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ricaurte's comments

ricaurte | 15 years ago | on: PadMapper Maps Out Crime Levels of Cities

It would be even more informative if the map could be adjusted for population density.

Compare two neighborhoods: Neighborhood A has a population of 100 and crime rate of 1 per month. Neighborhood B has a population of 10000 and crime rate of 1 per week.

Assuming the crimes are equal, in neighborhood B you are ~4% as likely to be a victim of a crime as you would in the smaller neighborhood A. But in the current map, neighborhood B would look like it has a bigger crime problem.

ricaurte | 16 years ago | on: The Shakespeare Programming Language

This is amazing! I took a Shakespeare class in college, and it would have been awesome to have given my instructor some source code for assignments. :)

ricaurte | 16 years ago | on: Nanotube dye makes wearable batteries

It would be cool if they developed nano-scale thermocouples to combine with this, so that we could use our body heat to recharge the wearable batteries. I could see getting a very nice recharge while at dance clubs.

ricaurte | 16 years ago | on: On California, Don't Believe the Hype

California actually paid out $289 billion and received $242 billion for a net outflow of $47B.

[EDIT] Colorado was the state the paid out $35.9 billion and received $31.2 billion.

ricaurte | 16 years ago | on: Will California become America's first failed state?

If California wasn't subsidizing the South, then they wouldn't have the fiscal problems they currently have. In 2005 alone, Californians paid $47 billion more to the Federal Government than they received in spending.

Considering California's annual budget is $100 billion, Californians could lower their taxes by almost [Edit] 40% and avoid their budget problems if they stopped subsidizing the red states.

- http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/show/22685.html - http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a5_S...

[Edit] A link to CA's budget: http://www.ebudget.ca.gov/pdf/Enacted/BudgetSummary/SummaryC...

ricaurte | 16 years ago | on: Washington Versus Silicon Valley

Then it is the public and corporate pension funds, endowments, fund-of-funds, etc., that should face scrutiny, not the venture capital firms. Figuring out their expected return from their venture capital investments shouldn't be very difficult because of how long the industry has been around, not to mention that venture capital investments on average are only 1-3% of their portfolios (due to venture capital's lack of liquidity), so the amount of money at risk is insignificant compared to the size of the portfolio. If losing 1-3% will collapse an investors fund, then they were over-leveraged to begin with, just like Lehman Brothers.

If the Treasury Department is worried about how much people are putting into venture capital, then they should make a ceiling of 1-3% of the fund's portfolio being able to be invested in venture capital. No regulations are needed on venture capital firms.

ricaurte | 16 years ago | on: Washington Versus Silicon Valley

Agreed this is a completely absurd move by the Treasury Department. What brought the financial industry to its knees was too much leverage. Venture capital firms don't use leverage, so they can't be a systemic risk.

ricaurte | 16 years ago | on: You Do Not Have Health Insurance.

He fails to mention the restrictive state laws on the books that heavily regulate who can pay for what in health care. With 90% of health care being basic and routine care, we should only need insurance in catastrophic situations.

For example, a health care start-up in Seattle (Qliance, website: http://qliance.com) had to lobby to have the State of Washington's laws clarified so they could legally operate, while the insurance industry lobbied to make their innovative model too costly to operate.

I bet if everyone in America had affordable basic health care, such as that provided by Qliance, the health care debate would become more or less mute.

For additional reference, the Direct Primary Care Coalition: http://www.dpcare.org/

ricaurte | 16 years ago | on: Are entrepreneurs hypomanic?

To be "normal", you are by definition average, and to achieve anything, you need to be "above average" in some way. If you're "above average", then you must by definition be "abnormal". Considering anything "abnormal" is a disease in psychiatry, then anyone that achieves anything must have some type of psychiatric disease. :)

ricaurte | 16 years ago | on: Student Arrested for Jailbreaking Game Consoles

I have a feeling if he made this a centerpiece of the defense case he could have it appealed all the way to the Supreme Court. If you "buy" something, you own it. Similar to the car comment, if you buy a new home, it's not like you get it with a EULA that says you can't modify it, although home owners associations act in a similar manner.

He could also potentially counter-sue with a class-action lawsuit claiming that the video game systems makers committed fraud by way of falsely advertising to people that they were "buying" the game systems, when in fact, they were actually leasing them.

ricaurte | 16 years ago | on: Why We Learn More From Our Successes Than Our Failures

If this holds for the vast majority of people, that most people don't learn from their failures, then it should also hold that if you can learn from your own failures you will be able to get a nice head-start on life.

It would then also be good to reflect and make sure one learns from each of their failures instead of continuing on the worn and useless path.

ricaurte | 16 years ago | on: The Next Industrial Revolution

Given the method they've created to make carbon nanotubes, it should drive down the price of making the nanotubes and allow things to pan-out. Now if there is some serious flaw that comes-up in the commercialization process, then it probably won't, unless it is relatively inexpensive to overcome.
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