Hacker News: loewenskind

New comment by loewenskind in "Why are you people defending Apple?"

loewenskind — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 11:04:03 +0000

>But having a monopoly in the mobile app market does give Apple a monopoly.

They don't. Doesn't Android actually have more apps in their app store? It really is what the parent said: the Apple market place is just better, it's not any kind of monopoly.

New comment by loewenskind in " Apple is actually asking for 100% of SaaS mobile revenue"

loewenskind — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 10:53:57 +0000

I can't believe history can be completely forgotten in less than 20 years.

Here are a couple of links I found with a quick googling:

http://www.kmfms.com/whatsbad.html

http://web.archive.org/web/20071215231524/http://www.vcnet.c...

The second tries to document every company destroyed by MS and how.

New comment by loewenskind in "Is Your Job an Endangered Species?"

loewenskind — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 10:48:34 +0000

If we ever get to the point that jobs aren't replaced that would mean that all work isn't needed so the typical rules of capitalism no longer apply.

Capitalism is just a mechanism for allocating resources, it's not any kind of moral judgment on anything.

New comment by loewenskind in "Why are you people defending Apple?"

loewenskind — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 09:54:44 +0000

If last.fm, etc. are providing so much value why are their margins so thin? Are they providing value less than 30% of the cost of the base product?

New comment by loewenskind in " Apple is actually asking for 100% of SaaS mobile revenue"

loewenskind — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 09:29:13 +0000

You can't possibly be serious. You don't know of Microsoft's long history of copying software that other companies had made, putting them out of business? And three other people as well apparently.

New comment by loewenskind in " Apple is actually asking for 100% of SaaS mobile revenue"

loewenskind — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 15:37:13 +0000

This sounds a bit hyperbolic. The company that is notorious for doing this is Microsoft.

New comment by loewenskind in "Guile 2.0 is out"

loewenskind — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 13:05:54 +0000

Personally I would prefer Racket over Guile, but if it starts to keep its promise about becoming the scripting language for linux then I would get more interested.

Any link for all the things that have started to happen with it lately for those of us who are out of the loop?

New comment by loewenskind in "Rhapsody passes on Apple's "economically untenable" sub plans"

loewenskind — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 10:02:48 +0000

I can understand Apple wanting to cut out middle men. I've never been a big fan of middle men myself, for the most part. But the biggest thing that bugs me about this is: iBooks doesn't have any books where I am! I buy all my stuff on Kindle because it's the only place I can legally buy a book at all. They can't try to shove everyone off the platform when they don't have any viable alternative themselves.

New comment by loewenskind in "Rhapsody passes on Apple's "economically untenable" sub plans"

loewenskind — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 09:43:59 +0000

Simple solution: sell your crops where it is most profitable. Maybe with 11x normal it's still worth it. As soon as it's not, you switch.

New comment by loewenskind in "Rhapsody passes on Apple's "economically untenable" sub plans"

loewenskind — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 09:42:05 +0000

>It's deeply disturbing that the people at Apple feel entitled to radically change the rules of the game whenever it suits them.

What makes you think that's what they're doing? It could also be that they never intended for their platform to be used this way but didn't explicitly deny it because they didn't see this coming. I don't have any way of knowing that is the case, but I don't think you have anyway of knowing your opinion is right either.

New comment by loewenskind in "Google doesn't get 'social', but Apple doesn't understand the Internet"

loewenskind — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 09:37:43 +0000

Couldn't disagree more. The "all apps should be web apps" movement is just an attempt to return to dumb terminals. Now the pendulum is swinging the other way again, but this time "fat client" apps can just be nicer front ends to web services.

Personally, my strategy is to create my product as a REST web service and provide some kind of default web interface, but let native clients use the REST interface to provide a nicer experience where applicable. I.e. the HTML interface is just one possible "view" to the service.

Why does my native app have to be the completely generic web browser native app when it could be a specific "web browser" custom tailored for my specific service?

New comment by loewenskind in "Google doesn't get 'social', but Apple doesn't understand the Internet"

loewenskind — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 09:32:17 +0000

If people are using apps because they make more money with them, then what is your basis for claiming web apps are superior?

New comment by loewenskind in "Using Real Names has Real Consequences"

loewenskind — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 08:06:07 +0000

If you don't have speech without consequences then there will always be things that need to be said that can't be.

New comment by loewenskind in "The Secret to a Happy Marriage: Do the Dishes, Put Out, Don’t Talk So Much"

loewenskind — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 08:01:10 +0000

Looks like you're getting a bit defensive for some reason. I was using "you" as a generic pronoun (I could have said "one would be" instead but that's more wordy and is IMO less clear).

New comment by loewenskind in "I have seen the future and I am opposed"

loewenskind — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 09:25:33 +0000

You make some good points but I think you're underestimating the power a monopoly can have. It's true that IBM wasn't able to keep their strangle hold on technology, but Microsoft did for a long time. Walmart still stands largely unopposed.

New comment by loewenskind in "The Secret to a Happy Marriage: Do the Dishes, Put Out, Don’t Talk So Much"

loewenskind — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 08:38:53 +0000

>Happy wife = happy life

I hate this phrase, it's the battle cry of those who do whatever their wife says and laugh with their buddies about how whipped they are. Marriage is a balancing act. Of course you have to change and give in where appropriate but if you do everything she says she wants you will lower her opinion of you (as it should, since you're a coward).

New comment by loewenskind in "Steve Jobs: "I'll just sue you" (2010)"

loewenskind — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 08:20:40 +0000

I agree with PG: just ignore patents when you're small. If you ever get big enough for it to matter than things are looking really good and you'll have more bargaining options.

New comment by loewenskind in "Yes, The Khan Academy is the Future of Education"

loewenskind — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 11:50:40 +0000

>You come across patterns like that by doing the tedious work the hard way and looking for short-cuts.

This doesn't work for me. After a little bit of tedium my mind quickly switches through "just fight your way through this" and no more insight will be gained. All the math shortcuts I know I either read about or discovered while playing with numbers on my own time without any homework deadlines.

New comment by loewenskind in "Christopher Monsanto gives up trying to delete PL articles"

loewenskind — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 09:56:53 +0000

>He very correctly points out that people should simply fix the Wikipedia rules then.

Everyone is responsible for their own action. You should not follow rules that are bad, you should ignore them or try to change them yourself. "Just doing my job" is not a legitimate excuse and if I had the power I would punish that defense more severely than any other because it's the most dangerous.

New comment by loewenskind in "Bloodbath for Science"

loewenskind — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 09:19:03 +0000

Nothing lets the terrorists win more than spending ourselves into a stupor chasing non-existent boogy men.