thisnotmyacc

So this tweet here: https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/839105996429668352 this 141 characters is misleading? Here's the whole tweet just so we can be clear:

> CIA hacker malware a threat to journalists: infests iPhone, Android bypassing Signal, Confide encryption https://wikileaks.org/ciav7p1/#PRESS

If the argument is this tweet is misleading, this 14 words of content, a link and a hashtag. If that requires a 5,000+ character response to show how, I'm cool with that argument. I really am. I can see how it is misleading.

Equally, if you can read into those 14 words something misleading, I think a non-misleading interpretation is equally valid. In which case, the argument "the 14 words set the wrong agenda it's no big deal" is a little less compelling, and reads exactly like what I wrote. But what do I know? We are all free to disagree.

I'd sum this article up as:

This isn't news because we've known for ages and ages that governments do evil things, known for ages. None of the evils listed are new or that interesting. Nothing to see here.

To me, that is like saying, "come on, it's murder. We've had murder since Cain killed Abel. Wikileaks attempt to expose such an ancient crime isn't news. Now look what Kanye said..."

Not so much "heavily discounted shares" but "lower price to earnings valuations". PE ratio differences are how companies like Berkshire Hathaway use arbitrage to increase their value. They take the difference between a private entity's PE (2-4 X) vs public (17.94 in the case of the Berk beast) to increase the value of their stock.

This is both Voodoo economics (how is $1 million a year profit worth $4 mil in one scenario, and $17.94 in another?) as well as somewhat logical, as public companies have more rules and transparency (in theory, if not always in practice) that make a profitable more public company more stable.

Set a goal of $1 billion yearly profit by 2020. That places the value at PE of 20 PE (2/3rds of Alphabets 29.9) at ~$20 billion, which is ~2 times their current valuation.

Assuming 5% YoY growth in revenue, which is about 2% growth in users combined with a 2% better yield, both of which are imminently doable, the current $2.5B revenue grows to about $3B.

According to their 2016 financial statement, http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/AMDA-2F526X/398748660..., Twitter spent 2.668B in 2016. So that means Twitter needs to cut costs by 20% by 2020 to hit my goal of $1bn profit.

Twitter spent $800 million on each of their three big areas, which they list as "Cost of revenue", "Research and development" and "Sales and marketing". If you can shave off 40% from each of "Research and development" and "Sales and marketing", costs hit $2Billion give or take, and goal achieved.

None of that is silicon valley swing for the moon sexy, and it seems pretty unremarkable in a world of hype and excess. But $3B in revenue and $2bn in costs seems achievable by 2020.

This never has any numbers to support it, which is unfortunate.

Also, in a world of bubbles, how is a less free an open Twitter better? Is a Twitter with no controversy, with no argy bargy, really worth visiting?

I think Twitter's problem with trolls is minuscule compared to the problem of making it more entertaining, and easier to switch in and out of thoughts. If I like the NBA, cricket and South African politics, how do I switch between those three interests when, say, there is an NBA finals and a local election on? That is a problem much more so than trolls.

FTFY

> 1. cut costs by a lot. they shouldn't be spending $2B per year

Really, is Twitter doing poorly? $2.52 billion in 2016 is more than enough revenue, I'd wager, to maintain a solid company. Twitter seem to me to have an explosive-growth mentality - spend like crazy and grow our way to success - in a post-explosive-growth reality.

Fix the cost structures, and make ~$1 billion in profit, and you have a solid company. With continued YoY growth of say 5%, and a valuation of $20 billion in the near future, about double their current $11.33B, is not out of the realm of possibility. Sure, it isn't Google or FaceBook sized, but is a $20B company in anyway failing?

Which, ironically, is virtual signaling. That's the modern world though - lets everyone retreat to your corners and come out throwing buzzwords at each other.

"Misogynist"

"Cuck"

If only we could talk about ideas, not labels.

But where you ever accused?

I dunno, I'm happy to throw anyone under any bus, pretty much of anything ever. I just think we should consider sticking with "innocent until proven guilty", if only beacuse cultures without it, like Middle Ages England and the witch hunts, didn't seem like very fair places.

I think a question like this is so nebulous that people can answer it in a multitude of ways, none more or less valid.

Global warming doesn't really affect the USA specifically and/or uniquely, so maybe that biases the answer? Also, dying of smoking is less a worry when you see a truck about to run you over. Maybe people preference immediate danger over longer term danger?

The issue of "country" is an interesting one in the other direction as well. If a state/city/county has 16% unemployment, but the country has low unemployment, some people may think it is a country-wide issue, and preference that. Ditto other issues that are state or local level issues.

In any case, I can see why almost any answer is valid, which kinda makes the whole question an odd one.

Hosting companies would be either adding capacity (new locations, new land, new construction) or filling existing capacity. Once capacity is full at a location, then what?

The marginal, incremental value of adding a single server once capacity is reached is currently quite high. Using bogus numbers, lets say a location can hold 100,000 servers, then the marginal cost to add the 100,001st server will be very high, and might cost millions. These costs include:

- Cost of planning - when? Which countries? Which locations? Do you serve Kenya out of say South Africa? Or do you need to go to the mountains of Kenya where the air is a more consistent temperature?

- Cost of finding locations - doing deals to get the land for server farms is likely costly.

- Actually buying/leasing the land - how in advance do you do this? Years? Months? Weeks? Leasing land that lays dormant for say 18 months is wasted money.

- Getting approval to put in the required infrastructure (data cables, electricity, redundancy etc)

- Engineering/architectural costs to design buildings each and every time for varying sizes, in different regulatory environments.

- Cost of construction.

- Wasted capacity. There may be a need worldwide for say 50,000 servers, but with multiple continents, that may equate to several locations with 100,000 capacity.

All those costs add up.

Compare that to the marginal cost is adding a standard pod, with a lower server numbers per pod, mass manufactured in one location and shipped to a regulation free spot in the ocean. The marginal cost is not millions to go from (bogus numbers of) 100,000 to 100,001, it is the cost of one additional pod, at a much lower number, e.g. to go from 10,000 to 10,001 costs a fraction of the 100,000 to 100,001 example. The waste is also reduced, as multiple countries/continents can have say an additional X% capacity, added in smaller increments, rather than huge leaps in (initially) wasted capacity.

Now, is that overall cheaper? Maybe, maybe not, who knows? But many large hosting businesses might prefer say a 10% increase in theoretical cost per server added in smaller discrete numbers of servers. Factor in adding capacity in smaller increments with less capacity waste, less need to acquire the rights to land in advance and it might be cheaper in aggregate, even if it is theoretically more expensive per server at currently active locations.

Incidentally, that is the core value proposition of cloud computing like AWS - that you can add capacity incrementally. Despite there being theoretically cheaper options running your own hardware, this is larger capital outlay, with longer turnarounds to add capacity.

I don't think the plan is relocations. More than likely, MS see server numbers growing over time, at the very least for the foreseeable future, and they'll be located once, and then decommissioned, not moved.

That may change, but I doubt there are less server farms in 2020 than now.

As a side note, isn't that also Google's plan - the server farm as a single entity, where nothing is really fixed, just turned off and eventually replaced? In such a world, where a server farm exists then dies, underwater seems a great place for them. No regulations, no repairs, locally powered via means that no one can complain about (NIMBYism is a powerful force) just run until decommissioned.

Cost benefits though. $15 a month to save a few days coding is a bargain.

It really depends on what your turnover is, where you make the most money, and what your time is worth (objectively, rather than ideally).

> present the following frame

That's not what the order states, and I SEVERELY doubt you have read it.

http://on.wsj.com/2kGbSdj so we are all on the same page here. There is literally one country mentioned in the document - that country is Syria. The other references are to other documents that group countries that I can't find.

I think if you read the executive order, you'll have much better framing for what it actually says, and why.

Why did you never follow Patrick's advice: http://www.kalzumeus.com/2014/04/03/fantasy-tarsnap/

Not your thing? I've always wondered.

http://www.kalzumeus.com/2014/04/03/fantasy-tarsnap/ - pretty much everything you just said.

This sort of scare mongering is just plain weird.

> But lurking behind every statement was an existential dread

That sums up the mood in the media: existential dread.Not real. Not tangible. Not verifiable. Existential.

I doubt the Donald is going to mess with making the awful process of dealing with government easier. Existential is non-tangible for a reason I guess.

What rubbish!

This is the thinking of someone that lives in a country with a philosophy that puts country before individuals.

By almost every and any measure, we are all better off than 30, 40 or 50 years ago - Chinese, Americans, Indians, Europeans, almost everyone. There IS a subset within those places that has benefited less, or even gone backwards, no doubt.

But even for those people, what is the economic value of the wonders of the modern, internet and mobile phone age? When for the cost of an internet connection, people have access to millions of free flash games? Is that a better life than 1970s Harlem? I'm not sure either way, but it is a lot closer run thing that life is worse for the "losers" of globalization than people realize, and that is the comparison for the small minority that have missed out in the modern world, not the mean or median experience.

The only way people are worse off is if they compare the best of 1960s living - e.g. have only the husband work, own a 4 bedroom house in the burbs, make a decent salary without a degree - and ignore the things missing that are present in the modern lifestyle. Because in the 1960/70/80s west, people ate only basic food (nothing "foreign" like Thai or Indian), very few had cable TV, and went out at most once a week to the movies. They never bought an espresso, never owned a modern electronic device like a computer, never got to use the internet to settle an argument or play a computer game, unless they were extremely well off and got to play Pong circa say 1980.

If that sounds like a life people prefer - a big house, no lifestyle, no electronics, basic cable if lucky and only white people food - then I reckon most people could live like that even today if they so chose. But man, that isn't a life I'd be happy with. Not even slightly.

If that is "losing" - better lifestyle, better food, better (and cheaper) entertainment and slightly smaller living conditions and more people working, man, "winning" would have been insanely good.

> distracting us from the biggest social threat of our times: wealth disparity

That's not the biggest threat, any more than Diarrhea is a bigger threat than other health issues, despite Diarrhea killing more people: https://www.cdc.gov/healthywater/global/diarrhea-burden.html

By that I mean the two - wealth disparity and Diarrhea - are outcomes, not causes. Diarrhea is the outcome of poor infrastructure (food and water) and poverty that lead to weaker, susceptible immune systems.

Wealth disparity is the outcome of a bunch of things, like automation, a better ability to detect good workers, a greater desire to be rewarded for good work (if two people provide X and 10X performance and are rewarded as such... disparity), the DECREASE in wealth distribution globally (China is richer than in 1980, as is all of Asia), that geographically set people have global wealth, e.g. Gates, Zuckerberg, Page, Brin et al are top not of the US, but a world economy, whereas many people still earn a percentage of local money (trades people, waitresses etc) and probably many more elements I don't know about.

The problem is we live locally, so the disparity looks worse, even as globally it is coming down.

That is why there is more LOCAL choice than ever - in say beers - as we get imports, but LESS global variety, as we all get the best X of something, rather than having a vast array of isolated areas with their own unique elements. It is why Sydney, Australia is home to some of the best Thai food in the world, and the UK home to some of the best Indian.

> we should be relentless about leading our politicians back to the topic of wealth disparity

But towards what policy? Basic Income? Higher taxes? Less automation? Open borders? What is the policy prescription for this issue?

I have a question.

> For two years, Sarah Nahm was the only woman at Lever, the company she co-founded and now runs as CEO... has roughly 100 employees... has a roughly 50–50

In any company, the first X hires are likely doers - e.g. for different companies, all software developers, all plumbers, all landscapers, all accountants, all lawyers. Then the roles you hire for start to change. Lets say hire say 5 is a sales person, 6 is an accountant, 7 a marketer. Then a company starts to hire lower-skilled support staff like personal assistants / people to answer phones, a gopher maybe, then say cleaners. These lower skilled jobs are easily filled with either gender, but pay a lot less.

So my question, in a company with a female founder, and a proud 50-50 gender ratio, this seems the best chance to hit pay parity, and I wonder, has that happened? Is the ratio of pay $1-$1, or does Lever have the classic $0.77 on the dollar pay gap?

I reckon you'd be wrong.

It cost $1,000,000,000 to own a computer for baby boomers. I have (depending on how you count) between 3 (PCs - 2 mac and a Windows), and 11 (3 PCs, 2 phones, 2 console, an appleTV, 2 iPads and a Kindle).

That was impossible for my parents, heck for 18 year old me.

People think life is harder now because the equations of life are:

* Happiness = Reality - Expectation. * Success = MAXIMUM_POSSIBLE_WE_ARE_EXPOSED_TO - what I achieve.

Most people expect a lot these days, and get slightly less and as a result are miserable.

On top of that, MAXIMUM_POSSIBLE_WE_ARE_EXPOSED_TO has increased, as we have more means of communication.

In mathematical terms, the gap between the each of these values of a good life: 1. The absolute highest possible value 2. The MEAN existence. 3. The MEDIAN existence

is increasing. In 1970, there were lots of limits. Today, you can be a YouTube star at home. As some people have it really good, this bumps the maximum and mean values, whereas the median hasn't moved as much since 1970l even though it has increased.

As examples, there are people like Casey Neistat and various Vloggers that live seemingly great lives. There are pro skaters, pro-surfers, musicians, actors, and then the tech billionaires. There are digital nomads, off-the-griders and other niche communties, and I'm sitting here reading Hacker news.

But that is BECAUSE we have just so many more options today. We also live in a world where the possibilities are vast - from travel (I have been to every continent except Antarctica), to work (so many more jobs in niche areas), to lifestyle, range of hobbies, foods available (baby boomers thought Pizza and pasta where exotic), even better COFFEE.

As there is so much possible, and the hours in week has remained static, we all fall short of the MAXIMUM_POSSIBLE_WE_ARE_EXPOSED_TO by a very long margin. No one is eating enough new or interesting foods, has enough cool hobbies they get paid for, plays enough games, has enough sex or spare time or earns Zuckerberg money - and by no one I mean no one person can ever achieve all of those things at once, so when we compare someone else's 100% dedication to our 0.1%, we feel inadequate.

But man, what a world! I am in Australia, writing a response to a person who commented on a system hosted in the USA that was impossible in 1970, using a pocket computer I use to communicate with literally the WORLD, about an article published in USA Today today (well, in some ways technically yesterday as I am a day in front of the west coast of the USA) that would never have reached my country in 1970. What is that worth? Certainly not nothing, even if many people deluded believe they would rather the 3 bedroom house in 1970 without a computer, air conditioning or the internet, not to mention the raft of socially limiting conditions.

Rant over!

They chose really poor colour gradients to show the differences.

The image would have been clearer if it used more than purple and what looks like the most minor variation on light blue.

> Because she joins a long line of failed female CEOs

I wonder: how many appointed CEOs, as opposed to founders, succeed? And how many of them them are appointed to floundering companies, versus say the transition that happened at Microsoft and/or Google? Heck, even Ballmer was a disaster.

How much of the history of failed female CEOs is likely because they get much, much less of the Bezos/Brin/Page/Gates initial growth, I am unsure, but I'd be interested to know.

https://training.kalzumeus.com/newsletters/archive/selling_s... might be most useful.

Political - isn't there a moratorium on that?