jholyhead
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@nathanielmott @jholyhead I think improvements to the outlets themselves (such as improved child guards) are valid, but I think trying to drive home automation from an outlet perspective is absolutely the wrong approach - with lighting being a possible exception.
If these technologies were being introduced 10 years ago, they might have had time to get some traction, but as it stands, I think devices like the WeMo will be obsolete far before they become affordable and sophisticated enough to gain widespread appeal. Belkin would have been better served putting its resources into appliance connectivity.
I don't see a business in smart outlets, not when the era of smart appliances is just around the corner. Home automation will be done at an appliance level, not an outlet level.
@davemholmes @jholyhead I hear you. I think I'm just touchy because a lot of the reporting on the NSA's ability to mine this data has been like reading bad science fiction. It's actually refreshing to read an article on the subject that isn't batshit crazy.
" that can process data on the order of zettabytes, or 10^21 bytes"
What does process mean in this context? Just because that much data can pass through the servers in Utah doesn't mean they can do anything useful with that quantity of data. Is that the amount of data processed in a day (seems unlikely) or a year? Google was getting towards 'processing' 10^19 bytes of data per year back in 2008, so this big bad NSA installation might not be any more powerful than Google's infrastructure.
Also - that first link is to a parody government website.
@HeddiCundle I'm afraid rent control does prevent homes being built. Investors make decisions based on their expected returns. Rent control makes property construction a much less attractive investment (because it reduces those expectations) and as a result less projects get funded.
Rent control raises rents by *reducing supply* - this is an assertion that almost all economists agree with, regardless of their political leanings.
@PandoWatcher Rent for new tenants would be substantially lower if rent control didn't exist, so rather than being priced out of the market, her rent would be less. The only people who would be financially worse off are those tenants who have benefited from rent control over a number of years.
@mengwu @jholyhead I'd like to see how those numbers stack up against the increased tax revenue that would result from a deregulated system. I expect those fees were only implemented to reduce the impact of rent control on city revenues.
"And, unfortunately for our future, (a) + (b) > 50 percent."
Yeah, democracy sucks like that.
I both agree and disagree with almost everything in this post.
I think it's important people understand that removing rent control will cause rental prices (for new tenants) to fall in the short term, because rent control inflates rental prices by reducing supply. So really, Bryan would probably make less money if rent control in SF was stopped.
There are middle ground policies that would protect both tenants and landlords. Unfortunately, implementing those policies is a politically hazardous exercise.
@pieterwriter The government receives the consent of voters every four years. The people voted for politicians who passed the Patriot Act into law, they then re-elected most of those politicians repeatedly in the years since.
@Takeshi Young @jholyhead I agree. Simple and easy are very different things. That's why companies continue to pay SEO consultants to come in and optimize their websites.
@Takeshi Young There are a lot of legitimate SEO techniques, but most of them boil down to 'have a well designed, well implemented site with valuable content'. That's where 80-90% of the value in on-site SEO is at.
Most of the gains you can make with SEO are off-site work - mainly building the number of links to your site that originate from other authoritative resources around the web.
@DrewEmmerson Obvious troll is obvious.
@KenG My understanding was that Verizon was only handing over call metadata, the collection of which has already been deemed constitutional.
It makes sense that the NSA would want to know who has been communicating with people on their various watch lists. If you're calling a suspected terrorist 5 times a week, I'm quite happy for that to be brought to the attention of the relevant authorities.
The technology doesn't currently exist to to substantial analysis on the contents of every phone call made on Verizon (do the maths), but if that is something you have a problem with, vote for political candidates who swear oppose such measures. That's how democracy works. There's no point about screeching about the constitution when the justices appointed to protect it are selected by politicians with their own agenda.
@AdamGrandmaison It's not like Chrome is the most popular browser with over 50% of the market though...oh wait, it is and it does.
I do concede that skipping college works better for technical fields (engineering,"
...I'm pretty sure that's the opposite of the truth. You can teach yourself programming, but that is a tiny slice of the engineering pie. If you want to design aircraft, or processors or bridges, you need a college degree just as much as a surgeon needs an MD.
But I agree with most of the rest, especially the diploma shelf life. No one with 10 years of solid experience gets put in the reject pile because they went to a crappy college and no one with 10 years of crap experience gets the benefit of the doubt because of where they went to school
Not releasing trash is the best way to avoid one star reviews.
What an industry - when only shipping 60 million units in a quarter is a failure.
@LoraKolodny Not really - good software engineers are experts at software engineering, part of which is understanding integration and use of third party tools and APIs. But as I commented above, being an expert might not be enough when it comes to building a successful company.