smanek

79 ms·

691.
by smanek 18y ago
I'm totally in favor of having higher-ups help existing customers (I know a few companies that do this, and I like it too). I'd even be OK with a CEO sitting in on late game sales calls/meetings, but that's a whole different issue than havi
692.
by smanek 18y ago
During the final year of Silicon Alley Reporter I made cold calls and set up lunches to sell folks on our new product, Venture Reporter (the rebranded Silicon Alley Reporter). It works. When people see the CEO making sales calls, they resp
693.
by smanek 18y ago
I found these gems in one of his papers: Peer-to-Peer file-sharing techniques such as those used in Napster, allow interested potential consumers to exchange samples of music at will. Anecdotal evidence suggests that a number of musical gr
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by smanek 18y ago
I would argue that getting someone to install a new browser plugin and restarting their browser (in my experience, people are very reluctant to restart their browser) is just as difficult as getting them to download a .exe.
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by smanek 18y ago
I work at a defense contractor now (and have worked in a tech shop and corporate IT before). The main problem I've found in defense contracting is that it isn't flexible, and (in my opinion) too many design decisions are made at too high a
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by smanek 18y ago
Makes much more sense. Thanks
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by smanek 18y ago
All the HTML in Urbantastic is completely static. All dynamic data is sent via AJAX in JSON format and then combined with the HTML using Javascript. Put another way, the server software for Urbantastic produces and consumes JSON exclusiv
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by smanek 18y ago
It really isn't ... the semantics of infinity are completely different than the semantics of 'really, really, big.' An infinite data store would, by definition, contain my DNA, correct (and incorrect) predictions about the universe (down to
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by smanek 18y ago
That haystack is infinitely large. Gah. I really hate it when people misuse "infinite".
700.
by smanek 18y ago
In my experience, the advantage of functional programming is that it is very easy to understand and debug. If my program consists of series of small functions that each have no side effects, things become very straight forward. I won't have
701.
by smanek 18y ago
Nevermind - I'm an idiot. I just came back to HN, and looked at there's [my god, typing "there's" feels so wrong, even though it's actually right] comment again. It was clearly satirizing the sort of inane iPhone-centric articles that get v
702.
by smanek 18y ago
What does that have to do with anything? The article is about a guy who made an iPhone app (iShoot) that made enough money to help his family out of their tough financial situation ... Am I missing something? Although, his app saved his hou
703.
by smanek 18y ago
You can add value to natural resources by using labor. But that isn't what I was talking about. I was talking about the wealth added by trade. As a simple example, let's say I have a large bag of peanuts - but I'm allergic to peanuts. And y
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by smanek 18y ago
I'm simply using dollars as a universally understood metric for wealth (where wealth is the 'value' of actual goods and services). Obvious data that supports my claim (that life is better for the average person today than it was 100 years a
705.
by smanek 18y ago
Orbitz, et. al don't actually do their own search. They outsource all the real work to ITA Software in Cambridge, MA - who actually run all the searches on a large cluster of servers running Common Lisp.
706.
by smanek 18y ago
You can't extrapolate historical population trends and expect them to be remotely accurate. Most current data shows population plateauing at around 10 Billion. Most of the westernized world's population (US, Japan, Western Europe, Australia
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by smanek 18y ago
The basic tenet of capitalism is that trade is not zero-sum: it actually creates wealth. If I have I pay you $10 for a service that costs you $5 to provide, you've actually created $5 of wealth out of thin air. I end up with a service that
708.
by smanek 18y ago
Makes sense about the cars. I'm just happy we're doing cutting edge stuff again that could, hopefully, start to pay off in a few decades. As for the physics stuff: don't you think that Newton was a reason that the Industrial Revolution took
709.
by smanek 18y ago
How are Asia and Europe ahead of America on cars and phones? Off the top of my head, the iPhone, Google Android, the Tesla Roadster, and Green Freedom are all American. What really worries me is the LHC (European). I would argue that Newton
710.
by smanek 18y ago
I think Tom (and I) got your point. I just agree with Tom that you didn't make it very well. You had absolutely no data to back up your claims - just a handful of anecdotes (some of which were simply false). For example, do you have any evi
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by smanek 18y ago
I can't seem to get it to add either of my favorite pizza places in Cambridge, MA 01238 ('Cambridge 1' and 'The Upper Crust'). Am I doing something wrong? Their URLs are http://cambridge1.us/ and http://www.theuppercrustpizzeria.com/
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by smanek 18y ago
Under normal circumstances, I'd agree with you. But given the economic craziness right now, I'd say that (some) dividend paying stocks qualify at black swans. At least the market thinks so, because they value the shares so that annual divid
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by smanek 18y ago
I like mint.com to manage all my accounts, and keep track of my spending (I do all my spending on my credit card, so it's great for budgeting since it can automatically categorize expenditures). You have a few orders of magnitude more then
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by smanek 18y ago
I would highly recommend Philip Greenspun's investing and early retirement articles, which explain how he dealt with a similar situation. http://philip.greenspun.com/materialism/money http://philip.greenspun.com/materialism/early-retirem
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by smanek 18y ago
I'm a fan of the Taleb approach to investing. Put most of your money (~90%, I would say )into bulletproof stuff (Savings Account, CDs, etc), and put a little into risky things. You should be able to get at least 5% ROI on the safe stuff (in
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by smanek 18y ago
Fair enough.
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by smanek 18y ago
I don't get what's with all the down modding. There's nothing wrong with refusing to do business with someone because of their personal views (even if their personal views don't affect my interaction with them). It's effectively just a boyc
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by smanek 18y ago
Of course I understand that spreading a negative opinion about someone has negative consequences for the target. And I agree that a decent person shouldn't write that sort of thing. But, there is a world of difference between what I moral
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by smanek 18y ago
Some of the comments were over the line (calling for physical attacks, etc), but most of the people being sued didn't actually say anything illegal (being 'mean' isn't illegal in the US). Jokes, opinions, and fantasy (no matter how lewd) sh
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The Right of Websites to Link(slate.com)
3 points by smanek 18y ago|0 comments

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