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thedaveoflifeon A Pinterest spammer tells all

the obvious answer is he is obfuscating other, more valuable links that legitimate users are suggesting.

thedaveoflifeon Germany has the economic strengths America once boasted

The lesson from the article isn't that every country should be a net exporter like Germany... it's that Germany has found success by focusing on producing goods and insuring a minimum standard of living for the middle class. While their exact situation may not be repeatable everywhere, there is certainly a lesson in their culture for other nations.

You are correct that the Germans have taken advantage of macro-economic imbalances created by the eurozone, but why was it Germany and not France or Greece that has prospered? What is unique about Germany? I would argue it is their culture of hard work, efficient businesses and financial restraint. They do things the right way... why fault them for it?

thedaveoflifeon A Redditor's insightful message for discouraged students

I think this post has important implications for business just as academia. It's about not falling back on the "I'm not smart enough to do that" excuse.

thedaveoflifeon Is Firefox Doomed?

That's a bit of an oversimplification. Non-profits are interested in "providing a solution to a difficult problem", but they are also interested in self preservation.

thedaveoflifeon Is Firefox Doomed?

It's entirely possible that Google won't renew the deal, which would put about $100 million of Firefox's revenue at stake.

It would make no sense for Google to renew this agreement... if Mozilla suddenly changed Firefox's default SE that would not go over well with the users. It seems much more likely that they would form a new deal with less revenue going to Mozilla.

Of course that doesn't mean Firefox is done. That is highly dependent on Mozilla's innovation in the next few years.

thedaveoflifeon Andy Rooney Dead at 92

Andy Rooney led a pretty amazing life and has written a number of books about his experiences. My favorite was his book about his experience in World War II as a correspondent for the Stars and Stripes newspaper[1].

My family used to get together every Sunday and watch 60 Minutes. It was literally the only television show we watched together and Andy's rambling wit and general cynicism was always my favorite part of the show. He certainly was a keen observer of just how ridiculous life can be sometimes.

A couple of years ago, a friend of mine met him at a party in upstate New York. He said he had the same way about there that he does on TV, except a good deal dirtier and he smiled more. I was happy to hear that because that's basically how I pictured him.

The world needs more Andy Rooney's.

[1] http://www.amazon.com/My-War-Andy-Rooney/dp/1586481592/ref=s...

thedaveoflifeon Are jobs obsolete?

Are we marginally worse off?

No. We now have access to cheaper and superior classified advertisements and the people who used to work at newspapers are now free to continue on to other jobs.

thedaveoflifeon Google Correlate by Drawing

Less popular as a Google search doesn't necessarily mean less popular, in some cases. For instance, I saw text messaging on your down trending list but that is obviously as popular as ever. People probably just don't feel the need to search it because it has become so ubiquitous.

thedaveoflifeon Peter Thiel Gives Whiz Kids $100K To Quit College, Start Businesses

Great minds will go on to do great things no matter if they go to college or not, but you should start a business because you are passionate about a product or service, not because a billionaire entrepreneur is bribing you to do so.

This program could very well be successful, but I would argue the participants would have gone on to do great things regardless of thiel’s invovlement.

thedaveoflifeon Online Cash Bitcoin could Challenge Governments, Banks

Money is fiction. The value of money is derived from trust in the central authority that creates it. Therefore I think an entity like Bitcoin (though not necessarily Bitcoin itself) could conceivably come to replace federal currency because its source is not human beings, but an unflappable algorithm.

thedaveoflifeon 41,000,006 reasons why I think we're in a bubble

relavent link to his point about domain names: wallgreens buys drugstore.com for 409M.

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/03/24/walgreens-to-buy-drug...

thedaveoflifeon Subject: Airbnb

Good question but I think they will always have the 'cool' crowd simply because allowing a weary stanger to stay in your apartment is inherently a cool thing to do.

also money talks in this case. As has been brought up elsewhere in this thread, there is a huge market here for unused space that AirBnB is exploiting. Even cool people like saving/making money.

thedaveoflifeon Business Insider Turns A $2,127 Profit On $4.8 Million In Revenue

Felix Salmon had an interesting take on this topic as well for those interested.

http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2011/03/07/the-economi...

thedaveoflifeon The Youth Unemployment Bomb

I agree that there are certainly plenty of opportunities presented by developing a technical skill. However the unemployment rate is only 4.5% for the college educated vs 10.7% for high school only and 8.4% for an associate degree/some college. So maybe college is not as much of a waste as you might think.

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t04.htm

thedaveoflifeon How My School and District Failed its Students

I do not think it is as simple as you put it; there are situations in urban public schools where student behavior would be beyond the control any teacher or any single person really.

That being said I love your point about not blaming an invsibile system. Every teacher I talk to blames someone else for all the problems in his or her clasroom. The public school system in this country is far from perfect but I believe many of the problems brought up in the original article arise from teachers who are unwilling or unable handle their students appropriately. Stop blaming everyone else and start solving the problem on your own.

thedaveoflifeon Schneier on Security: Recording the Police

who said they shouldn't be held accountable? I was just pointing out one possible arguement against video taping police officers. In a job where they are often required to only think once, this may cause them to think twice. Obviously you don't agree with this line of thinking, but it's not the same as saying they should not be held accountable.

thedaveoflifeon Schneier on Security: Recording the Police

police officers have a hard and dangerous job to do and they do it for our safety. if they have to worry about being video taped all the time they will be less effective in this job.

thedaveoflifeon Spreading Hayek, Spurning Keynes

The one problem with this logic is that occasionally leaving it alone, as you put it, can be more costly than taking action. Often when we see the problems that emerge when the government takes action, i.e. with bailouts, we ignore the problems that were prevented.