So if your address is jsmith@gmail.com, you can send email to (or login with) j.smith@gmail.com or jsmit.h@gmail.com.... at least until someone registers jsmit.h@gmail.com!

I was an early beta GMail user have a reasonably common first initial last name GMail address. I probably get 3-5 password reset attempts per month. I also routinely received a variety of interesting misdirected emails. Everything from someone's VPN credentials, a US military EEOC complaint, invitations to a stag party in Ireland, a video of a paratransit bus flipping over (intended to be sent to an investigator), to girls modelling underwear for boyfriends.

Think someone from a random middle class background that got good grades an above average public college. Basically, if he fucks up, he's bankrupt.

The WASPy types with Harvard MBA's benefit from their social safety net.

The questionable nature of many aspects of Facebook's business are not new -- an IPO investment in Facebook is by it's nature a speculative investment in the future. So was Netscape, the company that started the dotcom boom.

But unlike the good old days in the 90's, today we find ourselves in a new world where for-profit exchanges who handle billions of trades a day suddenly cannot handle an IPO. You have institutional investors stuck with seemingly illiquid positions in Facebook panicking to close positions poisoning the well and creating an atmosphere of ambiguity and fear.

You can't roll out the "investment is a long term endeavor" bunkum when the entire business model of NASDAQ-OMX and NYSE-EuroNext is now to operate a liquid market. The NASDAQ utterly and completely failed to operate the market correctly, and traders who expect to be able to trade quickly were hosed. Facebook, the traders, and the retail investor all suffered because of NASDAQ's incompetence.

You're going to use your bank for payments because you already have low-cost ways to make payments already (ie. checks, debit and credit cards).

But... there are millions of people in the US who operate outside of the banking system. They are mostly poor or working off the books in some form. For these folks, the idea of buying a $100 topoff card at a gas station to have access to mobile payments makes sense. How do I know this? Becuase the same folks are paying $5 for a disposable debit card today.

I'm not sure when they would clean a bus though. I'd rather have my bus driver drive than stop to pick up rubbish.

As Facebook figures out more ways to be a more pervasive force in people's lives, they'll have the ability to multiply the revenue they receive on a per-user basis.

When i was in elementary school in NYC, we learned about ancient civilizations and NYC history in 4th grade -- the ancient part was kicked off with a field trip to the Egyptian artifacts at the Met.

In high school in upstate ny, we studied global history and current events from grade 9 through 11. The Chinese portion sucked -- we basically covered the opium wars though the cultural revolution, but we studied many aspects of global history.

I have to respect Zuckerberg for not wasting the flight to NYC to do this sort of thing.

You have an extra layer of overhead with a Microsoft device vs. an iPad. Plus, because Samsung, HTC, etc are all making the devices, they cannot come close to the economies of scale that Apple does.

Apple's model is very clever. As a niche player until recently, they had to be more clever to survive. Look at their product lines -- they all share lots of components.

On the positive side, at least there is a chance of an amicable resolution with PayPal. 10 years ago, a sketchy buyer would be sending you a fake money order.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3988515

Points: 471

# Comments: 196

He's a good politician, but a master self-promter. He focuses on hot issues to get cheap name recognition like the iPhone 4 "antennagate" issue, airport baggage fees, caffinated malt liquor and similar nonsense.

I declare it inane because the speech described by the article isn't very controversial at all.

Frankly, whenever I hear the phrase "job creation" I tune out immediately, because I know that nothing intelligent will follow that phrase ever.

People hire people to do things when they have work to do. You "create jobs" by increasing economic activity. The problem is, business these days is all about consolidation and labor arbitrage.

- 25% Poisonous people in key architectural/infrastructure positions who actively make it as difficult as possible to communicate.

- 15% "Mea culpa". I fail to clarify or make an assumption due to busyness, lazyness or missing something.

- 25% Folks who do not take initiative to engage in conversations at the appropriate time. These folks typically pop up with 11th hour critical path problems.

- 35% General nonsense: People incapable of writing english, etc.

Good technicians or engineers who cannot communicate end up making the guy who translates whatever they are doing to the customer or management look good.

But they can be dangerous for pedestrians in areas where you have a high density of traffic and pedestrians.

The problem is, transit planners tend to think of terms of making things flow well for suburban commuters going to work in the city. They tend to forget about the folks who live in the city.

An example re: Pedestrian accidents: "People think traffic lights are a guarantee of safety but the latest audit from Westminster City Council, for example, has shown that 44% of personal injury accidents occurred at traffic lights."

Sure. Pedestrians generally cross the street at the crosswalks, which are placed next to traffic control devices. And many of those accidents are at intersections that lack directional control -- the driver doesn't pay attention, turns right and hits someone crossing the street.

The guy is right about a few things -- the regime of controlling traffic and handling peak demand is very inefficient. That's a feature of urban sprawl.

The problem with cars is that you get the "network effect" with respect to road capacity. Unlike computer networks, expanding capacity is alot harder than pulling a cable. Plus, if you have a two lane freeway or bridge, and you expand it to three lanes, traffic patterns will adjust and congest that road again. The New York City metropolitan area is a great example of this -- the driving suburbs of NYC extend nearly 75 miles north of the city at this point. People on Long Island literally commute over 2 hours to get to Manhattan via car and train.