pingburg

A video link to the actual launch failure https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfMbGPf4r9g

It's an interesting question. I would argue that it isn't about the U.S. government's stability, but more about the confidence that you can use a dollar to buy x. And I don't think its a binary decision like the dollar will ultimately not be able to purchase x. Instead it will be how many dollars it takes to buy x and if the number of dollars increases rapidly, you get a sudden erosion of confidence.

This is very helpful. How about handling validation and errors (e.g. unique account)?

I agree that it will happen before B equals D but no one knows the tipping point ratio. In theory, a government can always argue right up to that point that, "we'll grow our way out of this."

Not being sarcastic here.

2013 A = Debt is around: $17.5 trillion B = Debt Service: $416 billion C = Average Rate: 2.38% ($416 billion / $17.5 trillion) D = U.S. Tax Revenue: +/- $2.8 Trillion

Things won't get interesting until B approaches D.

So one way of looking at is if everything remained constant (which it won't) you'd need 15% interest rates on the current debt for debt service to approach tax revenue. If interest rates stay the same you could increase the debt to $128 trillion.

Reference: Debt: http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/ir/ir_expense.htm Debt Service: http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/ir/ir_expense.htm Tax Revenue: http://www.usgovernmentrevenue.com/

> The fact that interest rates on Treasury bonds remain so low, despite our debt levels and despite certain political figures repeatedly attempting to force the US Government to default on that debt, is prima facie refutation of the idea that no one in the market actually thinks US debt levels pose a major macroeconomic problem in the short to medium term.

With respect, I don't think it's accurate that the fact that bond rates remain low correlates to evidence that there's no major macroeconomic problem. Just take a look at the Federal Reserve's balance sheet that was relatively stable for many years has quadrupled in 5 years.

Reference: Chart: http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/RSBKCRNS

Reference: Balance Sheet: http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/h41/Current/

I think your shooting too low. Million is so 2013. $10 Billion minimum!

I guess it's because of the plastic but all of the guns look like they were sold at Toys-R-Us.

BTW: The gun made in Japan (1st video in the article) has a background track that is hilarious and worth the click.

I'd like to see what the projected ongoing costs are for enrollees that continue in the system for the next year. Surely, the cost of maintaining an enrollee is substantially lower?

In the end it's a question of alternative mechanisms. Either we use the current system or we go with a "backed" medium of exchange. The "backed" version suffers from elasticity (but that may or may not be a good thing). So the issue becomes what are some other alternatives that aren't just derivative of the first two?

I think the underlying mechanism here is a centralized banking system in all three countries. Without getting into the religious discussion of whether a central bank is "right or "wrong", I would suggest that any system that relies on a small group of unelected humans making decisions on the supply of the underlying medium of exchange is imperfect and prone to favoring one group over another for reasons that are not positive for everyone.

I'd be very curious to see if it's age dependent.

I agree that I absorb more with the printed page, but I wonder if this is habit or conditioning. I didn't grow up reading material on a device.

Disclaimer: I'm old :).

IMHO it's important to be able to laugh at yourself, not take yourself too seriously, etc. I wondered how defensive folks from the Silicon Valley would be at a show that portrayed a segment of it in less than a favorable light. I've been pleasantly surprised.

Do you live in Silicon Valley?

So is your point that foundations or advocacy is bad for education?

What type of education technology were you building?

This is not meant to be snarky...

...When someone has a bunch invested (time) in a thing, it's understandable (not necessarily justifiable) to be defensive about anything that challenges that thing.

I've used Postman for a while and it is great for those trying to understand integrating with web apis. The ability to save requests in a namespace is invaluable.

I've respected the HN community for a long time. This was a place where ideas could be shared and unlike many sites that were just an echo-chamber for a particular point of view, things were debated here on a much higher, respectful level. Lately, however, if you don't 'fit' a particular worldview, comments are down voted instead of being debated.

Case in point. Here a company has provided insight into why they don't believe their product fits with the freemium model. This is so against dogma and current ideology that it's being down voted not on its merits but on the audacity to have a different opinion.