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fiesycalon Flappy Bird is proof that no one knows what the audience wants

I feel like you're saying if indie, AAA knew the lottery numbers for next week they would have bought a ticket. Which of course they would have. But I don't see this game as something that is repeatable. It seems literally like winning the lottery, whether or not you can get a simple game in the app store to be such a success.

So I don't see the value in saying that nobody knew. In the same way saying someone didn't know next weeks lottery numbers doesn't make them incompetent or the person who won the lottery a genius (or have some special insight).

fiesycalon The college-for-all model isn't working

Yea I'd'd agree that trades jobs/technicians are probably experiencing a slight shortage due to the reasons you said. In Australia trades people can easily clear 100k.

fiesycalon The college-for-all model isn't working

Agreed the corn would be a shortage. But do you think there is a current shortage in STEM fields? A lot of people don't. http://spectrum.ieee.org/at-work/education/the-stem-crisis-i...

fiesycalon The college-for-all model isn't working

What I'm saying is if you can't find employees at the current wage you're paying and increasing the wage means the employee is no longer worth it than you have the right amount of employees and there is no shortage. Companies aren't entitled to employees or entitled to be in business. Just because you can't afford something doesn't mean there is a shortage. But companies who are in this situation complain that there is a shortage when really they just can't afford the employees. All I meant was that I was annoyed at the constant talk of 'shortages'.

fiesycalon The college-for-all model isn't working

The controversial opinion is that despite the 'shortage' (http://spectrum.ieee.org/at-work/education/the-stem-crisis-i... don't increase their pay rates substantially and instead complain that there's no one to hire.

fiesycalon The college-for-all model isn't working

Is it a skills shortage or a won't-pay-market-value shortage? If more MBA's and the like start choosing silicon valley will Wall Street cry shortage or will they just raise the rates of pay and bonuses? If someone making 100k a year couldn't find a helicopter to buy they would be laughed out of the room if they suggested it was due to a shortage of helicopters rather then them not having enough money to buy. But companies who have every incentive to keep wages down are listened to and believed whenever they proclaim that there is a skills shortage, rather than people questioning whether they're paying enough.

fiesycalon The first Bitcoin post on HN

Bitpay is when the customer pays in bitcoin. But to get bitcoin you still need to exchange for USD somewhere. And that's where the cost of exchange risk comes in.

fiesycalon The first Bitcoin post on HN

Don't forget to include the fee's from an unstable method of exchange (bitcoin) depreciating or appreciating between the times you exchange it for USD.

fiesycalon The first Bitcoin post on HN

There may be specific examples (HDTV) where waiting means your money buys more, but overall the more you wait the less your money is worth in the economy due to inflation. Technology making products cheaper is not an example of deflation. Inflation and deflation pertain only to currency not products.

If however you hold your currency and everyday its worth more, besides the bare essentials there is barely an incentive to spend it. Also there is no guarantee that the HDTV will become cheaper, however it is guaranteed that a deflationary currency will gain value the more you hold on to it.

fiesycalon What It's Like to Fail

The dot-com bubble was late 90s very early 2000s. The established dates of birth for the baby boomer generation are from 1946-1964. In the year 2000 this puts the age range of the baby boomers from 36-54 years old. That means none of the baby boomers were retirement age. So I'm not sure how your explanation of them retiring is correct?

fiesycalon JFK’s teen mistress addresses relationship in memoir (2012)

Of course there's a difference. But in the case of morals who gets to decide? How do we know who is 'colour-blind' so to speak?

NB I'm not disagreeing necessarily with your assessment that it was an abuse of power. I'm just interested in your reasoning.

fiesycalon JFK’s teen mistress addresses relationship in memoir (2012)

I'm interested to hear your reasoning for why it counts. Also at what point (age differential, position differential, gender differential) is it no longer unfair or immoral and why. Could we not argue that any sort of imbalance in a relationship makes it 'abuse'. If that's the case almost al social and commercial contracts are some sort of abuse of power.

fiesycalon How Technology Is Destroying Jobs

Honest question which companies? Which companies that currently pay workers minimum wage are able to move overseas? Mcdonalds, Walmart etc cannot move their service jobs overseas.

fiesycalon How Computer-Hacking Laws Make You a Criminal

Because you shouldn't be accessing an unauthorised system? If someone unlawfully entered your house shouldn't they be punished for doing that not only if they take something?

fiesycalon Google opens up on seven years of its data center history

The argument is that the cost of extracting the energy and transforming it into a usable source does not match the cost it does to the environment once that energy is used. That's what the carbon tax is for. It's for the carbon (pollutants) you produce not for the energy you use. Hence why it's called a carbon tax and not an energy tax.

fiesycalon Please Don’t Watch NBC Tonight. Or Any Night

How can you say the model no longer works? The model just doesn't fit your view. There's no requirement to provide live streaming online. In any case they do have online streaming if you have a cable subscription, I've heard it could be a better service but it's there. The only people complaining about this are tech savvy, and if they were to get free viewing online with just some ads how many of those people would use some form of ad-block? How is that profitable for NBC? People act like they are entitled to view the Olympics for free when they're not. Even the British don't get to watch online for free as they all pay taxes to BBC.

fiesycalon Art’s Sale Value? Zero. The Tax Bill? $29 Million.

Your analogy wasn't very clear. What I'm saying is if they have no way of making money off it what taxes do they owe? If you buy shares in a company that goes bust but you still have the paper should you pay taxes on that if the IRS decides its worth something?

fiesycalon Art’s Sale Value? Zero. The Tax Bill? $29 Million.

The piece is on loan to the museum but they aren't making any money from the loan. They also can't sell it as the previous poster said because it's illegal. Why should they pay tax on something that wont provide monetary benefit unless it is done through illegal means?

fiesycalon Are we entering another bubble?

I agree with your point but I think using Ashton Kutcher as your example was misplaced. Ashton Kutcher has been investing for a while now and he also started a Biomedical Engineering degree before dropping out^, so I think his fundamental grasp of technology would be decent.

^http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashton_Kutcher#Early_life

fiesycalon 25 Startup Ideas for 2012

How is superannuation (I'm assuming you mean the Australian version) a Ponzi scheme? People have to put their own money into Super plus employers make a mandatory contribution. Super is different to retirement benefits (which are tax payer funded) and really the only thing saving the system from collapse.

fiesycalon Alexis Ohanian and Dan Kaminsky will address Congress on Jan 18th

I'm just curious how bankers and the like value industries. Do they value them by the total sum of all company valuations, total sum of all company revenues or total sum of all company profits? Or something entirely different? If anyone in the industry knows could you enlighten me?

fiesycalon Apple design chief Jonathan Ive awarded knighthood

I'm fairly sure you have to either have British citizenship or citizenship in one of the Commonwealth nations to be knighted. Otherwise you receive an honorary knighthood. Also some Commonwealth nations don't allow their citizens to receive honours, for example Canada.

fiesycalon Kim Jong Il's likely successor

Something tells me the North Korean Generals aren't about to take orders from a 20 year old.

fiesycalon College has been oversold

Are you suggesting an engineering degree or computer science degree etc. don't teach critical thinking and problem solving skills? I'd concede that better communication skills should be taught.

fiesycalon Occupy George

You can't just blame Wall Street for everything. I never suggested consumers were more responsible I just said that heaping 100% of the blame on Wall Street is ridiculous. Yes consumer debt was on the rise before the financial crisis: http://www.csa.com/discoveryguides/debt/review.pdf

You say Banks, which part of the Banks? You can't lump the whole Banking system into one group and blame it all. Also the top 1% encompasses much more than these 'greed fuelled' bankers on Wall Street.

fiesycalon Occupy George

"Through the repayments announced Wednesday, as well as dividends and interest, taxpayers have recovered about $244 billion of the $245 billion in TARP funds disbursed to banks, the Treasury said. The Treasury currently estimates that bank programs within TARP will ultimately provide a lifetime profit of nearly $20 billion to taxpayers."

Blame the government for that, not Wall Street. Also how much of Apple's 70 billion or so in cash flows through to the economy?

fiesycalon Occupy George

You should read this http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870426150457620...

99% of TARP has been repaid already. That's more than you can say about regular people paying back their credit card debts due to limitless spending.

fiesycalon Flash Game Simulates Living on $9/hr.

This game seems loaded as in the message behind it. That's fine but I think its slightly misleading. I paid off registration but later I still got charged 1.5k for my car not being registered. Also is it me or for the maths question no matter what you choose does it say you got it wrong? Despite having a college degree.