87 karma · joined March 17, 2010
Hoping that it makes it easier for folks to create native-like apps, especially games.
http://www.filmbreak.com/projects/framed-baby-photos
It's like a basketball player who makes 100 free throws in a row, misses a couple, and people wonder what the hell happened to him/her.
It reminds me of the story about thousands of people flipping coins. Out of those thousands of people, some of them are going to flip a long string of heads. Does that mean that those people are "good" at flipping heads? Is someone who flips a string of tails "bad" at flipping heads?
If it's good-looking and entertaining, I don't see how it can also be a disaster. My impression is that the writer is using "disaster" and "not factually accurate" interchangeably.
I don't think that's true.
My understanding is that HDCP encryption has been around for as long as HDMI has been around. For example, Blu-ray discs/players use HDCP to encrypt their content.
It seems strange that these DVR boxes don't support HDCP. Maybe some of the heat should be directed towards DirecTV for using such non-compliant hardware.
Thing is, this has been done, and the results probably aren't what you want to hear. Hollywood actually produces fewer family and broad-appeal genre films than the market can handle. (Check out this book: http://www.amazon.com/Hollywood-Economics-Uncertainty-Routle... )
The reason for this mismatch between what the market can handle vs. what actually gets made is that Hollywood insiders actually do want to make dramas aimed at adults, which have a much smaller market than, say, animated kids' movies.
>What if I hate the place and want to move away from it? Then a high demand for housing would play in my favor.
You'd still have to sell your house, which I've heard is rarely easy. There is time/money cost associated with selling the house (including repairs, real estate agents, etc.).
>What if I move to another city? Then it’d be good if I could rent it out easily, ideally making a profit with it or at least not losing money.
You'd still have to manage the rental property or pay someone to do that. This is another time/money cost.
> What if prices go down dramatically? Then I’d be stuck with the place, since I’d lose money by selling it. So I need to really like the place, or be able to make enough money by renting it to others.
You also have to be able to absorb any catastrophes to your financial situation. If you all-of-a-sudden couldn't afford your mortgage, you're still on the hook for it. If you were renting, you could just move somewhere cheaper (less the costs of the move).
I didn't see maintenance/repairs factored into the cost of buying a home. If the water heater dies, that's going to be a major expense. Same with paint jobs, pipe repairs, acts of god, etc. Might be worth considering what these factors would do to the math.
Finally, there's the opportunity cost. If you put a 60€ (20%) down payment on €300k, that money is now tied up in your house. If you had rented, you could have put that money towards another type of investment that could potentially earn you more money or at least be more liquid.
The implication in this article is that you either think like an engineer or you think like... I don't know, someone who studied liberal arts? I think this is a false dichotomy. Engineers can understand customers just as well as someone who studied film/anthropology/politics/whatever.
From the DeCal website: "DeCal is a student-run democratic education program at the UC Berkeley - here, students create and facilitate their own classes on a variety of (often unorthodox) subjects."
In that respect, I think Michael Fleisher's background is a good indicator that his piece has a bias, but pointing it out doesn't necessarily negate what he wrote.
I don't mean to say he didn't work hard or doesn't deserve what he's earned, but discipline and hard work don't generally lead to billions of dollars like they did in his case. It seems more likely to me that luck played a significant role in his (extreme) success, and determining the influence of his being right compared to the influence of his being lucky is probably impossible.
For example, even when Winston begins to realize that he's being fed B.S. information by the government, the book he reads for "real" information is also (probably) filled with lies. I find this point to be especially poignant today as some niche alternative news outlets (such as conspiracy theory web sites) are as inaccurate as the outlets they seek to criticize.