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ADRIANFR's comments

ADRIANFR | 10 years ago | on: AI That Annoys Telemarketers

Here is what I have done many times when a telemarketer calls I listen to what he wants to sell, the I say: “Yes, I think I’ll be interested in this, can you hold on just a bit?” Then I put down the phone and let him wait. Many times, the caller was still waiting 5 minutes later.

ADRIANFR | 10 years ago | on: How to smuggle $1K into North Korea

You have to understand that those were just slogans, with almost no practical equivalent. Corruption was rife, and taxes were almost unheard of. You get a salary (cash) and pay for goods with cash. No taxes on either end or annual tax return. Unemployment was officially inexistent, (you could go to jail if you had no job), therefore no welfare programs existed. Socialist parties in Western Europe had no clue about what they were wishing for.

ADRIANFR | 10 years ago | on: How to smuggle $1K into North Korea

The difference between socialism and communism was all in the "communist" propaganda. All east-european countries were "socialist" with the almost utopian goal of becoming "communist". It's a label that could be changed at anytime by the leaders. Technically, according to the doctrine, socialism was "everybody contributes based on ability, and receives based on the contribution", while communism was: "everybody contributes based on ability, and receives based on their needs", which was utopian. Western countries did not (want to) grasp the difference, so they just called the eastern block "communist".

ADRIANFR | 11 years ago | on: Rent Control Creates Higher Rents in SF

If the City needs teachers, social workers and others with traditionally lower wages, wouldn't it make sense that their wages would also go up (based on demand) if the rent control goes away?

ADRIANFR | 13 years ago | on: Google acquires BufferBox (YC S12)

The same was launched and failed in the same place (Toronto) in the year 2000, with locations at Go and Subway stations. I think Google will want to change the business model radically in some way.

ADRIANFR | 15 years ago | on: On Using Debuggers

A debugger loses much of its value in a functional language. Debugging Haskell or functional Scala code with a visual debugger is almost counterproductive.

ADRIANFR | 15 years ago | on: Today you, tomorrow me

The story is great, but the tile (and supposedly the moral of the story) is wrong. We should not do good deeds for some expected (or hoped-for) compensation or reward - on this world, or the other world. We should just do it.

ADRIANFR | 15 years ago | on: My Y Combinator interview.

Why don't you bookmark and cache ALL visited pages. And keep caches for, say, 30 days if space is a problem. I'm very likely to want to search/revisit something I visited 2 weeks ago. This would provide a set-it-and-forget-it approach to bookmarking.

ADRIANFR | 15 years ago | on: π does not equal 4

The easiest way to informally prove that the demonstration is false is to imagine starting with a circle in a triangle instead of a circle in a square. Or with any other weird shape around the circle and follow the same "cutting" algorithm to infinity. This way you can prove that pi is equal to anything greater than pi.

ADRIANFR | 15 years ago | on: Generating code from natural language is closer than you think

This is clearly demoware, good enough to impress the general public. But once you go from "Draw a red circle" to "Draw a red circle overlapped one third with a blue square with white dots over the lower left corner" that would be progress. And then I wonder if this will also work: "Paint a white-dotted blue square that intersects over a third of a red circle in the lower-left corner. Or will it give a "compile error"

Why not just create a DSL (e.g. in Scala) with a simple standardized NL-like syntax that can give meaningful "compile errors". There is no need to impress the general public.

ADRIANFR | 15 years ago | on: Ask HN: Option to invest as a condition of employment?

Technically you are right, everything has a price. Except when that price is way too high. So if you think a share is worth between say, $5 and $10, they can either say (nicely) "we're not selling shares right now", or say (rightly and rudely) "we can only sell YOU shares for $1000/share". And that may really be a fair price from their point of view, since having you (a nobody in the VC world) as an investor is really detrimental to their image.

ADRIANFR | 15 years ago | on: Ask HN: Option to invest as a condition of employment?

This is very unlikely to happen because: 1. When a startup sells shares (i.e., you purchase stock) it sells them not only for money, but also for advice and connections. Most of the time these are more valuable than the cash. Since you are likely (only) an engineer/geek, your part of the deal is short. 2. Even if they would want your money, evaluating a startup's worth (for pricing your shares)is extremely difficult and/or expensive. So the won't go through this process for a few thousand dollars.

ADRIANFR | 16 years ago | on: Ask HN: Who's hiring?

If you're hiring or looking for a co-founder, list your startup on http://www.startuplinkup.com. It's a simple, semantic wiki - a more permanent home for your search. Or you can find a startup to work for. (shameless promotion of my site)
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