philk

49 ms·

451.
by philk 17y ago
Big cargo ships are already vulnerable to piracy and the handful of crew on board does little more than give the pirates some hostages. If the ships were fully automated, and remote controlled, you could simply refuse to comply with the pir
452.
Cyber Warriors(theatlantic.com)
1 points by philk 17y ago|0 comments
453.
Death Becomes Him(theatlantic.com)
1 points by philk 17y ago|1 comments
454.
by philk 17y ago
To be honest I imagine that a robo-shipping vessel would be easier to create than robo-trucks. for several reasons: * The ships are larger and more expensive and hence the add on expense is smaller, comparatively * There's less traffic arou
455.
by philk 17y ago
Yes, and in 1981 it was ~$800. Which means a return of ~50% over 29 years while paying no dividends whatsoever. You can make pretty much anything look like a good or bad investment if you pick your start and endpoints carefully.
456.
by philk 17y ago
NoScript is a wonderful thing.
457.
by philk 17y ago
True, but if you're investing the difference in index funds dividends will generally keep going up over time (somewhat in line with the capital appreciation). >> I don't entirely disagree with the reasoning, mind you, but I think th
458.
by philk 17y ago
>> but at least with mortgage payments you're paying off your loan, not someone else's! As an example, if you're looking in the Sydney CBD you could easily be borrowing ~$400K (or more). At interest rates of 6% a year initially you
459.
by philk 17y ago
As a general rule, buying something because prices just go up and up and up is a good way to get thoroughly shafted. At the very least consider the following: a) What is your rent currently compared to your mortgage repayments? If you're g
460.
Squanderville vs. Thriftville - Warren Buffett (2003)(pbs.org)
27 points by philk 17y ago|15 comments
461.
by philk 17y ago
I'd say the differences between the two are quite slender, Peter Schiff is merely less optimistic[1] about what will happen politically. [1] Being less optimistic about what will happen politically is probably a very smart thing. Politicia
462.
by philk 17y ago
There's probably a good chance that house prices will continue to increase, simply because whoever is in government can't afford the the economy to tank in the short term. I imagine these subsidies and handouts will continue until the gover
463.
by philk 17y ago
Yes but the vast bulk of costs for a gym are fixed costs. You've got large fixed costs in the form of rent, machines and staff just to have the doors open. Sure there's the idea that he'll be taking up space in the gym, but, statistically
464.
by philk 17y ago
To be fair, shoddy science is probably common in every field. It's just that this is such a politically charged issue that it attracts far more attacks and attention.
465.
by philk 17y ago
Possibly, but from the guidelines: Please don't submit comments complaining that a submission is inappropriate for the site. If you think something is spam or offtopic, flag it by going to its page and clicking on the "flag" link. (Not al
466.
by philk 17y ago
Well this is going to make for some really lousy PR.
467.
by philk 17y ago
You're right, trying to get discounts from gyms in January is less likely to succeed. You can also generally get better deals by trying to join just before the salespeople have to make their quota each month. That said, all he's really aski
468.
by philk 17y ago
>> took my free lesson and found out my trainer sucked. Unfortunately this is pretty much the rule as far as trainers go. But to be fair to them they're in a situation where they're generally rewarded for making the customer like t
469.
by philk 17y ago
This is because the prevalent business model as far as gyms are concerned is signing up a whole lot of people who attend for a few weeks and then never come back (while continuing to charge them fees). Personally I'm glad that I have all th
470.
by philk 17y ago
I'd actually say that commercial entities would be better off than the government, as the government is made up of people who: a) have to pretend to care [1] b) don't have any personal upside from space missions succeeding. [1] I'm not sayi
471.
by philk 17y ago
Most people don't realize that the major cost of a launch is labor. Fuel is less than 2%, while the standing army of people and infrastructure is well over 80%. Rather interesting that. I'd always thought the main expense was fuel. I sti
472.
by philk 17y ago
The thing is that the bulk of the market is remarkably non-tech-savvy. If Bing became the default search engine on Firefox it wouldn't alter my searching habits at all, as I'd just set it to Google instead. However for the nontechnical maj
473.
by philk 17y ago
Thanks for the articles. I'm not sure, however, that the examples cited within them are entirely fair - they took middle aged furniture workers and tried to get them jobs at Google after a few years retraining. Of course a guy who's had si
474.
by philk 17y ago
I suspect we'd be better off if we invested in education for these folks and retrained them to do something people actually want nowadays. They might not be working as programmers at startups but there's still a lot of worthwhile tasks we c
475.
by philk 17y ago
This is a tremendously simplistic analysis of the situation: a) The sentence "You create jobs by helping grow existing businesses and helping create new businesses." is practically a tautology. b) "Creating jobs" is a complicated issue in t
476.
by philk 17y ago
These articles are awesome. I'm always fascinated by why people seem to think that studying the humanities is living the 'life of the mind', as opposed to hard sciences or engineering; fields which provide more robust means of testing the c
477.
by philk 17y ago
This is a bit of a trap. It's easier to take big risks if you have little to lose. Once you're established at McKinsey, Goldman Sachs or Google you have a comfortable standard of living and a job that gives you both challenges and social
478.
by philk 17y ago
Technically he's not a talented public speaker as "talent" implies an innate capacity. He's a very skilled speaker, in that his ability is derived from relentless practice and preparation.
479.
by philk 17y ago
Just for toppers, this group offered one company that I know a featured “Top 20 innovators spot” if they paid their bounty. "We loved the innovative way in which they wrote us a check"
480.
by philk 17y ago
The web doesn’t hold much attraction for Rupert Murdoch who is now enamored with e-readers and tablets. Tablets, according to those in the know, are being viewed as saviors for News Corp.’s core business: news and information. He thinks th

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