an unqualified success, even if the consent decree ended up being weak tea. Before the antitrust action Microsoft was knifing the baby and cutting off the air supply whenever any
948.
by jordanb 9y ago
This was a criticism of the late-stage soviet economy: Taking perfectly good trees and turning them into useless plywood. Perfectly good wool gets turned into sweaters so awful even Soviet citizens won't wear them, etc. Francis Spuffor
949.
by jordanb 9y ago
A different interpretation would be that he's condemning the argument while endorsing the form of the argument. He wants democratic socialists to embrace populist rhetoric and use it to push their agenda, because he prefers that agenda
950.
by jordanb 9y ago
Another example is how the ECB has no dual mandate. Its only mandate is to control inflation. It has no mandate to limit unemployment. As the Euro crisis began to cause political instability they've backed off a little, but they took t
951.
by jordanb 9y ago
So I guess the whole car thing is probably going to be this cycle's mortgage bubble? Considering car sales are falling off a cliff I guess we're in 2007 right now.
952.
by jordanb 9y ago
Yeah I have the same question: How is guessing the pattern hacking? And how is that a crime? In any other game of chance it's called "having a system."
953.
by jordanb 9y ago
My Dad was involved in unions from 70s-90s. He describes things differently. In the 1970s the relationship with most companies was collaborative. When they sat down at the negotiating table each side wanted the best deal possible, but the u
954.
by jordanb 9y ago
As an aside: I've been waiting for Libertarians to declare Somalia to be heaven on earth. I wonder why they've never picked up on the obvious real-world example of a nation with no central state government with a monopoly on viole
955.
by jordanb 9y ago
This is exactly my point. Japan has the opportunity to chart the way forward: to show the rest of the world how to do more with fewer people and a smaller impact. To determine what an economy looks like that deals efficiently with resources
956.
by jordanb 9y ago
I'm not sure what's supposed to be terrifying about it. This planet has way too many humans on it. We need to figure out how to cause our populations to decline naturally until we can get the number of humans down to the point whe
957.
by jordanb 10y ago
... a pig, in a cage, on antibiotics.
958.
by jordanb 10y ago
Nearly every time I've ever been to the DMV it's been a pleasant process. One time I got caught in bureaucratic hell. I had recently bought a house and took my closing documents in to get my address changed. The clerk informed me
959.
by jordanb 10y ago
Indentured Servitude is exactly the relationship that exists for many on H1-B. It's not even hyperbole. This is especially true for people trying to get a green card. The employer can use the green card process to ensure the worker has
960.
by jordanb 10y ago
Yeah but that would affect profits. Much better to just rough the self-loading cargo up a bit and drag it off the plane. /s

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