codex

Not necessarily. NYC introduced medallions because a glut of taxis we're clogging vital infrastructure and nobody could make a profit, thus safety and maintenance were compromised. Capitalism does not produce the optimal outcome for consumers when externalities are not part of the equation.

This is fantastic. Safety in public places will increase and increase over time. I cannot wait.

Surveillance is the new fear of nuclear weapons. In both cases, new technology generates a huge frothy paranoia among the public which does not, in the end, amount to anything.

This is because the public feeds on fear and discounts reassuring information. The net effect of nuclear weapons has been, instead, quite positive--bringing about a cessation of world wars.

Dead at 92. The NSA sure got him good. I'm not sure why it took them 40 years though. Probably to deflect suspicion.

Is there any technology at work here? How is this not a bad faith scam?

This is not "hacking." This is just scamming.

There is a slight whiff of desperation around many things Tesla does. For a while that was a real risk of the company not surviving, and they pulled out all the stops; when marketing and safety were at odds, marketing won. This over-the-top, "jump the shark" touchscreen is excess right out of the 80s. The adaptive air suspension is another example of marketing over common sense.

This is pricelessly self-referential considering how many web people are, themselves, wankers.

It sounds like YC serves as a vehicle to bring deals to YC partners, who make a killing funding the most promising candidates from the YC batch. This has made so much money for YC partners that they still want to continue to pick winners, but they don't want to kill the golden goose, so they withhold their blessings for three weeks. YC companies will still prefer the partners for funding over some random VC, so they still get the deals, but now the relative losers from the YC batch will get more funding from the more clueless VCs.

Given that Snowden has undermined Pax Americana, I find this nomination surprising.

Another fruit fly YC startup with a micro niche too small to dent the universe more than any random fluctuation would. YC does the world a disservice by promoting the cult of the startup and then finding every mom and pop idea that knocks on the door.

It's Tesla that has defined the problem with electric cars as road trip refueling. Most EV dealers offer free loaners for road trips, or you can rent a car. Even vampire loads at airport parking in low temperatures is of higher priority for most drivers. They're misdirecting from the main issue to one that they can solve cheaply.

I'm saying this as someone who owns two electric cars. The infrastructure can be solved eventually, and some cities are looking into it, but even in the suburbs there are problems [2], which is why hydrogen is still out there as an alternative (albeit an immature and inefficient one), but for now, a large portion of the U.S. population cannot buy an EV.

[1] http://www.commerce.wa.gov/Documents/Demand-EVSE-Access-Gara...

[2] http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_24947237/charge-rage-...

Even within suburbs, many people live in apartments, condos, or park on the street or on a driveway outside of a garage.

The most serious issue with electric cars isn't road trips, it's the fact that if you don't own your own home, or live in a dense city with no off street parking, you likely don't have reliable access to a daily recharge overnight. That's probably half the driving population of America. 30 minutes of quick charging is fine every so often, but not every day or even every week.

This is why fuel cells continue to be pushed as a viable alternative--quick, carbonless refueling. The closest equivalent that the EV world can offer is a battery swap station, but that has a host of issues.

Stallman consistently ignores the free market when writing about software freedom. What users want, the free market will provide. If they want customizable software, the market will give it to them. If they only want feature X, the market will give it to them. If they want interop., they will get that too. If they don't care about modifying the source code, well, people won't offer it.

The GPL is not what allows users to get what they need from software or technology. It's the market. As long as you have a free market, with able competitors, you don't need the GPL, and the whole discussion of "free software" is a red-herring. As far as mainstream users are concerned, you don't need the source when you have the dollar.

Stallman's initial experience with closed software was not in a free market, so I can see how he's grown up with a colored view. The world has changed, however, and he has not.

Stallman's original problem was essentially, "I had a broken car once and I couldn't get the part I needed to repair it. That sucked, so all manufacturers should provide everyone with all the information needed make any replacement part, or turn my Beetle into a Porsche."

In today's world that problem really doesn't exist anymore. Software is a mass market product, and the software that is produced already conforms to what people want pretty well. Sure, I'll take cheaper parts for my car, and I love getting something for nothing, but on the list of humanity's problems, non-GPL software is very, very low.

Apple will never, ever assign copyright to the FSF out of fears the code will go GPLv3--or even to support an organization that advocates GPLv3.

The author humblebrags about his fantasticlly productive week set him up for an indulgent weekend and post-weekend. However, a massive string of failures or shock would likely have also led to the same indulgences. Truth is, if any exerted effort or stress will cause you to crave comfort. Humans cannot work at peak all the time.

That said, a journal is a great idea. It's like blogging, only without getting the ego involved.

Snowden just can't stop talking about himself.

Writing is better than typing in many ways. It engages the mind more, while at the same time calming it.

If you are not a superstar, making outlier money is not in the cards for you. Focus on becoming a superstar before focusing on the money. This might require an apprenticeship, either at a big company or a successful startup. Not even most YC companies are successful, so choose carefully.

I can only sleep when I'm extremely tired. I could use a daily nap but I just can't fall asleep; the mind races instead. Any tips?

Allow me to continue, then. Stallman's original problem was essentially, "I had a broken car once and I couldn't get the part I needed to repair it. That sucked, so all manufacturers should provide everyone with all the information needed make any replacement part."

In today's world that problem really doesn't exist anymore. Software is a mass market product, and the software that is produced already conforms to what people want pretty well. Sure, I'll take cheaper parts for my car, but on the list of humanity's problems, non-GPL software is very, very low.

It's a function of the size of the market. When Stallman was programming computers, the number of computers was quite small and it was much more expensive to create software. These days, especially after the PC revolution, creating and modifying software is much cheaper, especially relative to the demand for software, which is much higher.

Stallman consistently ignores the free market when writing about software freedom. What users want, the free market will provide. If they want customizable software, the market will give it to them. If they only want feature X, the market will give it to them. If they want interop., they will get that too. If they don't care about modifying the source code, well, people won't offer it.

The GPL is not what allows users to get what they need from software or technology. It's the market. As long as you have a free market, with able competitors, you don't need the GPL, and the whole discussion of "free software" is a red-herring.

Stallman's initial experience with closed software was not in a free market, so I can see how he's grown up with a colored view.

Most people don't use currency to store value. Their value is stored in stocks (not bonds) retirement plans, real estate, gold. Those instruments have value independent of currency. They do keep some petty cash stored in a bank, virtualized, lent out for others to use.

Microsoft is still milking slow to change enterprises. That is the main story here.

I suspect that paying at the register cuts down on the amount of tips, which makes it hard for a single restaurant to buck the trend. That restaurant would have to raise menu prices to pay for the lost tips, which makes the restaurant less competitive.

I don't have hard information here, but I suspect the number is far lower. Each one of these requests is likely for a very small time period; keeping a single individual under surveillance likely takes a large number of requests.

Furthermore, the vast majority of these requests are subpoenas (161K) which can be issued in divorce proceedings or legal tussles over car accidents (was the driver texting?) among other uses.

They're not committing crimes against the American people. Not one American has been found who has been demonstrably harmed by any NSA program. Without harm, there no criminal act. That said, something can be unlawful without being criminal.

I've always thought of Stripe as a "faster horse" in the world of payments. I expect Google, Apple, or Square will find some way to disrupt credit cards completely and move consumers over to a new method of payment for most transactions. PayPal would also like to do that, but I'm not sure they have it in them. And Bitcoin may well upend them all.

I'd like to see individuals split out. The variance in wealth for a particular individual over time is likely very high in these simulation--much higher than in reality.