ruby_on_rails's comments

I can only assume that you have failed every economics course you have ever taken, because if you left without understanding the concept of supply and demand orthe concept of value, then there is really nothing I can say to you other than avoid procreating. Though I certainly wish market pricing was determined via plot hole. It would certainly lead to more entertaining conversations. Next you can explain to me why the world is flat or why water is made up of hydrogen and nitrogen, or some other fundementally flawed concept. Have you written any books? I think I could do an entire 2-hour talk on just how fucking stupid you are. You my friend are a gold mine.

Ohh maybe you have a blog. But, in all seriousness, avoid procreating, there are enough retarded people that society has to care for.

You misunderstand. Minimizing margins and maximizing revenues are not mutually exclusive. Also, saying an entity is publicly traded irrelevant, as you are suggesting we know every detail about a company simply by reviewing their financial documents and investor relations mail; this is not the case.

Furthermore, I will happily make the "extraordinary" claim that, in general, large companies are incentivized to minimize margins to reap the tax benefits. Then again I am Joe Blow with a whole 46 karma, therefore, I must not be as smart or knowledgeable as a lurker like you with 1000's of karma, right? (oh and this one is a rhetorical question)

As usual on this particular site, if someone doesn't like the truth, they simply think its wrong because they don't like it. I half expected to get super down voted by all the closed minded individuals that have <~500 karma, but I guess you had the skeleton shift ehh tptacek.

As far as the golden goose goes, even if they scrap the program they are still better off. Does it sound better pouring far more money into building what you think is a golden goose only to make a lemon? That and they still have the system if they want to modify it and roll it out again a couple years from now. Also, they got the system right away and immediately got feedback from it. They saved a lot of time, time that they will use now on more lucrative projects.

Not really, best buy and any other company of its size are more concerned with tax filings (which should be an "Ah Ha" moment for those of you at home), which generally gives companies an incentive to jack up costs and consequently decrease revenue. If you want a better idea of what their margins actually are you best bet would be to talk to a good (read: independent) investment analyst.

Also, best buy pays ~27 million (adjusting for the time value of money over two years at 2.5% gives us 25 million, btw) for a golden goose they can reuse year over year and had they build it themselves they wouldn't have had it immediately. I don't have all the details, but the project (including legal costs) will likely pay for itself before 5 years is up. They also mitigated any risk with building it themselves and doing it wrong which would cost additional time and money.

As a side note, I am curious if the court decision has any impact on the possible of Best Buy whoring out their duplicate system.

Its actually better this is happening out side the US. Simply possessing CP in any format, with or without knowledge or consent is illegal. A handful of smart people have written about the situation (and its been featured on HN in the past). In the US, he would likely be far worse off.

All have anecdotal evidence. All must be right.

That is all.

I gave you +1 for middlebrow dismissal, you ignored the point I made and simply compared government to the private sector. I don't care how great the private sector manages their business, that is not the topic of discussion. Maybe you should stop wearing your ass as a hat and make a relevant comparison like between our governments and other governments, or between our govt today and our govt 20 years. Comparing apples and oranges isn't an argument. Still, plus 1 for Middlebrow dismissal.

Not everyone fits into neat little boxes. I read the article imagining using this device myself (and I'm a man!), or using it with a partner (man or woman).

I think what nugget is getting at, is there are many government programs that are mismanaged (welfare, social security, education to some extent, and others). Who legitimately feels good that they pay taxes only to see other Americans living off of Welfare, generations unemployed, living off of welfare (which btw, I consider to be fraud). People that live on welfare (no, not people who use the program as it was intended, as temporary help), don't pay taxes and the benefit from those of us that do pay taxes.

When confronted with situations like the one described above, any rational person would wonder why we want higher taxes, when we should really be focusing on reforming our broken social programs. Only then, when we take legitimate steps to reform our broken social programs, should we be considering higher taxes.

The reason for this is minor's can't be held liable for any contracts they sign, that and companies have boiler plate legal speak that is intended for 99% of their customers.

That being said, there are plenty of ways to get around that limitation, and may well land you in a grey area. On the flip side, because your a minor you can also get away with a lot more.

I would agree that there is grey area, but I would compare this to some guy walking up and commenting on your grey hair, then you, offended, punch him in the face. If we take that to the extremes then maybe it would be harassment or disturbing the peace, but at face value I say your the only person committing a crime there.

I also call bullshit on this. Google is very open to webmasters,and has a giant like 40 page .pdf available to them strictly about what things get better search results and what things cause negative results or out right panda-ing. The article says right up front about the voting website that they had duplicated content on pages and no one linking to them to boot. Both are known negatives to anyone working in SEO or web today and it has been known for years.

The entire article seemed to be one giant raving contradiction of its self. Companies don't want to hire good people (or for some reason have ignored what they have said), chosen to keep doing things they way that keeps getting them negative results, then moan about it. What happened to the voting website is the very thing thing that Bing would do to them (and probably has done to them).

Now admittedly, Google tends to promote its services above services of other companies, should they be in competing markets. Its unclear if this is by accident (Google engineers probably know the best Google SEO methods after all) or by design. At worst, if it is done by design, then Google is no worse then any other large company. Remember when all the big super markets started producing their own products at cut rate prices? Before when you walked into a Publix, you had 10ft of shelf space devoted to nationally branded ranch dressing. Now you have 5 ft devoted to Publix brand Ranch dressing and 5ft devoted to everything else. So if you are Kraft, your seeing your [eye-ball] search traffic being reduced by half and your competitor now has a much lower price to boot.

Why is it that Kraft doesn't care about that? They don't care, because they have spent the last half decade building their brand and their customer pool. They know that if their loyal customers go into a super market they will see the cheaper supermarket branded ranch dressing first; then second they will see the high priced Kraft and buy Kraft. I can easily extend this analogy to many of the situations presented in the article. When Google enters a market, they are the underdog. Just like when Publix decides to copy another nationally branded product and sell it in their stores. Even if Publix devoted 9 ft to Publix brand Ranch and 1 ft to National brands, on the shelves, Publix still wouldn't capture 90% of the market.

After having a "sales" (read: 95% telemarketing, 5% Misc tasks) job this past summer I can agree with much of what your saying. I gave it a couple months, then I quit (for various reasons, not really worth listing).

The thing is, as much I as absolutely hate saying this completely over-used phrase: the economy is shit. I am personally familiar with 100% commission based telemarketing, which amounts to complete shit, for those of you keeping score at home. Though, supposedly some telemarketers get paid hourly. Either way, its a crappy job but one that people are going to line up to fill so long as its the only job in town.

That's my take.

I gave you +1 for middle brow dismissal.

I would have to disagree that, this sort of crap is exactly what happens at small companies.

When the person who manages a small company and is also a sole owner of it; its pretty common that they look at employees successfully blogging as at least partly, as a result of the business's (i e their) efforts. Conflicts also have a tendency to be arbitrated by the owner, not resoled ad hoc by humans.

I don't agree with this mindset, but I have seen this sort of behavior personally from small employers. I don't think my experiences are rare by any means.

As far as the article goes, I do think its rather over the top.

"If there's one thing I wish I could do to improve HN, it would be to detect this sort of middlebrow dismissal algorithmically."

3 years ago, HN was great. Amazing in fact. What's changed in 3 years? Certainly not the system. The user base has changed, grown, degenerated into stereotypes and punch lines. There is an old saying that I believe succinctly explains what has happened: Garbage in, garbage out.

I keep seeing people writing about wanting to "improve HN." Every time I see this I think, are these people mad? It's dead Jim. He's been dead. We can all sit here and prod his body and make recommendations for how best to make his arm into a grappling hook or some such nonsense, but at the end of the day, the patient is STILL dead.

If there is one thing I would do to improve HN, it would be to write the death certificate and move on to finding or creating the next HN.

Also, I thought the article was excellent, albeit long.

YC is sexist and isn't providing enough kitchen space for more women to attend.

Where's the glory in cheating if you don't win?

I thought this was anti-hollywood.

"Contestant further represents, warrants, and agrees that any use of the Submission by the Sponsor, Administrator, and/or Judges (or any of their respective partners, subsidiaries, and affiliates) as authorized by these Official Rules, shall not:

a. infringe upon, misappropriate or otherwise violate any intellectual property right or proprietary right including, without limitation, any statutory or common law trademark, copyright or patent, nor any privacy rights, nor any other rights of any person or entity;

b. constitute or result in any misappropriation or other violation of any person’s publicity rights or right of privacy."

(http://robocall.challenge.gov/rules)

I find this clause rather disturbing, I think I know what they meant to say, but they instead wrote something so overly general, that if enforced, effective makes this competition un-winnable. Maybe someone else can weigh in on this.

Some of the best GPA's in my college graduating class (class of 2012) were known cheaters. They went on to prestigious jobs at companies such as [large american aircraft manufacturer] and [large american defense contractor]. Those of us that left with less amazing GPA's (say 3.0-3.5/4.0) are working dead end jobs making minimum wage.

Though as far as immoral/unethical/illegal activities go, cheating was really the tip of the ice berg for my particular university.