jwallaceparker

"The Last Lecture" is a very inspiring book.

I'm talking about "commercials" - not previews.

I love movie previews.

Some theaters I go to play commercials (i.e. ads for products) before the movie previews.

>> I hope that the programs they produce will be free of advertising.

Agreed. They should be, right?

Nothing annoys me more than paying for a movie ticket and sitting through 10 minutes of commercials before a film.*

I would hope after the customer backlash over the pricing change that Netflix will be smart enough to stay away from commercials.

* Drivers who camp out in the left lane annoy me slightly more. "Stay right except to pass."

>> Look no further than the War on Drugs. It's been clear for decades that by every objective measure it's a (barbaric, costly) accelerant for exactly the kinds of social problems it was conceived to fight. But it's still deeply unpopular to say that.

I think you're right about the War on Drugs being a failure but wrong about this being an unpopular viewpoint.

A Zogby poll referenced here shows 76% of respondents think the War on Drugs is a failure: http://civilliberty.about.com/od/drugpolicy/p/War-on-Drugs-F...

Dive into Python

http://www.diveintopython.net/

>> This implicitly assigns recipients a time limit, because responding too late would be considered rude. If you're receiving 500+ emails a day that expect a prompt response, you don't stand a chance.

This issue is addressed with a standard "Out of Office" response.

The difference here is that Dave is making everyone who emailed him wait until some future date to re-send any non-urgent message.

It significantly reduces the workload for Dave but increases the workload for others.

I'd be curious to hear the reaction of people who emailed him and had to wait to re-send their message.

>> Can't we admit that monopolies are basically a myth? Why do people keep bringing them up as if there's numerous examples of monopoly abuse or monopoly-induced misery.

Exactly. The only monopolies that have ever existed in history are ones given monopoly privilege by government force.

>> Who are those people? Politicians? (serious question)

Prisons and drug producers/dealers use lobbies and politicians to keep drugs illegal.

The fact that they're illegal is the biggest factor effecting their high price.

> Unregulated markets do lead to monopoly.

Can you give an example of a company that achieved and maintained monopoly control of a free market?

> With monopoly comes political power and this leads to crony capitalism.

I think it's actually the opposite: monopoly is born out of crony capitalism and political power.

The only monopolies I'm aware of (railroad, telecom, power) are government granted monopolies.

Anyway, I'd be curious if there are any free market monopolies because I've never heard of any.

>> On the otherhand, there are now a million indie labels, and lots of success stories from people using the internet.

Exactly. As long as there is free competition among labels (i.e. music producers) there will be continually lower prices (i.e. better contracts) for musicians.

And the "million indie labels" have brought much more competition.

I would say overall it is a great time to be a recording artist.

>> Neither; it's capitalism as usual.

Can you elaborate? I don't understand what you're trying to say.

>> If you think Taleb's idea to limit bonuses is bad, then say so. But don't attack an argument he didn't make.

Yes, I think any arbitrary interventions like 'limit bonuses' are not effective and costly. Banks will find loopholes and taxpayers have to pay for the new regulatory staff that enforce the regulations.

The only 'regulation' that is needed is the elegant self-regulation of a free, fair market: broke businesses fail.

I'm not talking about permitting fraud. People who commit fraud should go to jail.

Wow. It's pretty clear that any comment on Hacker News that advocates free markets will get down voted.

Why is this?

Do people assume we are Republicans?

I am not a Republican.

I am not a fan of Fox News.

I am a fan of fairness, and after exhaustive study of economics it seems plain to me that the road to fairness is through free markets.

>> what do you do to shift towards a reality with less corruption and power imbalance?

Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Governments have absolute power. Businesses don't.

Governments have the ability to point their guns at the populace and say, "You have to pay for these failing businesses or some very bad things will happen."

Stop mixing government with business.

>> the government should either make sure companies don't get "too big to fail"

Exactly. And the best way to do that? Never bail them out.

>> I'm sorry to be so glib, but if the answer isn't as simple as "end bonuses", it also isn't as simple as "just let the banks fail".

But there is a "simple" difference between philosophies of how to address corruption in financial markets.

>> And if tens of thousands of people lose their jobs because the corporate credit markets freeze and otherwise-profitable companies can't fund their day-to-day operations

There is no way to avoid the day of reckoning.

Don't pretend that any crises that were avoided in 2008 won't be that much larger when they eventually materialize.

>> In the third paragraph, he says it's impossible for a government to promise not to bail out banks.

I read the article.

The solution is still to not bail out corrupt and reckless private institutions.

This idea should not be obscured by concerns about what is politically viable.

I'm not talking about what is politically viable. I'm talking about right versus wrong.

>> That's a very naive perspective.

It's still the correct solution.

The correct solution is to let corrupt and reckless institutions fail.

Just because the deck is stacked against the actual implementation of the correct solution because of 'big money families' and so on doesn't nullify the correctness of the solution.

>> I HAVE a solution for the problem of bankers who take risks that threaten the general public: Eliminate bonuses.

I'm sorry but that's not the solution.

The solution is for the government to stop bailing out private institutions, regardless of whether they are deemed "too big to fail."

There are some incredibly elegant natural laws built into the fabric of the universe, one of which is expressed through economic systems in which corrupt, reckless institutions are eliminated because they go broke.

The only way corrupt, reckless institutions are allowed to persist are when they are propped up by taxpayer money.

We explicitly don't support IE on our heavy JavaScript web app.

Users get an alert saying, "Use Firefox or Chrome. If you want to use IE and are upset that you can't, let us know."

Nobody has said anything about it.

I think so much depends on your audience. Our audience is writers using their own computer. They're happy to use Firefox and Chrome.

I only see IE6 support as a problem for people on corporate machines who don't control their own software.

Sounds interesting. But also a bit risky compared to a credit card, which to me isn't a hassle to use.

And does it offer reward points?

If not I'll stick with plastic.

This has everything to do with the audience of a particular site.

Our small business portfolio websites see an IE share of above 75%.

Our "Web 2.0" web-app sites see shares as low as 9%.

When we started developing our web-app 18 months ago we decided from the outset not to support IE. It's just too much of a headache for a heavy JavaScript site.

We develop to Chrome and Firefox. This basically gives us Safari and Opera, too.

Looks pretty cool. I've signed up and I'll give it a look.

For me, it's going to be tough for any tool to replace Wunderlist, which has native app support (Mac/iPad/iPhone) and is free and elegant.

Unfortunately for IE users the development costs of supporting IE with a rich web application are very high.

It looks like the goal of the swap was to have a spartan, lightweight, cool (temperature) workspace.

It seems like a MacBook Air accomplishes this better than iPad, stand and keyboard.

The only difference I can grok from the article is that the MacBook Air is somehow more fragile. But is it?

Agree.

To me the biggest hurdle in programming is not the programming itself but the sys-admin effort to setup a development environment.

Interesting that he uses Python to teach the examples. Python is what I learned first.

Does anyone have an opinion on whether Ruby or another language is better suited for teaching basic programming concepts?

OMG. It looks like a housemate had some fun with my account last night. Ugh.

Clearly there is a lot to admire in the life and careers of both men. I don't think this is an either-or situation.