kongqiu

Taklamakan Desert. Looks like they're mining something...

Your conclusion is well-founded. The micro side of economics is one part science and one part logic; the macro side is one part logic and one part hand-waving.

It's a judgment call. And many, many of the free market-loving, pro-innovation people on HN judge partnering with Monsanto (and bragging about it) to be the wrong move.

The world is dirty, and there's no perfect company (or perfect people), but most people have red lines some place that they will not cross. Monsanto lies on the far side of the line for many.

Monsanto is an extreme case, and therefore inspires a lot of passion. I'd say the vast majority of people on HN are pro-capitalism and pro-innovation, but have disparate views on business ethics and the efficacy of various regulations. In the eyes of many, Monsanto crosses the line between "good honest competition" and "dangerous and malevolent would-be monopolist."

Also: Way to paint people you disagree with on this issue as "very anti-capitalist, anti-innovation, pro-taxes..."

There's a place in civilized, rational discussion for ranting.

Let's say you're out with two friends discussing the war on drugs, with all kinds of rational, civilized debate on the science, politics, economics, sociology, etc. Suddenly, one friend declares, "Ok, I understand the risks and potential rewards, and I've decided to start dealing coke." Sure, you can try to calmly talk them out of it, and/or you could do some "ranting." Both would be appropriate.

"Hivemind" indeed.

It's an unfortunate sign for everyone that you (and/or Cloudant) wouldn't anticipate this reaction from going into business with Monsanto.

As to the "content-free" claim, sometimes a rant is an appropriate reaction. If some YC company partnered with Al Qaida, would we really need to spell out all the heinous things AQ has done before writing, "F- that!"?!?

EDIT: And to your "If the rule is, if x sells something to Monsanto, fuck x, then what you're saying is fuck the entire corporate world, because I'm sure Monsanto buys Apple computers and Chevrolets and Clorox too. It's sort of ridiculous to hold Cloudant to a standard that essentially zero other companies meet."

-- It's one thing if Monsanto buys iPhones and Macs from Apple; that would represent ~.0001% of Apple's overall business. It's another thing if Monsanto is responsible for a significant % of your revenue.

(Of course, Cloudant's deal with Monsanto could represent only 2% of Cloudant's total revenue; but since it's a startup, the initial reaction people will have is that it's significantly higher than that.)

This raises a real dilemma: at what point does a company or organization cross the line from "not my cup of tea" to "ethically ambiguous" to "pure evil"?

What if Cloudant were to power analytics for Trader Joe's?

Goldman Sachs?

Halliburton?

The Sinaloa Cartel?

Certainly there's a line...

Wow. I might actually buy this magazine from a newsstand. Way to differentiate!

Any specifics as to the content or genre of the movie? (Many companies wouldn't want to be associated with certain kinds of content.)

How large (as % of the billboard) are the picture, logo, or text?

DuckDuckGo! I'd say the search results are better/less cluttered about 60% of the time, and google or bing are only a !bang away...

Sometimes I think every child that's born should receive not only a Social Security Number, but a trust, a holding corporation, and a political action committee in his/her name.

The political and legal playing field has always been tilted in one way or another, but it keeps getting more and more extreme.

Basically, it's:

1. Go to the "Profile Matches" offer tab

2. View source; the users' ids are right there

3. Look up those users' profiles directly (e.g., /profile/view?id=xyxyxyxy

Play is so important, but since it's difficult to measure the value, it gets down-played as "non-productive." While it's obvious when someone is "over-playing," it's just as important to identify when you're "under-playing"...

Some of my biggest breakthroughs on work-related projects have come to me as I've been hiking, taking in a museum with my wife, or pushing my daughter on a swingset.

Exactly. This would intimidate my aunt; Hipmunk would amaze her.

Any legal way to hack this by, say, something along the lines of "Glassdoor for founders/VCs/etc."?

Because social status (and the perceived security of that status) is very real and hugely important to a large % of people. Difficult to quantify, but absolutely a major driving force in real life. We all compare ourselves (to some extent) to those around us, no matter if we're working at McDonald's or as an executive at MegaCorp.

Can you recommend any good books or papers on this phenomenon?

Wow.

Kubrick had worked quite a while on "Aryan Papers," even casting the female lead: http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/jan/03/kubrick-holocaust...

Going to share this with my 8-year-old!

Maybe this is the sort of thing Color would be good for -- monitoring what changes within a 100 foot radius of an office building, scanning faces for lawyers, accountants, M&A people, etc. This the stock market may actually pay for!

Really cool idea to open this data up to the masses.

A few ideas:

Maybe you could do some sort of "introduction" video or tutorial so that a new visitor can tell what the site is about, use cases, where to find help, etc.

Could you maybe create a master list of "issue" keywords and then scrape the legislative text for these keywords, and then use this to tag each bill? Tags would help with discovery.

*Similarly, scraping the data for Legislator names would also be interesting.

The caveats actually make me happy that Dropbox is out there, not locked in to any particular device.

That said, if this were to force Dropbox to drop their prices, I wouldn't be unhappy...

If it is/was that obvious, care to share any other 'obvious' practices that may not be common knowledge?

Good to see Henry Kissinger on HN! :)

That is good to know; thank you for sharing this.

The spike I saw was across many different keywords and content areas, but only lasted one day.

Seconded. BuySellAds are not really the same as AdSense, but it may be worth checking out if you don't want to follow Patrick's advice...

So if I'm BigContractor X or Union Y, I have a few issues I really care about and have the willingness to spend money to influence legislators. Open data does not concern me.

But since the the beneficiaries of "open data" are widely dispersed, who lobbies on behalf of greater transparency? Sounds like a startup opportunity!

Mobile and good web programing will only grow in importance. Maybe look into specific problems you'd like to solve or are inspired by, and work backwards from there as to "what would it take for me to do this"?

Some people would only live on the coasts. If this isn't you (and it isn't me), you can have a much lower cost lifestyle in "flyover country." Austin will be more expensive than the rest of Texas, but for good reason. And it's still cheap compared to the coasts.

Excellent point; I hadn't thought of that, and don't recall hearing it discussed in any of the "educational quality" debates.