rwallace

30 ms·

301.
by rwallace 9y ago
I would describe myself as a pragmatic libertarian; part of the reason for the adjective is that, yes, I acknowledge the need for regulation in cases like this.
302.
by rwallace 9y ago
Sounds like an interesting idea, so I installed it and started trying it out, and it started talking about having to create projects and source groups and whatever, so I'll get back to it sometime, maybe. Suggestion: lower the friction
303.
by rwallace 9y ago
Can't this be accomplished by putting files in a temp directory?
304.
by rwallace 9y ago
> What on earth gave you the impression that big companies innovate? AT&T, General Electric, IBM, Xerox etc. The personal computer was invented by individuals and small companies, but the transistor was not, and probably could not ha
305.
by rwallace 9y ago
In the short term perhaps, but in the long term? What happens when word gets around that you shouldn't join a startup because even if it succeeds, your equity will just be stolen from you?
306.
by rwallace 9y ago
For a more accessible example, what about Fermat's Last Theorem? An apparently simple statement about integer arithmetic, whose proof needs to go into wild excursions about arcane functions of continuous curves. Counterintuitive!
307.
by rwallace 9y ago
I'm glad we finally got postcodes. Now I don't have to waste energy getting pissed off with that defect in online forms any more, and it presumably adds an extra layer of redundancy, a bit more reduction in the probability of a pa
308.
by rwallace 9y ago
I thought the 68000 was down to something like $10 by that time? Given that, the price discrepancy is surprising, since the ST was intentionally a rather simple design. What exactly made the ST have to cost that much?
309.
by rwallace 9y ago
Ebola didn't come close, but SARS, in 2002, did; it was similar in all ways to the 1918 flu, including lethality: high single-digit percentage of the population in affected areas had it spread unchecked. Fortunately, the threat was rec
310.
by rwallace 9y ago
> On the other hand, most larger proprietary software businesses devote a surprisingly small amount of their operating budget to development. In my experience it's usually around 10%, but it depends on the company. I certainly haven
311.
by rwallace 9y ago
This suggestion keeps popping up as though 'do nothing' and 'destroy some randomly selected lives, at additional cost to society, by way of revenge' were an exhaustive list of options. I think a much more constructive re
312.
by rwallace 9y ago
Sure, but that's not a counterexample. The point isn't that absolutely everything should be permitted, it's that restrictions should only be reactions to evidence of harm. Requiring advance permission for new packaging materi
313.
by rwallace 9y ago
Truth to be told, I think the web is mostly built out at this stage; not that there aren't any more websites to be built, but I have genuine doubts as to whether there are more websites to be built that would generate enough profit to
314.
by rwallace 9y ago
But that just re-raises the question of why people switched to driving on the right. The article says riders used to ride on the left, then wagon drivers started sitting on the left, so wagons started driving on the right. Why did wagon dri
315.
by rwallace 9y ago
> In the United States, wagons were increasingly common on the roads. Drawn by up to 20 animals, they were a popular way of transporting goods over long distances – and the men helming these vehicles liked to drive on the right. They’d s
316.
by rwallace 9y ago
How do you get moving a block of code to take one second in notepad++? I don't know of a way to get it to take less than a few seconds, but maybe I'm missing something.
317.
by rwallace 9y ago
Don't be a crab in the bucket. If you're going to get angry at people having more money than you (perhaps rightly) feel they deserve, get angry at the ruling class who casually rake in millions, not at the better-paid of their ser
318.
by rwallace 9y ago
What would the attribute columns consist of? My experience has been with named columns defined individually by humans, of which I've never seen more than a few hundred; how do you get tens of thousands? Are they a different kind of thi
319.
by rwallace 9y ago
Because no industry can deliver large, faultless projects quickly. What a strange question.
320.
by rwallace 9y ago
Do you think it should be legal for insurance companies to charge higher premiums to smokers? If so, then you agree it's okay to simply go by the statistics in some contexts, so the existence of some other contexts in which it's n
321.
by rwallace 9y ago
> Super simple example - you don't need AI to determine that men claim more frequently and more on car insurance than women. So....over the years, the rates for men have risen, until finally it was completely outlawed to take into a
322.
by rwallace 9y ago
I agree completely about the attitude, but would blame a different group of people. To put it in terms as blunt as yours: when people are told lies from morning till night, and kept in cages for eighteen years until they're too broken
323.
by rwallace 9y ago
Hopefully ethics will prompt most founders to make a good-faith attempt to deliver value for money, but in case anyone is tempted otherwise, bear in mind that the legal obligation may turn out to look much more clear and enforceable in cour
324.
by rwallace 9y ago
The original Mac was actually not a very useful product; 128K of memory was enough to get a taste of the graphic user interface, but not enough to do much in the way of useful work. There was a flurry of initial sales to early adopters on t
325.
by rwallace 9y ago
I agree with you about the value of good engineering, but I think you underestimate the value of good marketing. > Sales and marketing, almost always give linear multiples at best. Counterexample: Apple's famous 1984 ad.
326.
by rwallace 9y ago
I hadn't thought of this before but, while I am dubious about the whole cashless society idea, it must be granted that this is an advantage: if it comes to it, makes it harder for an oppressive government to shut down the Internet.
327.
by rwallace 9y ago
Whereabouts do you live, that has such a low crime rate? I'm curious, because that's unusual.
328.
by rwallace 9y ago
> Alternatively, the startup may not consider you to be a core team member, which is also an important takeaway. This is the most important sentence in the article. The answers to the questions may or may not help you predict the success
329.
by rwallace 9y ago
On an ethical level, you're hurting people (e.g. Chinese workers) who had no part in the objectionable actions that prompted this. On a practical level, are there any cases in history where this has ever produced beneficial results?
330.
by rwallace 9y ago
> So if the strategy is have-our-cake-and-eat-it-too why does the rest of the world play along? As opposed to what? Economic sanctions have a wonderfully consistent track record of making things worse for everyone. China is too powerful

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