marcell

36 ms·

361.
by marcell 8y ago
I think the housing market indicates a net inflow of engineer types: (1) There are actually still some low income people living in the Bay Area. For example even in Mt View (home of Google), there are some low income areas. Other cities hav
362.
by marcell 8y ago
This is pretty interesting. I'd love to see the analysis broken down by some measure of the ads' "annoyingness." For example, what is the harm from an animated gif ad vs. a text ad?
363.
by marcell 8y ago
> Drug companies have profit margins of 15% on average indicating there is room. This seems to contradict itself. 15% profit margin is not that great compared to the opportunity cost. Someone working at a drug company could in theory swi
364.
by marcell 8y ago
Curious in terms of unique users, what % lose/make money over time? How long do the losers stay on platform before exiting?
365.
by marcell 8y ago
Really? I can’t think of a more empowered group today than software engineers. You can work at a large company and get predictable compensation. Alternately, you can work at a startup with the promise of a multi million dollar IPO. I’m each
366.
by marcell 8y ago
Let me propose another analysis which shows this is perfectly fair. The founders created a company which delivers value by connecting over 1 million rides a day. Those riders benefit from Lyft. Additionally, riders on Uber benefit from lowe
367.
by marcell 8y ago
Is this really standard at any tech company? When I was at Google they had some deal with a local day car franchise, but it wqs just a discount or something.
368.
by marcell 8y ago
From the article: > Facebook promised to open a data centre in Canada to create jobs, in exchange for the federal government offering assurances that it would not impose its jurisdiction over the company's non-Canadian data. The Can
369.
by marcell 8y ago
I dunno, I've seen quite a few piles of crap in my day as a SWE. The bar is not that high to do better.
370.
by marcell 8y ago
I'm trying to understand how this would actually work. A lot of app development for a mid-size CRUD app is around encoding business logic and handling edge cases. Let's take a specific example. Say I'm writing a software to h
371.
by marcell 8y ago
I don't have a good sense for how the typical voter contexualizes these things. The numbers are so big and abstract I don't see how you can tell $20B from $60B as a voter. I think though, if people had known in 2008 that not even
372.
by marcell 8y ago
Suppose each worker makes $150k/year in income and spends $50k a year. That would come out to about $187M in income taxes and $125M in sales taxes each year from the directly employed individuals. There is likely to additional revenue
373.
by marcell 8y ago
And how do you fix the rail system? With money from... taxes... from well paid workers, for example. I think a lot of people get so caught up in hating on tech workers and opposing gentrification they forget where the money comes from.
374.
by marcell 8y ago
That’s good and well, but remember that China has much lower labor costs, and fewer environmental protections (CEQA). I don’t think the low price of Chinese rail should deter HSR in California.
375.
by marcell 8y ago
> You aren't even close. The fiscal impact statement of what was voted on in 2008 was: ... $10B The $10B was not billed as the total cost of the project, just bond that voters approved. The rest of the project was to be funded with
376.
by marcell 8y ago
I don't agree with the claims that $77B is an outrageous amount of money. I also don't agree that a project should be killed because it's cost has increased ~$20B over what was approved in 2008. First, 10 years of inflation a
377.
by marcell 8y ago
I've been thinking about this idea over the past few months. My main thought is whether it passes muster in terms of economics. Revenue can be estimated as a multiple, say, FedEx or UPS revenue. Maybe it would be 2-5x of whatever those
378.
by marcell 8y ago
Is it that big of a deal? Most places have Comcast or similar. It takes maybe a week or two to set it up.
379.
by marcell 8y ago
I don't think I was being flippant. That's the thesis of my comment, and the rest of it is supporting points.
380.
by marcell 8y ago
You’re trying to analyze raising children scientifically, and I think that’s impossible. You can never measure bored teens against non-bored teens in any meaningful way. No parent will want to, or be able to participate in a scientific stud
381.
by marcell 8y ago
Poor people would move to California to get free income, and rich people would move away to avoid high taxes. This idea is a non-starter.
382.
by marcell 8y ago
My understanding (perhaps wrong) is that this was the first instance of the US issuing a formal charge. Previously, the executive was arrested and prevented from leaving Canada. The new development is that the US has specified what they are
383.
by marcell 8y ago
This article should give you some of the keywords to start Googling: https://manybutfinite.com/post/what-your-computer-does-while...
384.
by marcell 8y ago
Bitcoin was doing perfectly fine at $100, so I think these predictions are a bit premature and have some recency bias. The price drop does lower the amount of security in the network, so it becomes cheaper to attack it. However, it also mea
385.
by marcell 8y ago
Can’t you just stop for a 30 minute lunch break at a super charger station? This seems like a solved problem at this point.
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by marcell 8y ago
That’s a bit semantics as it’s looking at just one year, and in any case doesn’t look at the delta from the old law. Edit: IIRC the law had some incentives to onshore money at special tax rates, which may cause a one-time bump in revenues.
387.
by marcell 8y ago
What’s interesting to me is that the federal tax cuts passed last year cost around $150B a year. I know you may not support this either, but that would pay for the construction of 1 and a 1/2 HSR’s a year, even with the cost overrun. R
388.
by marcell 8y ago
If I had to guess it’s probably a result of vested interest opposing construction, and a reluctance to use eminent domain to buy up land. In the Bay Area there are powerful NIMBY groups that oppose train construction for the usual obvious r
389.
by marcell 8y ago
Because people derive value from the service. It's faster than walking, more convenient than an Uber, and doesn't require a car. Let's leave the "get off my lawn" comments off HN.
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by marcell 8y ago
Your company might be inadvertently attracting poor candidates. I imagine a lot of good candidates (like myself) would just pass on a 4 hours of homework for a random programming job. And good candidates almost certainly won’t spend 3 days

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