hnnewguy

On what planet is an IPO the finish line?

Passion is the starting point to becoming exceptional.

So quickly we forget that it wasn't long ago what were essentially "shitty photo-sharing apps", and the hype behind them, crashed the financial system.

Financial innovation played a major role in creating the wealthiest global society in world history. And you are lucky enough to be living in it.

>Queue all the apologist remarks confusing the speed of things happening with actual wealth being generated

If "financal innovation", to you, is encompassed by HFT, you are probably the one confused.

Apparently you don't, because you aren't really buying anything. You're licensing it. You don't own a thing in your Amazon library. They can, and have, taken books "back" based on user-agreement violations.

Yes, it's convenient for you to have all your books, synced, in one place. But there are negative implications of having all that information controlled.

>if you're not strict to spritesheets, you get bigger chances of stuff not being delivered, but you also get bigger chances of stuff being brilliant.

This sort of thing sounds like "creative genius" wishful thinking, but is completely unsubstantiated.

Air travel in the US is hardly a lucrative business. It's a tough racket:

"Domestic passenger airline operations lost $10 billion from 1979 to 1989, made profits of $5 billion in the 1990s and lost $54 billion from 2000 to 2009. To put these numbers in context, at the end of 2009, the entire book value of U.S. passenger carriers’ assets was about $163 billion and the book value of shareholder equity was $10 billion. Even at the end of 2000, after six consecutive profitable years, their assets were $159 billion and shareholder equity was $40 billion."

http://freakonomics.com/2011/06/24/why-do-airlines-always-lo...

Sometimes I get the impression that simply getting funding is the goal and symbol that you've "made it"; a viable business is secondary.

Huh? Canada's debt-to-GDP is as bad as the US.

The CC companies have full control over the transactions. They can stop and/or reverse charges. As far as the consumer is concerned, there is very little risk of fraud.

It's an idea, not an iron-clad rule, that perhaps "incompetence" isn't as rampant as so many people suggest.

Operative word worked. This is exactly what the article says: "They always seem to be elsewhere. For everyone."

Yes, yes and yes.

Until there is legal precedent, if they want into your phone and you don't provide them access, you'll be in trouble. Any "cleverness" regarding a security code will likely make it worse.

Pretty much everything you mention in this paragraph is covered by accounting rules a student would learn in year 1. Cash flow isn't profitability. Spending on assets is capitalized, and they depreciate according to rules, not what you "may want" to do.

Yes, there is always some leeway to play fast and loose with accounting, and companies are always trying "adjust" earnings to suit to their business model. 4 times out of 5, it's horsecrap. That's why we have GAAP.

This is what scares me about the permanence of internet commentary, and why I laugh when people say, "use your real name!"

After 10, 20, 30 years of commenting around the internet, it's likely you can paint any picture of me you'd like.

Why not prime? This is non-dischargeable debt, what is the risk to the lender? It's absurd.

Not a single person here has brought up Stephen Harper, except you. It sounds like you're itching for a fight.

The point of the "op-ed" (which is, by definition, an opinion piece) is to raise awareness that our public representatives have issues with the legislation, and hopefully move the debate into the public sphere. I don't see anything wrong with that.

Now, whether this deserves to have made it onto the front page of HN, that's debatable.

Have you been in a bubble the past few years?

It is now my default position to expect the government to "make the case" that they require expanded powers to spy domestically. Those are my standards.

What does it have to do with people being assholes? It's a business trying to sell their services.

But I agree, it happens to me, as a man, all the time, regardless of what i tell them in advance. I don't think anything of it.

"The government has failed to make the case for the new powers it seeks."

"The government has failed to give a single example of how the amendments it seeks in Bill C-51 would be used."

"The government has refused calls for more oversight of our national-security apparatus"

"It would provide new powers that are frightening to many people."

"We will have had only three days to debate this important bill."

Good enough for me.

I'm not dismissing anything. They are separate issues.

>Even if you freely decide to leave twitter due to experiencing trauma you will likely still have that scarring for a long time.

I agree, you might. It's terrible.

And even after the abuse perpetrator is banned from Twitter, those scars remain. The ban itself doesn't solve that problem. That's why they are separate issues.

The point of contention is the mentality that driving a few innocent people off Twitter is okay in the name protecting other innocent people's ability to use the system. You're just shifting the harm around, and aren't even affecting the real problems. The bullying will, in all likelihood, continue (especially if these are real, determined, sociopathic trolls), and you have more, self-inflicted, victims.

Anyway, getting a bit far down this rabbit hole.

There's no justification for online bullying, but in one case the person is able to make a choice as to whether using Twitter is a positive or negative experience for them, and decide if they want to continue to use it. In the case of the false positive ban, they do not.

Now, I'm sure your argument would be, "Why should some internet bullies dictate whether I get to enjoy my Twitter experience?" And I wholeheartedly agree with that. They shouldn't. Why should those same bullies dictate my experience on Twitter by forcing a policy that gets me banned as a false positive?

This idea that "a few false positives are fine" is such an easy position to take, until you're one of the false positives.

>People can live without twitter and not suffer a lower quality of life.

That's precisely what I'm saying.

How is this outcome any different than telling people who have been abused on Twitter to just stop using the service altogether?

In either case, an innocent party is prevented from using Twitter. How is one "more fair"?

It isn't a justification; it's an explanation.

Because, I agree: if there wasn't such a societal emphasis on material goods (ie the Benz), there would be less embezzlement.

My regular pizza company is completely painless to order from, both on the phone or online. They know my address, don't need my credit card number because I pay via credit card at the door, and they even have my order history. This is 2015. Maybe you need a new pizza company?

What you've written I agree with, but it's a long way off from the OP's conspiracy. Cars have been around a long time, so the affinity is natural result all that history.

It will change. I'm also a "car guy". I recently entered into four-year lease on a new vehicle, and on the drive home I told my significant other it's probable that this will be the last ICE we ever buy (and perhaps the last car that we actually drive off the lot ourselves). It's funny to think about.

I feel the same. Of course I'm not an expert, but it seems like many of the issues he lists in the opening are things that can be overcome with improvements in technology (and could have been arguments against batteries or even gasoline at points in history).

Meanwhile, the engineers at Toyota are actually trying to make this work:

http://www.toyota-global.com/innovation/environmental_techno...

I realize it's your opinion, but...really?

HBO has a massive catalog of brilliant shows[1]. Netflix isn't even on the same planet when it comes to original content (but I hope they get there, better for all of us).

[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_programs_broadcast_by_H...