kourt

10 ms·

31.
by kourt 12y ago
A rich person earns more money per hour than a poor person (by definition). No, that's a person with "high hourly earned income". Making wealth is not the only way to get rich. For most of human history it has not even bee
32.
by kourt 12y ago
Thanks for the PSA about PSA (public service announcement / prostate-specific antigen).
33.
by kourt 12y ago
Containerized shipping is a major factor in the decline of manufacturing employment in the West, which was the backbone of the 20th century economy. Politically, NAFTA, GATT, MFN status for China, and the creation of the H1-B program all ha
34.
by kourt 12y ago
There should be a non-profit organization that files arbitrary new patents preemptively on behalf of the public and then release them into the public domain. Good idea. Let's call it "Bell Labs".
35.
by kourt 12y ago
"we would want as much of our population as possible in cognitively demanding positions, and having the ability to outsource labor to other countries helps that happen" 1) What if you had a brother with an IQ of 98. Would you rat
36.
by kourt 12y ago
Shockingly, the NYT didn't use this article to call for MOAR IMMIGRATION.
37.
by kourt 12y ago
You’re not only required to provide a large enough hard drive, but it must be “brand new, still in the box and unopened”, presumably for security reasons. This requirement is a bit silly in my opinion, and probably prevents a lot of would-
38.
by kourt 12y ago
Let's use this as a case study: What (according to HN) should IKEA have done? On one hand, trademark preservation is important. On another hand, how many companies would kill for a community of "Raving Fans" like this? And i
39.
by kourt 12y ago
Presumably because semiconductor manufacturing has massive setup costs, so changing anything in the middle of a production run is likely to be uneconomical. But an assembler can simply switch parts or suppliers.
40.
by kourt 12y ago
The "Minnesota Model" on IP owership is also very important.
41.
by kourt 12y ago
MIT's next best use of its political power would be to bring Massachusetts laws regarding innovation to parity with California's circa 1980. Specifically, adopting the "Minnesota Model" employee IP protection, making no
42.
by kourt 12y ago
The headline should read: "53-year-old Sealed Bottle Garden..." I see this more and more even in edited publications. It's especially irksome here since the article contains almost no actual writing.
43.
by kourt 12y ago
Thanks; I'm familiar with that. Regardless of how total output compares with days of yore, this is now: I'd like to see research demonstrating that, over time, knowledge workers on a 35 hour schedule outproduce those on a 40 hour
44.
by kourt 12y ago
It seems that 40 hours is basically optimal for turn of the 20th century factory work. I've seen several references[0] that the optimum for knowledge work is 35 hours, but I'd LOVE a detailed citation. While you are correct that
45.
by kourt 12y ago
NO! ISO 8601 (YYYY-MM-DD). Just like all other numbers, the "ones" place is on the right. The week dates are even more awesome, really: I use them whenever I can.
46.
by kourt 12y ago
there is also "sc", "spreadsheet calc" I would love a maintained {n,}curses mode spreadsheet that can handle excel1040.com.
47.
by kourt 12y ago
Can gnumeric run the "full" sheets at excel1040.com?
48.
by kourt 12y ago
I think the concern is that systemd is following a rapid "embrace, extend, extinguish" path, and very quickly will have achieved critical mass and become somewhat unstoppable. There's nothing wrong with saying "I like Li
49.
by kourt 12y ago
It was about open-source hardware : monopolies can limit freedom in hardware too. The Pentium FDIV bug was trivial to validate at that time, since it was common even for an undergraduate at a small university to have accounts on Sun SPARC
50.
by kourt 12y ago
Can't wait for the QWERTY version :)
51.
by kourt 12y ago
"which side of any issue you are on" Maybe he's on everybody's side. What freedom is more important than the freedom to be true to one's self? What good is free speech[1] when the private, individual exercise ther
52.
by kourt 12y ago
Proposition 8 was an opinion of the masses: it received 7,001,084 (52.24%) of the votes.
53.
by kourt 13y ago
PS: I'm not just trying to pick a fight here: I dislike political discourse where the challenges of being a young adult are attributed to imagined moral, emotional, or intellectual deficiencies of people under 30 / 40 / 50. S
54.
by kourt 13y ago
This seems a little too psychological: even people who know exactly what they plan to do at a very young age are likely to change jobs many times during those years. I spent 18-22 enrolled at one university earning a degree in the major t
55.
by kourt 13y ago
Thanks. The French linguistic equivalent is the shortening of "courrier électronique" to "courriel".
56.
by kourt 13y ago
And therein lies the rub. I'm also reminded of the studies that document that routinely exceeding a 40 hour week causes reduced productivity (IGDA "Why Crunch Mode Doesn't Work"), and that 40 hours was based on assembly
57.
by kourt 13y ago
In addition to slavery, Americans also had The Frontier. A man who didn't like the wages offered had the option to go make a homestead.
58.
by kourt 13y ago
Or sign up at polarhome.com for $10 (sorry to steal your sale)