rscale

Wine is a vivid reminder that we're not not just creating value, we're creating perceived value.

There are countless products that earn higher margins (and loyalty) because customers like the story, the design or some other aspect of the product or service that doesn't really help the customer. But these things matter.

At the end of the day, we're not perfectly rational robots. We're people.

I had a PGP key available on my personal website and on the MIT key server from 1994 through 2008. I also had Mutt configured to handle PGP essentially automatically.

I killed it because in all that time, I received no encrypted messages. The only value I received was that it verified the signatures on a few mailing list posts.

I love the idea of ubiquitous public key encryption, but I think it just has a few too many moving pieces to get traction in it's current incarnation.

Personally, I don't want Nest; I'd prefer coherent locally accessible APIs for monitoring and control.

We'd see a lot less abusive behavior from startups if investors went to zero when it happened.

As it stands, $800k is a line item equal to only 2% of the money Path has raised. As such, I doubt that anybody who invested in it cares or views this as anything other than a triviality that a few nerds will care about.

The entire episode in question is available online here: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/retirement-gamble/

It delves into a few issues worth understanding beyond fees, such as the difference between a typical Series 7 advisor and an RIA.

Perhaps it's not. But it's definitely what most seemed to be doing.

The vast majority of the public indoor e-cig smokers I've run into seemed to be doing it so they could look like they're smoking and then get indignant that it's not a cigarette

I was wrong. I thought Yahoo adjusted for dividends incompletely but they appear to handle them fully.

My apologies for the confusion.

Using the adjusted close assumes that you put your dividend receipts into a mattress so it's still slightly low, but I doubt that's more than .1% or .2% for a typical portfolio over a moderate timeframe.

I wholeheartedly agree with you that it's dangerous to bet your retirement on a level of return that many won't achieve.

The standard figures are definitely optimistic, but when you check your returns make sure to include dividends reinvested. In recent years, they're good for about 2%/yr if you buy something like the S&P 500.

I find it somewhat baffling how many financial tools ignore the effects of dividends when calculating returns.

The following article might provide some insight into the company's response: http://pandodaily.com/2012/10/24/travis-shrugged/

I run Postgres on ZFS, and simply limit the amount of memory dedicated to the ARC.

This seems like it would be begging for a class-action lawsuit.

That said, I've half-joked that probability of receiving my miner is probably about 0.98^(USDBTC).

They could say "We have hired matasano security to help us investigate the breach."

Sadly, no. I got rid of my copy long ago, and I didn't buy it on Amazon. I want to say the title used the word 'Awesome', but I'm not even sure about that.

If you only get one book on negotiation, get Getting to Yes. If you get two books, get Bargaining for Advantage as well.

Bargaining for advantage differs from Getting to Yes in that it's more of a tactical guide, and BFA's advice works not only in collaborative situations, but also in adversarial zero-sum negotiations.

I truly understood the value of negotiation when I walked out of a happy vendor's boardroom having just cut my expenses by over $60,000 using a couple emails, a phone call, and a two-hour meeting.

Yes. This is incredibly accurate. The spinning "HOT" gif might actually be executed a little too well for the 90s.

The professional web was bad back then, but usually in slightly different ways. For instance, there were a few years where it was incredibly common to have a splash page that did nothing but show a logo (and take 45 seconds to load). Splash pages became a bit of a trend in part because there was an influential (but terrible) web design book that recommended making your user see a completely useless page before letting them get to actual content.

It was like any new technology. People played with it and used it in stupid ways while they figured out how to use it. Some people learned faster than others.

I became concerned for LevelUp when I saw this graphic in a recent marketing email: http://i.imgur.com/QC0PEDk.png

Here's to hoping it all ends well for them.

Thanks for posting this. It inspired me to figure out how to get my BitCoins out of Coinbase and into my own wallet.

I've used MongoDB enough to know that I don't want my money to be held by MongoDB.

Let's remember: she never asked for him to get fired. And I don't think that was a reasonably foreseeable outcome of her comments.

The fact that he was fired leads me to two probable conclusions:

1) that his management was terrible and he'll end up someplace better; or

2) that he was about to be fired anyway.

If his management was terrible, it's not a sad story for him in the long-term. If they were going to fire him anyway, it's just blame-shifting.

His reputation wasn't even meaningfully harmed, as his name doesn't seem to appear in any of the discussions. So if he's half-decent, he'll be fine.

I find the whole thing very strange, because I sure as shit wouldn't fire a good employee just because they'd offended one person, once.

I was responding to my parent comment's concern that GitHub's competitors (e.g. Atlassian) would use the leaked/pastebinned GitHub emails as a mailing list.

Rails changed the default to safe output about three years ago. 3.0 escaped output out of the gate, and 2.3 switched the default in the 2.3.6 neighborhood.

Prior before that, the standard way to sanitize html output was to write <%= h foo %> instead of <%= foo %> in your templates.

Atlassian isn't going to spam Stash or BitBucket to the exposed users. They'd get crucified.

There might be a few users who were already frustrated and switch on their own, but I think the big problems are an ongoing spearphishing risk and a bruised ego.

I had to wait about a week to use it.

I used it once, realized it turns my inbox into a todo app, and uninstalled it.

And with a single click, United loses the goodwill they generated when they delayed a flight so a man could see his dying mother.

Bravo, social media team, Bravo.

The difference, according to the lawyers who served as my professors, is that one is considered by the courts to show intent to contract, and that the other is considered by the courts to be negotiation.

That said, I'm just repeating what a lawyer taught me about how courts determine intent to contract. I'm not a judge or a lawyer. I'm an entrepreneur who took some business classes.

edit: I just sent an old professor an email with the question, and a prompt to try to help him remember who I am. If he responds, I'll share the response no matter what it says.

Yes, I remember that intent to contract was one of the requirements of an offer, and I remember that intent to contract is indicated by language. To quote my notes:

The second element of a valid offer requires the party who offers the proposal to intend to contract. Phrases such as “Are you interested” or “Would you give me” are words of preliminary negotiations.

Terms such as “I bid,” “I will give you,” or “My lowest price is,” show a present intention to contract and constitute valid offers.

That said, I'll take this opportunity to reiterate that I'm not a lawyer, I'm not accepted by the bar in any state, and for all I know the standards on this matter may vary by jurisdiction.

I'd simply err on the side of asking my lawyer before I started using this protocol with entrepreneurs or investors that I didn't know very well.

It's likely that other casual agreements that you don't think of as contracts are also contracts.

I'm not a lawyer, I'm a guy who took a business law class during undergrad, but my prof drilled it into my head that a contract consists of offer, acceptance, consideration, capacity, and legality. It can be on a napkin, it can be verbal, it can be in a text message, so long as those elements are present.

The difference between an offer and preliminary negotiations is the intent to contract, and language can be used to provide evidence on either side of this one. "Would you take $100k with a $5MM cap" is negotiating language, while "I'll give you $100k with a $5MM cap" is an offer.

Again, not a lawyer, but this "handshake protocol" appears to create valid contracts.

I absolutely agree that Fog Creek needed to support Git, but I don't think Harmony sells meaningfully more than Git-only + hg-only would've. That's why I refer to it as a cute feature.

Fog Creek's emphasis on how they achieved git support steered the discussion to be about the value of git/hg interoperability, rather than the value of Kiln for corporate developers. And it seems like the consensus is that git/hg interoperability is, at best, a nice-to-have.

My unproven theory is that assholes are less of a problem, because it's relatively easy to identify assholes and avoid hiring them in the first place.

Likeable B/C-players are tougher because if you lack domain expertise (and aren't getting good advice) you might not realize they're a B or C player until it's too late.