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dbr

19 karma · joined October 27, 2008

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dbr··on Ask HN: Comment here about whatever you're passionate about at the moment
Go for it! I experimented with adding cheap drink powders like lemonade and coconut to mine and loved it! Make sure the system and connections can handle the pressure you're setting!
dbr··on Free electronics circuit diagrams
http://www.opencircuits.com/ is another great circuits website.
dbr··on StackOverflow for Startups
Isn't it a waste of money to run AdWords that point to your own site? Or is something else going on here? http://imgur.com/0RaUa.png

This is with the pointer over the banner at the top.

dbr··on Ask HN: Review my app: tweetrad.io
"BreakingNews is excited to tell everyone that At least 17 people killed, 45 others injured after a passenger train collides with a freight train near Pakistan's Karachi."
dbr··on Ask HN: Please review our site: www.tempimages.com
Put the www.tempimages.com/ outside the red box.

Make it so when I select images it says something so I know it is responsive. I kept on selecting the same image, then thinking... well it still says 0/50 maybe it didn't work. So now there are 3 of the same image.

Otherwise, I like it.

dbr··on Mike Rowe: Dirty jobs have better incentive structures
He is referring to one specific job featured on Dirty Jobs that he believes has a better incentive structure (results instead of hours).

The title is a little off because it isn't about dirty jobs having better incentive structures, but rather an incentive structure which he explains is fair and rewarding to everyone involved and additionally resistant to racism, sexism, and other discrimination.

dbr··on How To Live (Comfortably) on $36 A Month For Food
My favorite thing to add to rice is curry powder. Gives the rice a completely new flavor. If you have peanuts add those, too.
dbr··on Sobe, the anti-Switch?
"We were trying to go after what [SOBE] had done because we were seeing the success they had with that young market," says Hargis, now the company's CEO."

http://www.allbusiness.com/retail-trade/eating-drinking-plac...

dbr··on Online Brokerage Zecco Pretends To Give Away Millions, Panics When People Start Spending
If customers took the loss when stocks were traded with the money, did they also take the gains?

It would be pretty bad if Zecco stuck customers with the loses from losing trades, but took the gains from the profitable trades.

dbr··on Open letter to Blackboard: $1M to charity if you drop patent litigation
I think that must factor into their decision. Unfortunately, public opinion probably won't have much of a sway on their decision. Or rather, the public won't have an opinion. I could be wrong, but I imagine most of the money they make comes from a relatively small amount of customers buying for big school districts and universities, who certainly have other metrics than whether or not the company enforces patents it owns. In this case it seems they are doing what is best for shareholders, which is to hold and enforce the patents they own (regardless of if they really should have these patents or not, they were awarded them). It comes down to if the long-term decision to oust competitors pays off more than the short-term decision to lose some amount of paying customers.

A sad fact is that the average Joe doesn't really care enough to be aware of these patent issues.

*I added one to many 'not' in my last comment.

dbr··on Open letter to Blackboard: $1M to charity if you drop patent litigation
They are a publicly traded company and litigating the issue makes business sense for them. For Blackboard to not sue their competitors for infringing on patents they own would not be against stockholder interest.
dbr··on Open letter to Blackboard: $1M to charity if you drop patent litigation
While I agree that the patent is ridiculous in what it claims is an original idea, let's try to fix the patent system which awarded the patent, instead of blaming Blackboard for bad behavior.

After all, if Blackboard didn't get the patent first, some other company would, and Blackboard would be the one infringing.

All of these problems would go away if patents were awarded properly.

dbr··on Open letter to Blackboard: $1M to charity if you drop patent litigation
I know it isn't going to be popular to say that Blackboard is not a bad company for getting these patents and suing others for infringement. The truth is, the patent system is what mandates Blackboard's behavior. If Blackboard didn't get the overbearing patent when they could, another company would, and Blackboard would be the ones being sued for infringement right now. So blame the patent system and lobby to change it instead of getting mad at Blackboard.

By the way, my school is switching from Blackboard to ANGEL (open source) to save money.

dbr··on Ask HN: What are the best Arduino starter projects?
Something simple. For my first project, I bought a ultrasonic sensor and a bar graph led and output the distance sensed on it. Focus on getting accustomed to the hardware you're working with before you try too challenging.
dbr··on Stanford is offering some of its most popular engineering classes for free
Check out:

http://www.ocwconsortium.org/use/use-dynamic.html

My Favorites:

http://webcast.berkeley.edu/courses.php

http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/web/home/home/index.htm