nhashem

16 ms·

1.
by nhashem 3mo ago
This is such a lovely idea that I logged into HN for the first time in over 10 years just to leave this comment. Thank you for sharing this with us.
2.
by nhashem 11y ago
There's a school of thought among "economic leftists" that the disconnect between US productivity and average US worker wages since the 1970s, is due to a decline in "outrage constraint."[0] Executives didn't
3.
by nhashem 12y ago
I've lived in Los Angeles in 2004, and I liked this article a lot. But I think there's another aspect that I think the OP overlooked: The dominant industry here will always be Hollywood, where the price of failure can be literall
4.
by nhashem 13y ago
While the OP was focused on Penn (I'm a Penn grad '04, fwiw), I'm sure this is pretty common at a lot of other selective colleges. I wrestled with a lot of the same exact feelings the OP did, although it never quite got so b
5.
by nhashem 13y ago
I'd argue the ACA will enhance the market for SimplyInsured. Yes, for an individual who wants a basic policy, Covered CA will probably be sufficient and they won't need more help than that. But there are dozens if not hundreds o
6.
by nhashem 13y ago
Yet another handful of anecdotes about a need-based social welfare program. If you're desperate enough, sabotaging yourself to qualify for a need-based social program eventually becomes the objectively optimal thing to do. This is the
7.
by nhashem 13y ago
For years, the two things that most frustrated me to hear from product managers were "how hard would it be..." and "can't you just..." It took me quite a while to figure out why I had such a strong, visceral reacti
8.
by nhashem 13y ago
As a resident of Los Angeles, this seems anecdotally (which has the usual caveats) obvious to me. I saw home ownership lead to issues with employment within the Los Angeles metropolitan area. There is a lot of "affordable" ($400K to $600
9.
by nhashem 13y ago
>>It is now up to you to demand your deposit back and to challenge the validity of your “signature” on any alleged bank “loan” agreement or check. Great. Have fun stashing your cash under your mattress. Or maybe you'd rather just
10.
by nhashem 13y ago
Sorry, but this is asinine. Easy DNS charges $19.95 CAD/yr for its basic package of DNS services for a domain. Amazon's Route 53 charges $0.50 per month, or $6.00 USD/yr. Given the OP claim to be "traditionally anti-big government, pro-f
11.
by nhashem 13y ago
For software engineers, it's extremely likely that whatever company you started working for in Year 1 will be completely different in Year 5. Google wasn't the same company in 1999 that it was in 2004, which wasn't the same company that it
12.
by nhashem 13y ago
Has the OP considered that the perceived lack of intelligence of George W. Bush may be based on the outcome of the decisions made by his administration, rather than his southern drawl or verbal miscues?
13.
by nhashem 13y ago
Keynesian economics is mostly just based on the idea that consumer demand drives the economy ("aggregate demand"). This demand usually is discussed in terms of consumer spending, but this is frequently misrepresented by strawmen such as "K
14.
by nhashem 13y ago
I really liked this, namely because I had never thought about this from this angle. The interaction most people have with marriage and the state is taxation on income. It would seem like it wouldn't be too difficult to just eliminate the
15.
by nhashem 13y ago
The whole point of having a country with a central bank that can print money at will (fiat currency), is to have full control over inflation/deflation. When the increase/decrease of the monetary supply is controlled by outside factors, whe
16.
by nhashem 13y ago
This is basically the paradox of US healthcare innovation. Canada can tell its pharmaceutical companies, "yeah, that cool drug you just invented, we're not gonna pay you what you want for that." And what option does the pharmaceutical com
17.
by nhashem 13y ago
"x10 developers" are, in fact, proficient developers, who are experienced with their stack and problem domain. Well, I'd say this is only true for your typical corporate entity, where their products are basically just web applications tha
18.
by nhashem 13y ago
We may have some bumps in the road and some dark ages of depravity and extremely concentrated ownership of the means of production and all that Well, this is what I'm personally concerned about. I agree with everything you just said. Bu
19.
by nhashem 13y ago
Most jobs are selling your time in exchange for money. If your time is mostly fungible compared to someone else's time (ie. most low-skill labor), then I'd say all the algebraic equations expressed in the OP are true. He is essentially mo
20.
by nhashem 14y ago
It is tough to compare a healthcare "market" to any other market. Fundamentally, healthcare is a good that nobody will voluntarily want, but that everyone is going to need at some point. Furthermore, it does not lend itself for easy c
21.
by nhashem 14y ago
Here's my theory: the blocks of time the elite players spend is non-negotiable, because it's their "top idea in the mind."[0] In the past when I've worked with friends on side projects, the conversation would sometimes go like this. Me: "He
22.
by nhashem 14y ago
It's unfortunate that Gruber has essentially become synonymous with Apple fanboyism, because I think he raises some salient points here. To any reader that is familiar with his writing, it'll come across as the typical Apple cheerleading,
23.
by nhashem 14y ago
Your analysis starts by excluding any taxes you find inconvenient (such as, apparently, social security, inflation, tariffs, ad-valorem taxes, and especially state and local taxes -- which you somehow don't regard as governments) to get th
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by nhashem 14y ago
I mentioned George W. Bush a single time. I fully recognize the "Bush did it too" or "Bush was worse" is a poor political argument. I also made my original arguments to be as factually based as possible and tried to avoid the usual partis
25.
by nhashem 14y ago
We haven't needed Keynesian deficit spending in a long time because the Federal Reserve has done a decent job "moderating" economic cycles. Too much growth/inflation, put the brakes by raising interest rates. Too little growth, stimulate
26.
by nhashem 14y ago
If you look at government revenues as a percentage of GDP (your first link) over the last century, they've actually stayed within a fairly narrow window between 15%-20%. This is like saying my weight has stayed within a fairly narrow wind
27.
by nhashem 14y ago
We have, in startup parlance, a high burn, and most of it can’t be considered ‘investment’ but is instead ‘expense’. Spending money on things like infrastructure improvement or new technology that are likely to generate more money in the
28.
by nhashem 14y ago
Unfortunately healthcare is not a market you often willingly participate in. Some health needs can be anticipated, and doing more to encourage consumer empowerment would definitely lower prices. Think about cosmetic surgery or LASIK. Eve
29.
by nhashem 14y ago
Reading the entirety of Spolsky's post was especially interesting for me to to read: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/09/01.html Interesting to see Joel's comments on web stacks built with Python and Ruby back in 2006, and even ta
30.
by nhashem 14y ago
This post should be renamed the depressing math behind consumer-facing apps without a business model that operate by setting money on fire. I think Gabe is generally right with the metrics he quotes. It's going to be a long slog to go fr

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