Usenet.
Exactly what I was thinking. Does this still exist in some meaningful form? We used to have an amazing thing there... I remember before Endless September. alt.* was about as free as it gets.
Readit Newsstalcottsmith commented on Private Property Is the Real Threat to Online Freedom of Speech (2015) artplusmarketing.com/the-... · Posted by u/CM30
This article seems to assume you're single and not in a hurry to start a family. I'd be interested to read an article "Does it make sense for a programmer with a wife and kids to move to the bay area". I secretly suspect the answer will be "no", since no matter how you slice it, a 4-bedroom house in the Bay Area won't be reachable until you are well on your way to, say, 40 or so.
We (family of four, parents 40ish years old) are fortunate enough to be somewhat location independent with the stipulation that we have to be in US/Pacific timezone to keep sane hours. We looked at the Bay Area one more time this year before choosing Reno. Much lower taxes, much better housing choices at our affordability level, general convenience and outdoor recreation in and around Tahoe were the attraction. This area has long been a landing spot for retirees from the BA but it's now booming with younger people and families. It's improving quickly. For someone who owns a business and has some location independence, it's a great choice. Also commercial rents are much more startup-friendly if you need offices and such. A meeting in SF is only a 4 hour drive away. Daily flights to SF and San Jose if you're in a hurry.
stalcottsmith commented on It’s Tough Being Over 40 in Silicon Valley bloomberg.com/news/articl... · Posted by u/mudil
You're actually making 180k equivalent because you don't have time to spend the money.
Ha! Workers over 35 tend to have dependents who spend the money regardless and in fact may spend more the less time you spend with them.
stalcottsmith commented on Lessons from a 45-year Study of Super-Smart Children scientificamerican.com/ar... · Posted by u/kungfudoi
I probably had a gifted kid but never had enough bandwidth to lead him, comparing to his siblings he just memorizes so well(e.g, mechanically memorized PI to 600+ digits in two days until I asked him to stop), doing high-school-level math at 4th grade, learn many things by himself and so on. Meanwhile he is bored, hard to make peer friends due to lack of shared interests, etc.
Everyday I have to work and care for other kids, I tried to home-school him but then you get the financial pressure quickly.
I wish there are some programs that can help kids like him, i.e. group them somewhere to study and learn from each other. We have quite some program taking care of the disadvantaged kids, what about the gifted ones? After all, they can potentially contribute to the society in some way that helps many others. We probably need a state-level or federal-level or even college-sponsored program for those really gifted kids.
No I'm not talking about the gifted class in the school district, those helps, but far from enough for those really gifted, you probably only have about 5 who are really gifted in each school district.
This might help. http://www.davidsongifted.org
I have no experience with them yet.
Since moving to Palo Alto, I have to think that this area resembles more of a small town that you describe rather than a large, cultural city. Local brewed beer is rare to non-existant. Pub beer labels read the usual brands you'd expect. We're skewered between San Jose (go Sharks!) and SF(go Giants & Warriors!) and save for a few brief weekends of Stanford football are completely void of our own sporting events. Our skyline is worse than lacklustre, it's non-existent. In fact the lack of tall building means Stanford's own belltower has some singular local prominence. Except for the fact that nearly every building is emblazoned with the Who's Who of tech company branding, it would be difficult to pick out Palo Alto from any other sleepy college town.
$1 million for middle class/working class housing built in 1964 sets it apart from most sleepy college towns.
stalcottsmith commented on Tesla's 'Autopilot' Will Make Mistakes. Humans Will Overreact bloomberg.com/view/articl... · Posted by u/svenfaw
"Autopilot" is understood to mean "the plane flies itself" by the general public. Here's one human pilot who's ticked off by it:
http://www.askthepilot.com/questionanswers/automation-myths/
On a sailboat "autopilot" generally means "keep this heading" or "keep this point of sail." I'm pretty sure in aviation it means "take me to this way point and elevation" or a sequence of such maneuvers. A plane flies itself or a boat navigates itself only so long as nothing unexpected occurs. In either case, a pilot must be standing by, maintaining awareness, ready to assume control and handle anything that may come up. I'm not sure what people think this means in terms of driving a car but I think it's early enough that Tesla can help define what this means.
stalcottsmith commented on Just A New Fractal Detail In The Big Picture (2015) edge.org/response-detail/... · Posted by u/cdcarter
Not necessarily. Or rather, the growth of wealth could double every few months.
And this wealth effect could be due to massive reductions in labor costs by employing AI, leading to increases in standard of living as the price of good plummets.
I haven't looked at charts for the economy as a whole, but I bet certain kinds of technology provide nonlinear benefits for linear growth in energy consumption. Think about one computer replacing a roomful of workers doing hand calculations. (We don't moan about losing those jobs, by the way.) Yes, the computer was the results of decades of progress and investment, but looking at the marginal energy consumption of the finished good compared with that of a roomful of humans, there is no comparison.
Also, as long as we're talking sci-fi, why stop at harvesting energy from the earth. Until we capture 100% of the energy emanating from the sun, we have a long way to go as a race as far as energy consumption limitations.
The general price of goods plummeting would be seen by most modern economists as something of a disaster -- so occupied are they with engineering inflation. I don't think any mainstream economists have models or theories of economic development or social organization that would take us to a Kardashev level 2 civilization.
FWIW, here's their public spreadsheet of salaries and calculations. Not sure if it's been recently updated (on closer look, seems to reflect the founders' stated pay cuts, and new hires as recent as last month):
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1l3bXAv8JE5RB9siMq36-...
edit: Adding links to their blog posts:
https://open.buffer.com/transparent-salaries/
https://open.buffer.com/introducing-open-salaries-at-buffer-...
It is very interesting to me that the founders have agreed to pay people in very low-cost-of-living areas almost as much as people in San Francisco. I'm pretty sure USD$95k in South Africa, Croatia, or Italy beats the pants off $120k in SF lifestyle wise. I guess the founders have not traveled to these places or fine with overspending?
stalcottsmith commented on Why Education Does Not Fix Poverty (2015) demos.org/blog/12/2/15/wh... · Posted by u/apsec112
No one seems to be asking what was done to education to produce the higher graduation rates. Is it really true that everyone is now "smarter" or were standards changed to achieve the desired outcome? What good is it to have a college degree that is marginally superior to or in the case of some majors, no better than a high school diploma of 25 or 40 years ago?
Can private companies not offer dividends to their stock holders?
Of course they can. This has nowhere near the wealth spreading effects of an IPO though. First of all, most employees do not own shares but rather options. Option-holders do not receive dividends. You must exercise options to become a shareholder and most rank and file people cannot do this without selling the stock at the same time because it requires them to put cash in. The kind of middle class folks Mr. Cuban wants to enrich do not typically have thousands to invest in their employer.
I did this once prior to an acquisition of a company I worked for and lost the money. It's pretty much a stupid move unless you are already wealthy and a founder or controlling exec with better insight and control over the outcome.
Also, when an employee exercises options and then sells the resulting share in a public company, they receive a multiple of earnings. Earnings != dividends but suppose all the earnings in a period were paid out as a dividend (they wont be of course) -- the shareholder will get only that amount whereas if they sell the share, they will receive a multiple often 10-15x or more of earnings. Most people benefit more from an exciting lump sum payout than an unpredictable drip at a time.