Might this be a self-fulfilling prophecy? If the 'shifty' group were offered higher interest rate, then this increases the probability that they will bail on their loans, no?
It may impact IE7 more than it does IE6. In fact I believe IE7 usage will fall below IE6 in relatively short order. Those who have not left IE6 are mainly in situations that prohibit them from moving on to IE7/8 without major pain (operating system, intranet applications etc.). As long as these are not remedied by IE8, IE6's share will not drop drastically. It will just continue to decline, perhaps at an increased slope, especially if web devs start leaving IE6 behind as well, but no funeral invitation just yet.
I understand your considerations, but the article has nothing to do with software-as-a-service type 'clouds'. This is purely on the infrastructure-on-demand and platform layers, and as such actually new, as you also agreed with. Sorry if I am getting a bit technical but Clouds and REST happen to be very close to my research subject. I am one happy bunny today seeing their combination put forward by a major player.
Another thing to keep in mind that this is Tim Bray we are talking about. He can hardly be considered a peddler of hype.
As far as I am aware automatically scalable infrastructure is not something that was available until recently, nor is it subsumed by the 'net/web' designation. There is more to it than the web. Have I missed something?
It would be a sad day if Sun stopped being independent, but IBM does seem to be the best match that will preserve the most of Sun. Maybe they can even fix some of the JCP and OOo policy problems. On the other hand, NetBeans will probably go the way of the dodo..
I presume that is exactly the point. If it becomes an open, federated, distributed, open source, social bookmarking (any more buzz words?) service, you don't have to trust them with anything. Really, that is possibly the only way they could ever recover any semblance of trust.
Not the article I needed to see the moment I finished ordering my G1 but the bad keyboard review makes me feel slightly better. Nevertheless, go Android!
Overall great article but the "and they're all compatible" bit in the end is not exactly so. Apache v2 stuff can be used in a GPL v3 project, but not the other way around. So that compatibility is not as straightforward as it sounds.
It seems lax transactional guarantees bit banks in the rear. I am not sure how difficult it would be to avoid parallel use of cards at different ATMs (especially given the inter-bank nature of ATMs), but it was not done, and this weakness was taken advantage of.
This is a dream of mine as well, but performance may be a problem. Custom functions mean no caching and arbitrary computational burden from each function.
I call anecdotal evidence. Not everyone can have one of the first blogs on the web and be in the top 100 most trafficked blogs. Also, attributing the success of a startup on a blog is a bit of a stretch.
The problem is that the subprime mortgages are just a symptom of the problem, which is the complexity of the economic system. You have written about this on overcomingbias as well! Even if such a band-aid solution were implemented, it would be like sitting around and waiting for the next economic shock to wipe the economy out.
The title editorialises needlessly, and incorrectly. The API remains free for up to 10,000 queries a day. That is more than all the traffic the techcrunch network makes, so it remains free for most everyone.
Google may not be a monopoly, but they are certainly a single point of failure for many businesses. As such, these businesses should not be happy that their continued survival depends on some algorithm not flagging them a 'false positive'. Monopoly or not, I can't help but think that this is not a healthy situation.
[Since I can't update the post itself anymore, I'll write an update with a reply]
After the great discussion that has followed, a number of good modifications has been proposed that could significantly reduce grievances. The fee could be one-time, and proceeds donated to charity. Also, uers with a lot of karma could invite other users (in case they cannot register due to no cc/no paypal/underage etc.) This would probably require an area for users to request invites etc. but even the process would certainly make users more mindful of their posting. Additionally, the new users could be mentored by the one inducting them, further increasing culture preservation. Keep the thoughts coming.
Yes, I am talking about intended trolling. 'Accidental' trolls can be brought to shape by the community, as they always have. Also, the payment T&Cs should say that the community still has the right to kick them out, refunding the amount if necessary.
I don't think i can truly fork HN. HN is not only the code, it's also pg's leadership and the community that has gathered around it. (if you can give me the code for that, i'd love to fork :P ) Anyone else than pg making this work is much more difficult, as HN already exists and critical mass will be hard to acheive.
The reason I think trolls won't post as much is that while trolling is based on impulse decisions, making a payment is a much more elaborate procedure and I don't think the impulse to troll would usually be enough to overcome that threshold. But even if it does, blocking that account, noting the payment details and blocking further re-registration with them raises the re-registration barrier even higher.
While this may sound scary at first, I suspect it could mature, with people finding the appropriate social norms around this new technology, and slowly integrating into their daily lives. In this sense it could resemble the social network or the mobile phone, where even luddites eventually cave in, as it eventually becomes a no-brainer, benefits greatly outweighing drawbacks.
That said, there is still a long way to go and this technology still has not found a compelling application. The only reason I would consider using it is to be one of the first people to actually figure it out on the ground and potentially find those compelling uses, if they exist.
"Incremental evolution of systems is a known good strategy."
Not always. Evolution keeps multiple branches around and sometimes discards the most prominent one. There is something to be said for admitting failure and starting from scratch rather than continiously patching a non-working solution.
I am sorry, I had very little time to post and did not hedge my claim appropriately. I am glad that others have stepped in and filed the gap.
The issue is that the government increases complexity and barriers to entry and therefore raising the Coase ceiling of how large an enterprise can become before being less efficient than a coalition of smaller rivals.
What most people do not see is that libertarianism is against big corporations as well as big govrnment. In fact bigcos can not exist without government support. Reducing government and allowing the market to work should result in smaller, not larger organizations, a dinosaurs to mammals transition.
What a strange thing for a Greek to read on hacker news. Being in Athens I must say the riots have certainly subsided by now and a semblance of normality is back on the streets, at least until the holidays are out. Other than that, the analysis was pretty good if simplified to fit the size of the article. One thing that does not come out is that the youth is very leftist, very much against privatization and market solutions, perhaps due to the horible way this has gone in the past. Although I personally would hope for a libertarian direction, I am in a very tiny sliver of the population. In all honesty, between state ownership and a capitalism beholden to a small number of powerful families, I am not sure what is worse.
It's hard to tell if greece is a 'last of the mohicans' kind of country where the social fabric is still strong and therefore a lot of 'law and order' policies where the govt cracks down on the people are less tolerated, or if it is a first of a new phase of unrest all over europe and the world. Time will tell I guess.