carpal's comments

carpal | 18 years ago | on: Why Student Programmers Rant about Business Students with “Ideas”

I wouldn’t necessarily say this has anything to do with students or school. I’ve been out of school for a couple of years now and have been working as a developer for about 5 years.

One incident, in particular, drove most of the hatred for my original (and now replaced) rant. It involved an M.B.A. recruiting me to work for “his idea”, promising a bunch of money and a sizable stake in equity (~35%). However, once the boss-employee relationship set in, the money evaporated and the equity shrank to 5%. In the end, I wasted 6 weeks of incredibly hard work and came away with a chip on my shoulder.

The argument doesn’t really have much to do with Hackers and Business types. As he points out, it simply has to do with the fact that in a small group of people (2 or 3), there is no room for pure leaders. At that group size they merely become bullies, and the whole group is less powerful because of it.

carpal | 18 years ago | on: So you "just need a hacker", huh?

I never expected it to get this high. The post was a rant and, as most rants do, turned out to be a bad idea.

I've temporarily replaced the rant with my more complete and restrained thoughts on the subject.

carpal | 18 years ago | on: Weekend startups prove challenging

Atlanta's startup weekend company is apparently in the clear. Not sure what the difference is between the two.

In Atlanta's, the actual startup was an C-corp owned in part by Startup Weekend, LLC, in part by Atlanta Startup Weekend LLC, and the rest by the "core team" that existed after the weekend. People who participated in the weekend were given shares in Atlanta Startup Weekend, LLC, and not the C-corp. I think this was done to avoid any complications with the SEC, since LLCs are governed far less strictly.

carpal | 18 years ago | on: So you "just need a hacker", huh?

There are two main differences:

1) Apple was a hardware startup. Hardware startups need funding and someone to aggressively sell the product in person to big vendors. Software startups don't usually need that kind of person (unless they're going after the Enterprise cookie).

2) It was in the 70's, and startups were, in general, harder to start than they are now.

carpal | 18 years ago

Well, funding is a different matter. If a beef-headed M.B.A. actually has some funding, they might actually be worth listening to.

However, 99% of the time they don't have funding, they've (at best) got "strong interest from investors" or some such.

carpal | 18 years ago | on: Robot reports for security duty in Atlanta

I used to pass by that area every day. The problem is not that the shelter is there, but that the bums are always hanging out outside the shelter. 24 hours a day, there are bums hanging out there harassing people.

I have no problem with homeless people in shelters. But when they're out in the street making people's lives miserable, you have to do something. A robot isn't the best solution, but when the city won't do anything, it might suffice.

carpal | 18 years ago

Good point.

Personally, I'd love to have a robotic centaur helping me around the house.

carpal | 18 years ago

Well, not necessarily. Those devices aren't biped specific- they're specific to thing with grasping mechanisms.

Who's to say a quadruped robot can't have 4 feet + 1 or 2 grapsing mechanisms? Or have two front feet that are also capable of grasping?

carpal | 18 years ago

There are only two real advantages to bipeds:

1) Height 2) Use of spare limbs for tools

Height doesn't seem to be much of an advantage for robots at this stage, and I think that robots could have 6 limbs with no problem. Therefore, biped robots are really only a novelty.

carpal | 18 years ago | on: Not A Bug...

Maybe it is time to expand the size of the editor base. "Articles" like this should be killed.
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