throwmeaway33

Sorry for the confusion. It's both.

I think the equivalent of 5% of your salary is put to buying ESOP stock from a pool (I'm not entirely clear how the pool works exactly)

Then separately an amount equivalent to about 20% of your salary is put by the company into a 401k which is vested after working there for two years. There is NO matching or anything. You don't put any of your money into the 401k.

The exact 401k percentage is based on that year's profits, so it allows the company some flexibility financially speaking. If we have a bad year then you get less in your 401k, but your base salary stays the same. If it gets really really bad then people's salaries get cut (that's happened only twice in the company's ~30 history)

Bonuses, dividends and ISOP [incentive stock options plan] shares (these are actual voting shares) are also handed out partly based on yearly profits.

The whole company operates on different contracts and the market is pretty volatile (I rather not say which one, but maybe you can guess), so the system allows a measure of stability for everyone involved.

I'm not sure what the benefit of making bad decisions would be.. maybe you can elaborate on that?

Career people that have been with us for 20+ years have huge amounts of capital tied up in ISOP and ESOP shares (as well as massive 401k's) and they effectively run the company. They often retire kinda early because they are making more from dividends than from their salaries. While I really love the system and I think it's significantly better than the other currently used systems in the tech industry (which are frankly outdated), the way old careerists run the show is rather anachronistic and I think hurts the company in a lot of ways. New hires don't feel as vested in the company and the most dynamic/in-demand people at the company are probably not the people that end up staying for 20 years. I mean in SV working for more than 4 years at one company is considered the signs of a bad programmer! However, on the other hand the old-timers are the people with the most experience and that really shows at certain times.... At the end of the day I get paid well and the organization is super flat (in a ~100 employees org I'm two levels down from the CEO)

I'm also not a lawyer, but I think you wouldn't be able to make an ESOP for a startup. The value of the stock which you buy from the pool is determined by an outside auditor that evaluated the company. My guess is that startups are too volatile to evaluate and simply no one would do it.

Also, the ESOP I work for doesn't have the 401k invest back into itself. lol. That sounds super shady. It's a normal 401k through a 3rd party company, where you choose to invest in different funds. I don't really touch it and just keep it in the default fund b/c I see the whole things as gambling.

I guess I don't understand your argument;

I said: "No advanced society (past a certain GDP) has slipped back into tyranny"

I bring up Japan and Germany. I assumed you were not talking about modern Japan and Germany, and you were referring to WW2 Japan and Germany. Japan was a monarchy that turned into some kind of fascist monarchic bureaucracy and Germany was a failed state that turned fascist. Neither represent a modern society turning tyrannical. And yes, when I say modern I mean democratic and with a degree of respect to civil liberties (which is basically true for all wealthy countries in the world, save some oil states). There is no use comparing the US to China - that's apples to oranges.

None of those societies are modern by current standard and none had truly stable functioning democracies(russia and china? you can't be serious).

I don't have a direct link to a study, but I'll quote this article

http://thediplomat.com/2013/02/13/5-ways-china-could-become-...

"Statistical analysis shows that authoritarian regimes become progressively more unstable (and democratic transitions more likely) once income rises above $1,000 (PPP) per capita. When per capita income goes above $4,000 (PPP), the likelihood of democratic transitions increases more dramatically. Few authoritarian regimes, unless they rule in oil-producing countries, can survive once per capita income hits more than $6,000 (PPP)."

There are plenty of advanced countries where privacy isn't considered a god given right, and they aren't turning authoritarian. I once tried to explain to a group of japanese businessmen the america idea that guns are meant to counteract the potential tyranny of the government. They looked at me like I was insane.

In my limited experience in France (so I may be wrong here), people didn't seem to really have a concept of police not being allowed on private property.

A quick google search says that in the UK they don't need warrants, not to mention guns are almost completely illegal. http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=2010033008545...

We in America live in a complete lala-land when it comes to the government going evil - and more broadly the fascination with apocalypse (but that's a larger issue)

This entirely depends on your loans.

If you're loan rates are larger than the rate you're making in your 401k, then it's better to pay off the loans.

The problem with bonuses is that you aren't attracting talent with them. Say on paper you're offering a new hire 80K. At the end of the fiscal year they end up costing you 80K + the bonus. Sure you'll have happier workers, but your getting lower quality people.

We have the same problem at the company I work at. We have a ~20% 401k (not matching, just on top of you salaray - it's an ESOP). So your effective salary is 20% higher then your listed one. However, would you rather get 100K and 20K in a 401k, or a taxable 120K? Most young developers would say 120K - I have student loans to pay off!

So weird benefits packages, like large semi-random bonuses, are kind of bad because you can't compare them to straight up money.

He was being sarcastic. This has nothing to do with the principles of fascism. It may be tyrannical, but tyranny != fascism

If this became an issue then the laws would have to be changed to accommodate the new technology. We shouldn't reject new technology because our current laws aren't suited for it.

I wonder what the Russian's cut is. Since they are the only people that can send astronauts to space right now, they can charge basically any price they want.

"Imagine the US military firing tear gas and water cannons on protesters in Turkey and saying "It's OK, your government gave us permission". "

I think you're having reading comprehension issues. It's not just that the gov't are requesting help. The reason we are involved in Yemen is because the Yemini gov't is incapable of exerting it's own will b/c they are weak and poor. Their interests are also strongly tied to our interests - so that's why we intervene.

Your example has is not at all analogous. The Turkish gov't is not incapable of tear gassing and water cannoning protesters, so they fail the first criteria of being incapable of carrying out their will. The example also fails the second criteria for intervention - that it's strongly in the US's interest.

"Yemeni government != Yemeni people"

Who else can you appeal to in Yemen to get permission to operate drones?

And are you seriously suggesting that the Yemeni people are supporting Al Qaeda? If they are, then they become the "enemy".

The way it works for other nations is we tell them: 1 - You will fight Al Qaeda in our country 2 - If you are incapable, we will help you do it by providing military aid. 3 - If you are still incapable we will us our own armed forces to make sure you are able to. 4 - If you are not willing to fight Al Qaeda or are actively defending them they we will intervene anyways.

The last point either leads to the case of the Taliban where we destroy them because they are defending Al Qaeda, or to Pakistan where they are forced to accept our help.

I remember doing the math in my undergraduate physics studies. Air molecules actually do not move very far when a vibration (ie. sounds) goes through them. Amazingly, high frequency sounds move air back and forth only a few angstroms.

I can't find a link describing the calculation. This link talks about how the change in pressure is equivalent to "140 molecules for every million molecules" http://www.silcom.com/~aludwig/musicand.htm

So there is no way you are going to create a bubble of vacuum!

To play devil's advocate: (and this isn't to excuse the US's actions, but to illustrate a major difference between what happened and what you're talking about)

The big difference in this case is that we have tacit (or maybe even explicit) consent from the Yemeni government to hunt Al Qaeda. So the representatives of the people of that country are allowing us to kill these people basically on their behalf. (which doesn't make it OK, but is a major differnce)

It's not just that we are bullying Yemen into allowing us to bomb people in their country - it's that the Yemini authorities (and probably most of the population) don't want these people operating in their country but they lack the resources and infrastructure to stop them themselves; and that's where we come in.

Bare in min that we also give Yemen a lot of military aid so that we DON'T HAVE TO come in and do their law enforcement for them. In this case that wasn't sufficient and we intervene on their behalf

To make your example comparable you would need to have a person that is evading US authorities, operating in the US, and that we are completely incapable of stopping (and only some other country could do it for us?)

My understanding of arsenic poisoning is that it binds to some proteins that inhibit some processes in cells. This means it eventually gets cleared from the system. So as long as you don't get a lethal dose it shouldn't cause long term damage. There is arsenic in apples seeds and I've never heard of long term issues from eating a few of those.

Lead on the other hand builds up in your system and causes permanent damage.

This crashes Opera....

None of what you said proves it's "essential".

If you have liberty guaranteed by a legal system, then the government can't attack you.

I mean they can but they'd be violating your rights, and for the sake of this discussion we're assuming they will not do that (if you do assume they ignore laws then legislating privacy protections is meaningless)

Shouldn't the focus be on making sure the government doesn't have means to attack people? ie. That people are guaranteed rights and the power of the state is limited.

PS: Bringing up Stalin kinda makes my point. Privacy is only important in dysfunctional societies where the state is not going to abide by the laws that constrain it. No first world nation in the past 50 years has regressed to a totalitarian state.

Is there no system to swap ownership of coins?

If not there should be. You send X amount of bitcoins to a middle man who then gives you X amount back. Technically they will be different coins and they'll go to a different account #, so you can't trace anything.

"But it gives the government enormous power to make decisions about you "

What the government can and can't do is limited by the rights granted to them by the constitution and other laws. They're extremely hamstrung.

I think your TSA example perfectly illustrates how the lack of privacy doesn't lead to an abuse of power; it's ironically a testament to how good our system is. To think there are people the government absolutely despises and whose lives they want to be extremely difficult and the best they can do is make them wait longer in line at the airport? That's awesome.

The real fight shouldn't be about privacy but about openness of the government and the expansion of our liberties. The real tragedy is not that these program exist but that they are trying to hide them.

(privacy isn't a liberty, because it doesn't allow you to do things. It disallows others from doing things.)

I think you're example is a good example of how weak the arguments for privacy are. All I see are hyperbolic examples. My favorite ones are where people try to bring up how the lack of privacy lead to horrors like NAZI Germany or Iran as if the US is somehow comparable. And they say "But government can change!". Only in la-la land is the US government going to turn into Iran. No developed country in the past 50 years (even ones where privacy is not considered a god given right) has slipped back in totalitarianism.

I'm always suspicious about these second hand stories; especially when they're dramatized like this.

For instance he says:

"You could apply to one and only one university. If you didn’t get in, you’d be conscripted into the army the following Fall."

And then explains how he applied to a second university and then how he was offered to apply to a local university in Tashkent.

Just to be clear, I don't disagree with his premise, it's just the whole thing is overly dramatized. My uncle also almost didn't get into MSU because they decided he was Jewish, and my dad was rejected and had to go to a different school. The whole thing was really weird because they decide your jewishness solely based on your last name. (which is sorta black magic)

Also, from everything I heard, antisemetism wasn't institutional - ie. directed from top down. I've never heard of the quota thing (if it existed, it was done on a school by school basis). For instance MSU was known for being very antisemitic, while other branches of government were not. You've got to remember that a lot of the revolutionaries were jewish, even Lenin was a jew (sorta).

"When the warm days do arrive, though, the taiga blooms, and for a few short months it can seem almost welcoming."

Hahaha. This guy has no idea what he's talking about. As someone who has been in the taiga in the summer, it's absolutely horrible. The air is alive with mosquitoes. There are clouds of them around you 24/7. The place is just permafrost and swamps. It's really pretty, but a miserable place to live. That's why there is no on there.

As I explained the "rent" is just a way of extracting money from the franchise. They are not necessarily charging the local market rate for commercial real estate (if it's a very busy McDonalds they can charge way more). They don't realistically sit down and consider maybe replacing the McDonalds with an American Apparel so they can charge more rent. So it's not the typical landlord<->renter relationship where the landlord considers getting new tenants and the renter considers moving to a new place.

You could make the back room potentially a lot smaller if it was all in a machine.

As for the link - I don't buy his arguments: "First, it buys and sells properties, as one might suspect."

I've never seen a McDonald's close down. I'm sure they do sometimes, but they probably realize really quickly if the place will be profitable or if it needs to be sold asap. So effectively they never cash in on any long term real-estate investments. If the real-estate values goes up, more than likely you're gunna be selling more burgers too.

The second point he makes is kinda semantic. At the end of the day McDonalds needs to extract money from the franchise. They can charge more for using the brand, more for the ingredients or more for rent or whatever. It doesn't really have any significance. At the end they are trying to get as much money as possible out of the franchise without running the owners bankrupt.

His last point about them getting bought and all their real-estate sold.. I dunno maybe he was trying to just be cute - but net worth of assets is taken into account into the stock price. It's the kind of stuff that's on quarterly reports. Kinda scary that this guy is an investor.

Smog != C02 People keep treating the two as if they're the same. They point at Beijing and think global warming.

Having more efficient power-plants, catalytic converters on cars, filtration, less use of coal, and more advanced engines in general leads to more complete combustion and less smog (less CO too).

I'm sure Beijing has lots of cars and people, but so does for instance NYC , and they don't have the same smog problems.

Well, how do you communicate with the robots? Radio waves don't penetrate water.

So say you have a robot that's autonomously floating around look at stuff and then it goes by a giant squid. There is no one to tell it "Hey! Look, a giant squid! Stop and turn your camera at that!" so it just keeps going.

Also, I have no idea how they would know where they're currently located (again, no GPS).. but I'm sure they have some solution.

One huge advantage I could see is potentially you wouldn't need to pressurize anything. Optics can easily be made to work immersed in water, electronics can be slathered in epoxy so you don't get any short circuits. Then there shouldn't be any limit to how deep the thing can go.

"my phones usually last quite a long time without the screen turned on."

It's important to remember that this isn't just because the display is off - it's also because the device is in a low power state. Try having an app running with the screen turned off - it also doesn't last too long.

It's be interesting to see what % of the battery usage is due to JUST the screen. If anyone has any stats, please post!

In my rather limited experience this doesn't work.

Ex: Say you are working on just one feature for your company's software.

Most people, including myself, aren't able to sit for 8-10 hours a day in front of the computer working on just one problem. Your brain turns to goo, you start getting easily distracted and your productivity drops through the floor. I'd say at most I can sit in front of a debugger for 3 hours, and that's on particularly good day.

People need to be able to switch their brains to other work when they get overwhelmed or get stuck.

More interesting is the opposite problem of having too many things to do. At some point you never get to focus on any one of feature and you end up not getting anywhere.

Patents don't last 30 years.

And yes, there is a balance, and I'm not suggesting it's been reached. I just want to dispel the notion that it'll all be hunky dory with no patent laws.

That's a really simplistic. The real world isn't that simple and it can take years to get your business off the ground. Suppose the original inventor spent several years perfecting a 3D printing process and then 4 months after he starts selling his printers (before he's built up a rep, a steady stream of clients, maybe with still no staff) some other schmuck with a shitload of VC cash swoops in, does the same thing, but undercuts him by having a more efficient manufacturing process or outsourcing to China or something. That'd be kinda shitty and you wouldn't just tell the guy to suck it up, work faster and invent something new.

The purpose of patents is to give new companies with brilliant ideas some breathing room where they can grow their business.

I don't know the background of the given companies in this situation, but it's possible that 3D Software was being muscled out by a bunch of kidz with a flashy kickstarter and a nice promo vid.