jonkelly

No one chooses insurance, it chooses them. Joined a management consulting firm out of school, got assigned to a bunch of insurance cases. Escaped to Oracle. 1998, got a call from a friend of a friend: I hear you know a lot about insurance...I just got a million dollars to start an online version of GEICO...are you in? 17 years later, my career is insurance.

Please don't. Lots of horrible things were said there behind a wall of anonymity. Think Secret + 4chan for failed startups. For those of us that tried to do the right thing by our employees, it was very hurtful.

I'm just starting out teaching my daughter (10). Any recommendations on how best to get her started with JS?

Great reply. I'm reminded of a recent New Yorker article about the poverty bureaucracy in NYC. Can't remember the exact details, but one of the recipients talks about how much they could do with the amount the city spends on them per month to put their family in some gov't run hell-hole.

I'll add that many free-market economists are strong supporters of the basic income, especially vs. a minimum wage (Milton Friedman supported a negative income tax). The advantage of the basic income is that it's very simple and there are no mathematical gymnastics needed to neither discourage work or produce a very high marginal income tax rate as you leave the NIT. Lastly, the basic income makes it easier to abandon the income tax entirely and move to consumption based taxation.

Family photos are the only items I don't think should be stored on the cloud as they are too important and too large. About a year ago I bought 2 external drives and we back up our MacBook at home and in another location. You can get 2 multi-terabyte drives for a little over $200. Sounds like a lot more trouble than it is and provides a great sense of security that our pix are secure.

PG offered a clear underlying model in this essay. His model is that a) founders need to sell well to succeed and that b) it's hard to sell well if you can't be easily understood. You have a "guess" that mundane traits are more important for success. He has a theory and data that support his theory.

I'm also surprised by how often this issue comes up. To use an example other than buses -- many ski lifts and gondolas are designed to take 10-15 minutes, but it's not unusual to be on one for over 30 minutes when there's heavy wind or a mechanical problem. They are also quite difficult to evacuate.

In the late 90's, the CEO of our startup told us about a raid on his Palo Alto home. His daughter was away at camp for the summer and his wife had mailed her a care package that included laundry detergent. As they later found out, detergent can be used as a masking agent for drugs.

A few days after the package was sent, Law Enforcement (DEA & local police, IIRC) surrounded the house. Luckily, back in the good old days, they didn't break the door down and start shooting, at least not in Palo Alto. They knocked, were let in, and asked the CEO's wife to open the package that the police had intercepted, upon which the laundry detergent was discovered.

The point I want to make about this whole category of problems, that seem to mock the 4th Amendment (NSA surveillance, civil asset forfeiture, militarization of police, etc.) is that we should be far more worried about incompetence than malice. We keep getting warned that these things are a pathway to tyranny but frankly, that may or may not happen. Horrific incompetence that ruins people's lives is with us today, at scale, and the problems grow with the power, money and technology given to those that wield them. We now have no-recourse no-fly lists, police raids on wrong houses that kill homeowners (so often it's no longer newsworthy), and sick elderly parents fighting for their house because their kid sold $20 worth of weed from the front porch (the latter from Sarah Stillman's other excellent New Yorker article).

Back in Palo Alto, it would have taken almost zero competent police work to determine that the care package containing laundry soap, sent to a summer camp from the home of two working professionals was almost certainly not masking drugs. But instead, complete careless incompetence.

We've talked a lot lately about the danger that we are on the road to 1984 or Brave New World. Right now, I'm much more concerned that many of our fellow citizens are already living in the movie Brazil.

Exactly, the "Mark Burnett problem" (producer of Survivor). I heard him claim in an interview that with enough footage he could create any perception of a person that he wanted (hero, jerk, brilliant, idiot, etc.). It seemed obvious after hearing it, but not something I had considered.

I'd say the biggest issue is that they provide a perverse incentive to the local government -- reduce the duration of the yellow light to generate more red-light revenue. I couldn't easily find a link but I believe this happened in Denver (and that they later re-instated longer yellows after public outcry). My understanding is that lengthening yellow-light times and adding a delay between red & green are the proven ways to prevent accidents.

I've seen the camera supporters argue that even if cameras cause more rear-end accidents those are preferable to t-bone crashes from red light runners, but that's a false choice. Longer yellows and red-green delays prevent both types of crashes.

Beyond this, I think there is legitimate opposition to the lack of discretion by the cameras. In places with snow & ice, there are plenty of times when it is impossible to stop at a red light even when travelling well below posted limits.

We got hit with one of these letters. I read through it and it was clear that we weren't actually infringing -- it only applied to the use of distribution to employees via the scanner. Luckily that functionality is pretty much impossible to make work on the Brother MFC that we have. We had our lawyer send back a note saying that we weren't infringing and that was the end of it. My guess is that showing that you are actually paying attention and have a competent attorney is a good way to avoid getting victimized (at least some of the time).

This is extremely helpful. I'm looking for a local Realtor and was going to try to compile some of this myself. It would be great if you added the # of sales within the target price range and the median time to sell to the results page.

edit: I agree with the other posters, I tried zip code in the search box and it was buggy (in Chrome).

I'd be interested to see the analysis with the day of week included.

I'll add that even in the high net worth category, buyer beware. You really need to do your own research as the quality of advice is uneven at best -- and quite likely to be self-serving (to the profit of the adviser). And if you believe in the Bogle-low-fee approach, you will not find a receptive audience.

Denver, CO metro (Englewood)

This or That Media is looking for a software engineer with experience in Java, Hibernate, and Spring.

We are a small team that gets a lot done. We offer health insurance, competitive salary, stock options and private offices. We lack pointless meetings, overhead and cubes.

If you are interested, please send your resume to Matt, tech at thisorthat.com

Denver, CO (Englewood). This or That Media

We are hiring full-time software engineers: JAVA, MySQL, EC2,MongoDB, jQuery, Hibernate, Spring. We're looking for folks who can make an immediate impact. Market salary, options, health insurance, and your own office with a door. http://thisorthat.com/pt/jobs

Englewood, CO (Denver metro)

This or That Media is hiring experienced software engineers: http://thisorthat.com/pt/jobs

I definitely liked the personality that came through the writing. "On the other end of the scale, I think Black Swan is a terrific film, but I’d sooner pull my nails out than watch it again." - well said and a good illustration of the value of the dual scale.

I attended this last week and had to share. It's very, very long, but it's the best macro-econ presentation I've ever seen. Really worth watching if you are thinking about macro factors over the next few years.

If you believe in it still, it's great news. A story that may help... I had a very well-funded dot com in the 90's. A guy went around the valley pitching "this is a big idea because [our investors] invested in it." He got funding and his company, Esurance, recently sold for a billion dollars.

I loved that post -- it is exactly how I see my job. But the first point is actually to define & tell the story. http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2010/08/what-a-ceo-does.html

I'll add that it helps to have personal experience in every role in the company before you become a CEO. I don't think it's necessarily a requirement, but it sure helps.

That's really pretty neatly evil, I hadn't heard of that.

Yep, I should have said _about_ 1/2, but that's why I said 5 to 7 rounds. Even 5 straight wins produces the illusion of skill.

My favorite related demonstration is to do a "tournament" where you start with 64 people and eliminate the 1/2 who don't flip heads each round. Some "amazing" flipper will get through 5 to 7 rounds and win. Something to think about when you see a mutual fund manager who beats the market 7+ years in a row.

I love the Monte Hall problem. I've found many smart people who have a difficult time getting it.

tl;dr one of the most famous people in the PR industry with over 100k Twitter followers gets a free steak after he jokingly asks for one on Twitter.

Still, well played by Morton's and well-earned following I believe.

With respect, I think this is exactly the case people have legitimate worries about, but also the case that we must clearly refute. Why should this idea be protected? Does it benefit society? I think the answer is yes only if one person having the idea makes it get implemented significantly more quickly than it otherwise would have. But I doubt that is usually the case. It's far mor likely that either a) the idea isn't really very novel and would have been produced soon after anyway by someone else or b) someone having a patent on the idea makes those with the ability to execute on it (or the capital) do something else. Or both. Patents should only exist to benefit society, since they have the force of law. I think most of us struggle to find even single instances where that has happened.

Exactly. Whenever I see someone make the "technology destroys jobs" argument, I always think of Kurt Vonnegut's first (and worst) novel, Player Piano. The disruptive change in 1952 looked just as scary to those being disrupted as it does today.