True micropayments integrated in browser would be amazing. Imagine instead of ads or subscriptions, you could pay a few pennies for an article. It would revolutionize online content, in a good way. Nobody would be willing to pay for clickbait type stuff, but I think people would be willing to pay for quality content and journalism.
There's been a debate for a while now about this. Clay Shirky, Walter Isaacson, Jakob Nielsen, Norman Hardy, Kevin Kelley and others have expressed arguments for and against(mostly for) micropayments.
But there's yet to be a success story, most early implementations failed(BitPass, Ezcash, Peppercoin) but that was before cryptocurrencies. Now there's a new crop(Steemit, 21.co?, etc) that are trying again. Interesting to see how this will all pan out.
A micropayment system tied in to browsing history might make this possible. Otherwise it would require essentially a syndicated subscription system, which is server side, but would need enough content producers on board to make feasible, and they probably wouldn't be able to agree.
I looked at the book reviews yesterday. Tons of one star review, but if you sorted by verified purchases the vast majority of them disappeared. Honestly, to minimize gaming Amazon might just have to start restricting reviews to verified purchases, even though that has its own set of drawbacks.
As another Oracle anecdote, a family member worked for IBM (this was about 15 years ago) as a software engineer and then as (what is now called) a sales engineer/technical consultant, where he'd travel to client sites and demo IBM products, answer technical questions, etc.
He said Oracle was without a doubt the most unethical competitor they ever had. IBM had internal guidelines on acceptable limits for gifts, meals etc you could give to clients, but Oracle sales people had no such qualms and would sometimes essentially bribe VPs/whoever had the power to make the purchasing decision.
IBM was certainly no saint (this family member ended up leaving a few years later), but he was astounded by how ethically untethered Oracle as a company was.
If you're interested in free food, I recommend checking out www.freefoodguy.com. He's a blogger who's sole mission in life seems to be finding free food deals and sharing them via his email list.
Agree on not being mean. I don't even understand how it could be considered reprehensible? She's a successful, smart, black woman, raised in the deep south by educator parents. Her success is to be lauded. I'd think the pages of the more liberal HN would be the place her success could be appreciated.
I suppose it depends on your political views. She was a core part of the administration that invaded an entire country on false premises and resulted in thousands of deaths.
Good point about the rest of her story though – she is a successful women and came from statistically unlikely circumstances.
Tough to balance those things out. In my view the participation in war crimes outweighs all other possible successes.
Edit: forgot to mention her role in authorizing torture.
>> administration that invaded an entire country on false premises
"Clinton also stated that, while other countries also had weapons of mass destruction, Hussein is in a different category because he has used such weapons against his own people and against his neighbors."
Are you publicly accusing Condalizza Rice of war crimes? Do you have proof? Does HN support your claims and are willing to fight a legal battle on your behalf or testify in your defense?
Condoleezza Rice has been instrumental in pushing for the US government to bypass personal privacy on the internet, and they hired her to help run a company that stores people's private documents on the internet. How does that make sense?
Her involvement in the Iraq war, the Bush torture program, and so on are also reprehensible in my personal opinion, but in this case we can leave those aside; I would think that her position on warrantless wiretaps alone would be sufficient for anyone who cares about privacy to want her kept far away from Dropbox.
(And there's nothing about being liberal that requires one to mindlessly support everything any woman or minority says or does. It does you no credit to hold such a childishly simplistic view of your political opponents.)
My family signed up for Amazon Prime fairly early on. We all knew that, given Amazon's reputation as a loss-leader, one day the price would rise. It certainly wasn't sustainable--in addition to two day shipping on almost everything, it gave you access to Amazon's Netflix clone. But for us, it worked as Amazon wanted. We ended up buying much more from Amazon than we otherwise would have because of Prime.
We ended up buying much more from Amazon than we otherwise would have because of Prime.
I will say that while we don't buy more total stuff than we would have bought, we do find ourselves buying from Amazon instead of other vendors because of a combination of Prime, liberal return policy, and price.
Do you think learning web development in its current form is a good idea? The scenario I'm concerned about is spending a few years learning web dev only to discover my skills are obsolete since the world has gone mobile.
Thanks, this is good advice. I'd consider an internship, but I'm concerned that most of the good ones wouldn't accept me since I'm still lacking in several areas. I'm willing to put in the work to learn quickly on the job, but I feel like I'd probably fail a technical interview.
Trust me, companies recruiting for internships know that you don't know anything yet. I interned and did co-ops after my first sophomore semester. Probably more than half the purpose of big corp internships is to fill the recruiting pipeline. Startups and small companies may need a more "ready to hack" person, but you'll find that out quickly.
Another quick observation, not meant to discourage at all - we all lack in several areas. Always. I think for hackers, one of the only skills that matters is that you have established your ability to learn how to do details on the fly (like pick up a new language) while holding onto the fundamentals that help you stay productive and organized.
In other words - hang onto the "I have so much to learn" attitude, but be confident in your "getting things done" ability along the way.
I'm a CS student, but the fact that I've made so little progress with the confines of the classroom is what made me contemplate this idea in the first place. I could try for an internship during the summer, but I'm concerned about getting a good one. I'm smart, willing to work hard, and love to learn, but I feel I'm at a disadvantage since my skills are still so limited.
