thedevil

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211.
by thedevil 11y ago
I'm ethically opposed to adblockers as they deny content creators a means of making money for their work. Yet, ads have gotten so out of hand that I'm about to install adblockers partly for safety, partly for other issues. They tr
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by thedevil 11y ago
Another possibility is that if self-driving taxis take over, cars might get a lot smaller. Most of the space in your car is wasted most of the time and is only there for the occasional time that you need it. Although, I'm not arguing
213.
by thedevil 11y ago
"One of your concerns isn't backed up so I'm going to ignore your other points and troll"
214.
by thedevil 11y ago
_ak: "Nobody shall be able to force you to spend your money in a way that prescribes a very specific kind of lifestyle." But they're not spending their money, they're spending other people's money. ak, If your vers
215.
by thedevil 11y ago
While I can appreciate the optimism, I think it's important that we get this right (which might or might not be my idea). Think about all the payday loan places. They're everywhere. Think about all the credit card debt (among ot
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by thedevil 11y ago
This exactly. It's not like they buy TVs instead of paying rent. Of course very few are that stupid. The problem is that they charge up their cards and blow their safety buffer on the TV/car/etc.
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by thedevil 11y ago
I'm not promoting any central planning. That certainly would be a disaster. The reason I suggest a voucher and food stamps is because they give the individuals the flexibility to apply them to their situation. Edit: Also, it's d
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by thedevil 11y ago
1) A housing voucher would cover analogous issues in the US. 2) Being poor in a poor country is very different from being poor in a rich country. 3) I don't know the details of the program, but it likely involved different amounts of a
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by thedevil 11y ago
This basic income idea has been popping up a lot lately. And there's some merit to it, but there's some major problems too. The biggest problem I see is giving people cash. Why not instead give each adult a voucher for housing (
220.
by thedevil 11y ago
When I lived in SF, the categorical hate towards tech workers (I was not a tech worker back then) was nothing like "mainstream". It was just a few extremists, a few protesters I might see in the news. I didn't actually know
221.
by thedevil 11y ago
I'm not confused, I was just disregarding advertising in my comment because I assumed it only captured a tiny portion of the value. According to my first Google result, total US internet ad spending was about $60B last year (~$15&#x2F
222.
by thedevil 11y ago
Google and Facebook have combined annual revenue around 80B, or around $20/month/person in the US. And the $50 was rounding up. We're still underestimating value. Dramatically.
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by thedevil 11y ago
And here's an idea to explain the mismatch. Not sure if it's right, but it might explain why the numbers make no sense: newspaper -> hacker news, google news: GDP drops, but life is better. stereo + CDs -> mp3 player: GDP d
224.
by thedevil 11y ago
I definitely think we're nowhere near where we could be. I just meant to say that the article's claim that slow productivity growth is "real" doesn't make any sense. We definitely could be doing much better though.
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by thedevil 11y ago
"they valued free Internet services at ... less than 1 percent of G.D.P." So Pandora, Facebook, Hacker News, YouTube, Google, Wikipedia, gmail, google maps, Reddit... all of these together are worth less than $50/month? Woul
226.
by thedevil 11y ago
Some employers will not hire you if you have a non-compete that might impact your work for them. It's never been an issue for me, I've only read stories online. But I have been asked while applying for a job whether I have any no
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by thedevil 11y ago
I've noticed the same trend in using non-competes on low-level grunts. Every job I've taken in the last decade required one. Only one of those jobs had a legitimate competitive reason for it.
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by thedevil 11y ago
Scott Adams, maker of Dilbert, wrote something similar. He was calling it the "second American revolution". He threw out some radical, somewhat silly, but interesting ideas about it. http://blog.dilbert.com/post&#x
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by thedevil 11y ago
On that note, does anyone know anything about the impact of internet use in drug addiction (and crime)? I have a very speculative hypothesis that internet (social networks, porn, etc) might work as a super-crack, competing with (and crowdin
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by thedevil 11y ago
"Silicon Valley people don’t click on ads... Similarly, they appear not to be commenting or liking posts as frequently" The most successful drug dealers don't use their own stuff, I hear. Edit: I think I sounded a little snar
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by thedevil 11y ago
Born in 82 myself. If we're going to define people by generations, I wish we got broken into our own group. I think there was a HUGE cultural shift that makes lumping us with Millenials insane. Social network usage is different, poli
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by thedevil 11y ago
I don't follow the YouTube world at all, but I still keep hearing things like this. I'm surprised YouTube doesn't punish or at least stop people who make false claims. I have an idea I'm exploring that would involve mak
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by thedevil 11y ago
1. Intersection analysis: Get traffic patterns with smart phones. Get traffic accidents and latency statistics by different intersection designs. Determine which intersections are most ripe for improvement. Give free access to departmen
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by thedevil 11y ago
I wouldn't recommend most of these ideas to Microsoft. For example, I've done work where I've needed a recalc based on an updated csv so your suggestion would have broken Excel for some of my use cases. There's plenty o
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by thedevil 11y ago
For the 14 years during which I used excel daily, the first 4 items you listed didn't affect me and the last two never mattered. I used text-to-columns to very nicely parse pipe-delimited files. The leading zeros issue I bumped into
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by thedevil 11y ago
It was very well made. It's easy to use and yet but also has great features and shortcuts for power users. There's lots of genius little features not available elsewhere, like grouping columns or formulas over columns or rows (e.
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by thedevil 11y ago
In a past life, I made (very expensive) spreadsheets for a living. And though I don't like most Microsoft products, I'm pretty sure that Excel was built by God himself (or at least He was the lead dev or the PM).
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by thedevil 11y ago
This is a great insight: "In nearly every corner of the economy there is an infinite amount of work that needs to be done" I agree with you but i can understand how people can think differently. They are basing their ideas on what
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by thedevil 11y ago
"Ruby included a hanging rope in the welcome kit" is very poor wording. There's advantages and disadvantages to flexibility. I personally think there's tradeoffs that need to be balanced. But even if we accept the assu
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by thedevil 11y ago
I'm a self-taught career changer and work for a team that has several new developers transferred from other departments. It works out surprisingly well. The 2-3 experienced devs and myself do the harder development parts and the new d

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