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ecobiker's comments

ecobiker | 9 years ago | on: Why do the poor make poor decisions?

I grew up with the kind of income that would qualify me as poor. However, my parents' financial discipline were off the charts for someone in their position. Both of them had a decent education for their time and knew what matters vs what doesn't. We never got anything fancy - two pairs of uniforms, one nice set of clothes, one pair of shoes and pretty ugly looking backpack for the whole school year - nothing more. Absolutely no pocket money. No movies, not even extra-curricular activities - basically anything that costed money.

What we got was good healthy food, a great education - things that ended up making a difference in the long term. There were people like us all around us who we could clearly see not appreciating the value of some of the things we valued.

I would go so far to say, it's not the money. People need education. People need discipline and self-control if they are really going to pull their weight. They need help along the way but it's not always money they need.

ecobiker | 9 years ago | on: Facebook and Twitter pledge to remove hate speech within 24 hours

"The squeaky wheel gets the grease". I have heard far many times for my liking that Apple/Facebook/Twitter/Google...etc are private companies and they can do whatever they want as an argument. The same goes for products that are free. It doesn't automatically mean that we lose the right to criticize. It's necessary and healthy to raise objections and demand features that we'd like to have. It's in these companies' own best interests to listen to their customers and make decisions with their customers in mind (too). Even if these companies don't take heed, someone else would. May be another company would build something we are asking for. May be another social media company could pop up with a constitution like protection of freedom of speech.

The difference is that nobody is asking for these companies to be banned or to cease operations. They are free to do what they want and we are free to ask what we want.

ecobiker | 9 years ago | on: Git Reflow

The way I see it, I don't want somebody else to do the squash for me. It's my responsibility to make sure my commits are logical. I do as many rebases, fixups, squashes as necessary and provide a logical set of commits. I want the merges to preserve that as it is. But as others have said, there are plenty of really valid reasons to alter history as one deems necessary.

ecobiker | 9 years ago | on: Paul Graham on Uber and Lift Ban in Austin

I disagree. People were given a chance to express their opinion. If they cared enough, they should have voted. While that I don't necessarily agree with the ban, it's very important to note that the decision didn't happen in a closed door meeting.

It could be argued that these sort of regulations are not needed at all in the first place - as long as companies are transparent about it and people can vote with their wallets. However, there is a line. Where that line is drawn is decided by the society. I'd be happy as long as that decision is transparent.

Democracy is by no means perfect - transparency and an involved populace would make it work better. If either is found lacking, we should try to make it better.

ecobiker | 10 years ago | on: Amazon Targets YouTube with New Online Video Posting Service

Back when Kindle launched, it was very common to see the story of Kodak being floated around (film vs digital) to claim how Amazon is flexible. Fast forward a few years, Amazon video and music services are the worst in terms of cross platform support. The primary reason I don't buy/rent anything from Amazon Digital is because I can't stream it to my Chromecast. Considering the adoption for Chromecast I would have expected Amazon to support. Instead they ban it from Amazon.com.

ecobiker | 10 years ago | on: One Regulation Is Painless – A Million of Them Hurt

While the tax code should be simplified, it's possible to automate most of the rules anyway. It should be as simple as upload W2(s), link your trading accounts, answer a few questions and be done with it for most people. The software need not satisfy every usecase for everyone in the country. Are there an free/open source tax filing software?

ecobiker | 10 years ago | on: A Basic Income Is Smarter Than a Minimum Wage

>> "higher income than the value they can output"

Just so I can understand your argument better, can you elaborate this a bit more? How do you measure their output? How do you arrive at the dollar value?

ecobiker | 10 years ago | on: Dsxyliea

Thanks for the link! Seems like a good place to start.

ecobiker | 10 years ago | on: Dsxyliea

What tools do people use to get around dyslexia? I recently realised that most auto-correct and spelling correction tools breakdown for dyslexic people. The challenge for them is that they know how a word sounds but takes more time than usual to recollect the spelling. The recommendations suggested by standard spell checkers are way off the mark in those cases. Any recommendations would be appreciated.

ecobiker | 10 years ago | on: Break Up the Insulin Racket

http://theconversation.com/explainer-evergreening-and-how-bi...

I'm not an expert and I can't comment on specifics. But I'm of the opinion that a small enhancement is not the same as an invention of a drug and it doesn't come anywhere close to extending the life of the patent - unless that tiny change actually makes a big different in effectiveness.

Any good patent system should find a good balance between the two seemingly conflicting goals of incentivizing companies to innovate and keeping the price down for patients.

ecobiker | 10 years ago | on: How I got a CS degree with pen and paper and why I'm doing it again

Growing up I didn't have a computer at home. I would write my solutions in a paper, evaluate it mentally/with a pencil a few times, take it to my school or a friend's place and run it; only to find there is an issue. Rinse and repeat. I did this quite a few times and got really good at it. However, none of the languages are intuitive when you are learning it for the first time. You could easily be stuck at the most trivial of things about syntax, scoping, ..etc. Mistakes in a situation like mine are expensive - it usually takes a few days before I could verify again if my solution worked. It's really easy to lose your patience and move on.

ecobiker | 10 years ago | on: Why Big Companies Keep Failing: The Stack Fallacy

I hope everyone within Skype used it as your main communication tool. If you did, the problem would have been so obvious. Not so long ago, it was revolutionary to be able to send messages to someone even when they were offline. However, once someone implements it every other chat app had very little time to do that. IMHO, there is nothing inherent about big companies from reacting quickly. It usually boils down to the culture of the company that's the cause. Call it "Bias for action" or "Ask forgiveness, not permission" or whatever you want to call it - a company (big or small) that allows people to go quickly fix an issue or try another solution instead of talking endlessly about it, well aware that there is a chance for failure, is the one that's likely to succeed.
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