danfuzz

I look forward to you reviewing your HN contributions in a decade or so.

You're probably thinking of Prop 13, which, no argument. But I don't think the fix is as straightforward as you imply. (TLDR the biggest problems are due to corporate landowners, not families who own a single dwelling.)

Also, what jurisdiction are you aware of that takes un-accepted real estate offers into account for tax purposes?

Near as I can tell, the domain isn't "highly-in-demand" in any meaningful way.

I think the whiners who carp about its current use are just crypto-jealous.

At least where I live (California US), that's not true. There are certain things which trigger a change in taxable value, but they're mostly only indirectly connected to appraised value. Un-accepted offers 100% definitely don't factor in and (for reasons already argued by others on this discussion) would probably cause more problems than they would solve if they _were_ taken into account.

Just to be clear, do you believe milk.com is being squatted on right now? Should its registrant morally pay more than the default annual registration cost?

If so: How does consistently using a domain (any domain) for literally 30 years (as of a week ago) for a personal website and an email address constitute "squatting?"

Please note that there is a significant time cost (both senses) switching one's email address. Speaking personally, I have found some organizations are effectively incapable of updating an email address in their systems, at least not on the first N attempts over the course of M years.

People pay registration fees every year for domains. How is what you propose different than registrars setting different fees for different domains? Or: What entity should be entitled to the tax, and why?

Are you proposing every domain name registrant pay for an annual appraisal, whether or not they are planning on selling?

I know of no truly serious offers for the domain, but why should that matter? I'm pretty sure residences aren't taxed based on un-accepted offers, for example.

How would you calculate the FMV of milk.com?

I don't think he wants offers?

In what way is he actually speculating or rent seeking? He has a real website on it — not just a placeholder — and he's got DNS MX records, so it's presumably actively used for email.

This is also my take.

Pretty sure the main answer is that he's not actually engaging in rent-seeking in any pejorative sense.

Apple doesn't in fact have a blanket trademark on the word "apple."

FWIW I don't think he actually ever intends to or expects to sell.

My read on his "value" page is that he doesn't actually want to sell. Assuming he just wants to keep using the domain for his personal site and have the same email address he's had since 1994, would that make it okay for him? Would that still somehow be immoral rent-seeking? What makes those uses of the domain "impractical?" Who is he morally obligated to give or sell the domain to, and if it is to be sold what is a fair value that wouldn't make it "rent-seeking?"

I didn't ask for a definition.

In what way does that apply to milk.com? Is the owner seeking to get wealthy from it? And if so, is he also somehow failing to create sufficient wealth in the process?

What should he be doing differently right now to not fall on the wrong side of the line?

What "rent" is he seeking?

His brand is strong, perhaps.

In what way is this site "squatting?" I'm no lawyer, but I'm pretty sure you can't get a trademark on simple English words like "milk."

I also wouldn't buy milk.com for $2000. Does that mean I should sell it for $2000?

In any case, there is also a time / hassle reason to not sell: It would mean the loss of the only personal email domain I've used since 1994, and that would make for a _lot_ of updating (and crossing of fingers hoping I didn't miss something important).

️<3

I mean, I really would sell for $10MM. But I think I'd be giving someone a real steal for (much) less. Like, sure, I could use $100,000, but does that mean I should sell a more-valuable asset that I happen to own for that little? If so, why?

For me too. Yes I am fortunate in multiple regards.

I'm here for you.

You think? It certainly keeps the low-ball speculators away, but if it were to sell do you really think it would get $10MM?

Thanks! Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) the internet has grown up, and it's been a long time since someone has sent bona fide misdirected mail to the site.

Thanks! It's arguably in need of update, but it still seems to get the job done.

You can blame me for those wasted four bytes (or, perhaps, that wasted terabyte in the aggregate).

The original idea was that on big-endian machines, the resulting .odex would be endian-swapped compared to the original .dex, and this field would provide a reasonably-blatant indication. This would probably help with debugging more than anything else (maybe help with security, but not much), because there's no reason anyone would drop a little-endian .odex file on a big-endian machine (or a big-endian one on a little-endian machine).

We wrote (most of?) the code to get the vm working on big-endian systems, but within Google we never shipped any big-endian hardware AFAIK. I have my doubts that anyone ever did.

IIRC, when we were evaluating GPRS modules for potential use in the hiptop, we would consistently find ourselves testing modules that worked well for a minute or two at a time but would fall over flat if you tried to keep a connection going for any length of time.

If all you needed was a few dozens of seconds of connectivity — such as, I'm guessing, to update a sign — that was probably just dandy. However, that's not how the hiptop worked; it generally aimed to open a connection to the "mothership" soon after boot, and it would hold it open, for hours or even days, network willing.