Bitcoin is uniquely suited for applications where capital mobility is critical. Other applications are largely spurious. There are several proposed advantages of cryptocurrencies in general and Bitcoin in particular: Anonymity Store of value Medium of exchange Investment Irreversibility Independence from any government policy Freedom of capital movement We examine and compare, for each of these…
Git makes it possible for a programmer to do most work on a branch that’s not pushed to any repository coworkers see. This is a bad idea . The only justification I’ve seen was that the practice “ let[s] you do some bonehead moves without your co-workers ever having to know ”. You should not need to hide your code from your coworkers . Even your experimental code. Local…
When building your next web app, you can create value by improving existing web dev tools or by making a compelling app. If you’re interested in making a great app, it’s best to use the best of existing tools and let others improve them. Most web pages served today are produced by one of these platforms: Static HTML (brochure-style sites) C or C++ (search engines mostly, some backends)…
“Gap, Victoria’s Secret and J. C. Penney are experiencing double-digit sales growth at their shopping Web sites” - To Save Gas, Shoppers Stay Home and Click - NYTimes.com
“[Osama bin Laden] said at one point that he wants oil to be $144 a barrel” - Fears, Again, of Oil Supplies at Risk - New York Times, October 14, 2001
Most Facebook apps are giggly. But serious apps exist even today when they cannot spread. A comment on my earlier post 75% of Facebook users are giggly and poke; 25% are serious and import bookmarks asks if there are, indeed, any serious Facebook apps. Here are some of the serious apps that I have installed: Analytic Polls – opinion comparison/sharing. Antlook – news. Personalized…
“[O]ne-third of adults said high gas prices had made them more likely to shop online to avoid driving.” - Envisioning a world of $200-a-barrel oil - Los Angeles Times
If you think the coming nuclear winter will make job market tough for employees, you need to hear about the job offer my daughter got recently. The job has: $0 salary and no equity (you’re supposed to be compensated in experience) no benefits other than vacation and sick time: no insurance, for example no possibility of promotion or raise, ever no job description: just do what you’re…
Facebook users fall into two categories: giggly and serious. Facebook user experience could be better if Facebook took this dichotomy into account. Ignoring the difference pushes apps to be giggly and serious users to be unhappy. Giggly 75% like pokes, quizzes, pic forwarding, fun games, selling friends, glitter on profiles. They express themselves through style and interact with friends using the…
Who Should I Follow? Twitter Friend Recommendations
Google targets AdSense revenue sharing so that publisher gets a bit more than the next best option, which is usually Yahoo. Yahoo running Google ads puts Google even closer to monopoly in contextual ads, reducing the revenues of all AdSense publishers. Consumer startups struggling for a better model often rely on AdSense for revenue. The alternative to the Google deal for Yahoo was, of course,…
NVCA Model Venture Capital Financing Documents : When a larger than usual set of lawyers develops universal VC funding documents, they end up with documents that appear to satisfy no-one. This is too bad, because the idea of standard financing documents is great. I wonder if you could make each document fit on one page.
Redesign A First Step In Bringing Order To The MySpace Chaos : MySpace is redesigning. 25% of all Americans visit MySpace monthly, making it largest site in the U.S. Disturbingly, 12% of all online minutes are spent on MySpace.
Garry Kasparov Griefed by Flying Penis : In Soviet Russia, Second Life plays the world chess champion. RC helicopter with a giant penis attached buzzed around Kasparov’s opposition assembly, in real life.
Yahoo Announces Non-Exclusive Search Agreement With Google : Startups are supposed to have better revenue models than AdSense. Yet Yahoo is doing just that.
Vobile, video fingerprinting tech (VideoDNA) : Doesn’t modify the video. I infer from marketing materials the fingerprint is roughly 1% in size of the original. Doesn’t mention computational costs.
The less people know about climate science, the more they worry about global warming
Judge Rules That Police Can Bar High I.Q. Scores : Police in New London, CT, deny job interviews to people with IQ scores too high. Unfortunately, the article does not specify the threshold.
TinEye : “Give [TinEye] an image and it will tell you where the image appears on the web.”
Glassdoor.com - Salaries