...a blog entry titled, "Kickstarter is not a venture capital broker."
OK, I guess people probably figure that out before they put their money down, But you do hear people talking about their "investment" in KS projects. Since you don't get to share in any profits, it's definitely not an investment. Really, it's more like charity, with rewards. Sort of like public broadcasting.
I have to say I'm not comfortable with tech startups relying on charity. Yeah, it's cool that companies like Pebble can get the startup money they need at a time when traditional credit is hard to get. But jeez, they're a business — passing the hat for their startup costs just doesn't feel right.
Kickstarter started out as a way to fund artistic projects — economically useless stuff that's theoretically of cultural value. I might stretch that a little to marginally economic ventures (if some director I admire were to use KS to raise money for a low-budget movie, I'd give, and I wouldn't even want free tickets) . But digging in my pocket to help fund the next iPhone? Nuh uh,
Well, you have called me "stupid" in every single post. Most people would call that arrogant. Likewise, you often hear people complain how techies treat them like idiots.
I did read the article, and I did notice the bit about him having a Poli Sci degree. And hey, guess what, he's not the first programming geek I've heard of who started out in another field. I've even worked with one or two who started out in Poli Sci. What makes a guy technical is not what he majored in in college, it's what he has an aptitude to do.
If I'm slandering technical geeks, then I'm slandering myself — I've referred to myself as a "technogeek" for a long time now. It's on my twitter feed, my Google+ site, and and all the other places I identify myself. And as somebody who's been part of geek culture, I've long observed that we have a tendency to assume that anybody who can't keep up with us on technical subjects is stupid and/or lazy.
The fact is, we have a culture of arrogance. Anybody who's tried to get a clear explanation of something out of IT will tell you that. For that matter, your participation in this thread is a classic example of geek arrogance.
Putting everything behind a GUI doesn't so much flatten the learning curve as make it irrelevant, because you don't have to know as much about how the system works. Which makes the idea even dumber than you suggest.
I'm reminded of the character on the Simpsons who thought that 5+2=LO BAT
Back in the 60s Robert Townsend was brought in to turn around a dying Avis Rent-a-Car. He decreed that everybody spend some time working a rental counter so they would understand the activity that was at the core of the business. He was very amused by the experience of his chief programmer, who fled in panic upon seeing his first customer!
That was appreciation. This is geekcentric nonsense. The CEO doesn't just want everybody to better understand the coding, he actually thinks everybody can contribute to the codebase in an ongoing fashion. This is the classic geek fallacy of "everybody's brain works just like mine."
Well, aside from the fact that most users aren't geeks who like to hack everything they own, and the other fact that adding a little dial would add more to the cost than eliminating the hearing test and the programming, I guess it's a great idea.
It really astonishes me: we're all technogeeks here, and we spend our lives playing with cheap modern technology. Yet very few Slashdotters seem to understand why tech is so cheap. Tech can only be sold cheaply when it's produced in quantity. That's why not every gadget has every "simple" feature that the hacker wants: not enough people want the feature to drive the cost down.
Hey! I'm "old people". Not all of us think history should have ended during our youth.
For that matter, the "way it was meant to be" fallacy is not restricted to old people wanting their youths back. Ron Paul's basic theory is that America was a Libertarian paradise before bluenoses and reformers screwed it up. Yeah, he's old, but he's not that old. And most of his followers are pretty young.
BTW, I drive a 2009 Honda Fit. Beautiful piece of engineering.
Not true at all. If a judge simply says, "I'm going to make you stand on your head because I think that's a fair punishment for what you did" it will certainly be overturned on appeal, and there's a good chance the judge will be censured.
On the other hand, if the judge says, "Well, I can send you to jail for a year and fine you up the wazoo. But I think making you stand on your head is a more effective punishment. Which do you prefer?" he's certainly acting within his discretion.
Completely right. The dumb thing here is that the story summary reports this "overreach" without mentioning the facts you mention, or even the (severe, dangerous) crime the lady pled guilty to.
To quote the story, LOL! Do yo have any idea how hard it is to get a death sentence out of the U.S, court system? Look at spending millions on trials and appeals.
This kind of court ordered action isn't, strictly speaking, a penalty. Ms. LOL must have agreed to it as part of a plea bargain. If she thinks its overreach, well, she can always do jail time instead.
Micups did not get the cheapest digital hearing aid out there. There seem to be three tiers of price/features, and he chose the middle. As I mentioned before, I chose the cheapest at $2K a pair. This included testing (in a fancy soundproofed booth), programming, and fitting. Difficult to see how this could have been done any cheaper.
That said, I agree with you about the pervasive gouging in the medical industry. The most glaring case is scorpion antivenom. Scorpion stings aren't common in the U.S., so most of the research to produce antivenom happened in Mexico, where it's sold for $100 a vial. An American drug company licensed the antivenom, paid for a brief clinical trial to satisfy the FDA, and began selling it for $3,500 a vial wholesale. This is typically $12K a vial when it appears on an emergency room bill, where a typical treatment requires 3 to 5 vials!
A lot of the hospital markup is cost-shifting, of course. They have to pay for the uninsured people who use the ER as a family doctor somehow.
And I've seen some shady practices in the audiology industry too. I just don't think that $2K for a set of basic digital hearing aids is one of them..
If it's just a racket, why not buy the cheap hearing aids you see advertised all over the place? Less than $200 each.
I'll tell you why: because they're crap. They uniformly amplify the entire sound spectrum, which means that sounds in the range of your hearing that are not impaired, driving you crazy with feedback and overamplification. Real hearing aids selectively amplify the frequencies you need. Mine (which I only paid $2k for) don't actually make sound like they're amplifying sound, more like restoring missing texture.
Mine not only contain sophisticated DSP hardware, they have small radios so they can talk to each other and work together. If you think you can build something like that for less than $1K a unit (which also has to cover the cost of fitting and programming) then go for it.
The system (Sun Fire X4640) came out in late 2009, so ordinarily it would still be around. Alas, it used Opteron processors, and Oracle decided to stop buying Opterons.
And I just discovered something something amusing. When I was there, there were 2 or 3 competing ILOM modules within Sun. It turns out that Oracle decided to get rid of all but one — and that one support IPv6!
What, you think the purpose of a movie is telling a story? No it's about spectacle and cheering on the good guys. Fans (short for "fanatics") can't get enough of that. They don't mind trailers that give away too much, just as the movie itself will get a lot of repeat business.
Slashdot Mirror
...a blog entry titled, "Kickstarter is not a venture capital broker."
OK, I guess people probably figure that out before they put their money down, But you do hear people talking about their "investment" in KS projects. Since you don't get to share in any profits, it's definitely not an investment. Really, it's more like charity, with rewards. Sort of like public broadcasting.
I have to say I'm not comfortable with tech startups relying on charity. Yeah, it's cool that companies like Pebble can get the startup money they need at a time when traditional credit is hard to get. But jeez, they're a business — passing the hat for their startup costs just doesn't feel right.
Kickstarter started out as a way to fund artistic projects — economically useless stuff that's theoretically of cultural value. I might stretch that a little to marginally economic ventures (if some director I admire were to use KS to raise money for a low-budget movie, I'd give, and I wouldn't even want free tickets) . But digging in my pocket to help fund the next iPhone? Nuh uh,
You can spend $2k having a fancy hearing aid fitted,
Pay fucking attention. The $2K was for the hearing aid and the fitting.
Your economic arguments are too poorly informed to bother with. If you think you can make such a hearing aid, go for it.
Well, you have called me "stupid" in every single post. Most people would call that arrogant. Likewise, you often hear people complain how techies treat them like idiots.
Well, if PP doesn't work for you, fine. But I don't see how your keyboard possessiveness relates to the subject at hand.
I did read the article, and I did notice the bit about him having a Poli Sci degree. And hey, guess what, he's not the first programming geek I've heard of who started out in another field. I've even worked with one or two who started out in Poli Sci. What makes a guy technical is not what he majored in in college, it's what he has an aptitude to do.
If I'm slandering technical geeks, then I'm slandering myself — I've referred to myself as a "technogeek" for a long time now. It's on my twitter feed, my Google+ site, and and all the other places I identify myself. And as somebody who's been part of geek culture, I've long observed that we have a tendency to assume that anybody who can't keep up with us on technical subjects is stupid and/or lazy.
The fact is, we have a culture of arrogance. Anybody who's tried to get a clear explanation of something out of IT will tell you that. For that matter, your participation in this thread is a classic example of geek arrogance.
If you want to start learning a high level language, you shouldn't need to learn a bunch of other stuff first.
Absolutely true. Which is why the Pi is a bad choice for somebody whose first goal is to learn a HLL.
I don't accept that. The point of the Pi is to replicate the "turn it on and start coding" spirit that us 8 bit kids grew up with.
Huh? Have you seen the thing? It doesn't even come with a system case. This is not a turnkey system.
Putting everything behind a GUI doesn't so much flatten the learning curve as make it irrelevant, because you don't have to know as much about how the system works. Which makes the idea even dumber than you suggest.
I'm reminded of the character on the Simpsons who thought that 5+2=LO BAT
Alas, Sir, in this Sarah Palin era, so are you.
That's the classic lamer fallacy of posting a comeback that makes no sense.
Back in the 60s Robert Townsend was brought in to turn around a dying Avis Rent-a-Car. He decreed that everybody spend some time working a rental counter so they would understand the activity that was at the core of the business. He was very amused by the experience of his chief programmer, who fled in panic upon seeing his first customer!
That was appreciation. This is geekcentric nonsense. The CEO doesn't just want everybody to better understand the coding, he actually thinks everybody can contribute to the codebase in an ongoing fashion. This is the classic geek fallacy of "everybody's brain works just like mine."
Well, aside from the fact that most users aren't geeks who like to hack everything they own, and the other fact that adding a little dial would add more to the cost than eliminating the hearing test and the programming, I guess it's a great idea.
It really astonishes me: we're all technogeeks here, and we spend our lives playing with cheap modern technology. Yet very few Slashdotters seem to understand why tech is so cheap. Tech can only be sold cheaply when it's produced in quantity. That's why not every gadget has every "simple" feature that the hacker wants: not enough people want the feature to drive the cost down.
Hey! I'm "old people". Not all of us think history should have ended during our youth.
For that matter, the "way it was meant to be" fallacy is not restricted to old people wanting their youths back. Ron Paul's basic theory is that America was a Libertarian paradise before bluenoses and reformers screwed it up. Yeah, he's old, but he's not that old. And most of his followers are pretty young.
BTW, I drive a 2009 Honda Fit. Beautiful piece of engineering.
I'd think that the "basic" model shouldn't require any tuning at all.
I can understand that somebody who doesn't use hearing aids might think that, but you could at least read my post all the way through.
Not true at all. If a judge simply says, "I'm going to make you stand on your head because I think that's a fair punishment for what you did" it will certainly be overturned on appeal, and there's a good chance the judge will be censured.
On the other hand, if the judge says, "Well, I can send you to jail for a year and fine you up the wazoo. But I think making you stand on your head is a more effective punishment. Which do you prefer?" he's certainly acting within his discretion.
Completely right. The dumb thing here is that the story summary reports this "overreach" without mentioning the facts you mention, or even the (severe, dangerous) crime the lady pled guilty to.
To quote the story, LOL! Do yo have any idea how hard it is to get a death sentence out of the U.S, court system? Look at spending millions on trials and appeals.
This kind of court ordered action isn't, strictly speaking, a penalty. Ms. LOL must have agreed to it as part of a plea bargain. If she thinks its overreach, well, she can always do jail time instead.
Micups did not get the cheapest digital hearing aid out there. There seem to be three tiers of price/features, and he chose the middle. As I mentioned before, I chose the cheapest at $2K a pair. This included testing (in a fancy soundproofed booth), programming, and fitting. Difficult to see how this could have been done any cheaper.
That said, I agree with you about the pervasive gouging in the medical industry. The most glaring case is scorpion antivenom. Scorpion stings aren't common in the U.S., so most of the research to produce antivenom happened in Mexico, where it's sold for $100 a vial. An American drug company licensed the antivenom, paid for a brief clinical trial to satisfy the FDA, and began selling it for $3,500 a vial wholesale. This is typically $12K a vial when it appears on an emergency room bill, where a typical treatment requires 3 to 5 vials!
A lot of the hospital markup is cost-shifting, of course. They have to pay for the uninsured people who use the ER as a family doctor somehow.
And I've seen some shady practices in the audiology industry too. I just don't think that $2K for a set of basic digital hearing aids is one of them..
Maybe a little simplistic. "Good" changes over time as the tech becomes cheaper and people's expectations rise.
OK, I should have read past your (rather misleading) headline.
If it's just a racket, why not buy the cheap hearing aids you see advertised all over the place? Less than $200 each.
I'll tell you why: because they're crap. They uniformly amplify the entire sound spectrum, which means that sounds in the range of your hearing that are not impaired, driving you crazy with feedback and overamplification. Real hearing aids selectively amplify the frequencies you need. Mine (which I only paid $2k for) don't actually make sound like they're amplifying sound, more like restoring missing texture.
Mine not only contain sophisticated DSP hardware, they have small radios so they can talk to each other and work together. If you think you can build something like that for less than $1K a unit (which also has to cover the cost of fitting and programming) then go for it.
The system (Sun Fire X4640) came out in late 2009, so ordinarily it would still be around. Alas, it used Opteron processors, and Oracle decided to stop buying Opterons.
And I just discovered something something amusing. When I was there, there were 2 or 3 competing ILOM modules within Sun. It turns out that Oracle decided to get rid of all but one — and that one support IPv6!
I sure hope he's better at running a space colony than he is at running a cell phone company.
I see your corny 60s video and raise you an acid trip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-yy2URAYqU
What, you think the purpose of a movie is telling a story? No it's about spectacle and cheering on the good guys. Fans (short for "fanatics") can't get enough of that. They don't mind trailers that give away too much, just as the movie itself will get a lot of repeat business.