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| 2008/1/18-23 [Academia/Berkeley/CSUA/Troll/Ilyas] UID:48967 Activity:moderate |
1/18 Hey tom, you seem to know a lot about startups. How many companies
have you founded? Have you worked at a lot of early phaase
companies?
\_ What gives you that impression, anonymous coward? -tom
\_ I don't know about the op, but that's one way to interpret your
snipe at me on wall yesterday. op's question aside, I'd be
curious to hear your opinion regarding Slide in light of the
smack you've talked in the past, and the round we just did.
-dans
P.S. Are you always this overtly hostile toward people when
people inquire into your background?
\_ My comment on wall was in response to your categorization
of LBL and Berkeley as "ivory towers." As if cratering
a startup consitutes "the real world." Here's a hint:
People do important things at Berkeley and LBL. People
don't do important things at Slide. -tom
\_ Heh. Profs and researchers do important things. I don't
think either you or psb do those things. And, just
curious, how is growing the economy and creating jobs
unimportant? Or do people not do important things at
Yahoo and Google? What you fail to understand is that, if
not for an environment where people could take risks, the
spectacular growth engine that is Silicon Valley would not
exist. Most startups fail. You have a symbiotic
relationship with Berkeley and the academic world it
exists in, and I find nothing wrong with that. What I
take issue with is that you presume to berate people
regarding areas you manifestly know little or nothing
about. By doing so you discourage people from taking
risks, which is reasonable if you're trying to ensure that
a network or server stays up, but, in many other domains
is lame. -dans
\_ Growing the economy and creating jobs is not meaningful
in and of itself. And there is plenty of evidence that
we're past the point of diminishing returns on growing
the economy. And boy, if not for an environment where
people can take risks, we might not have a vitally
important tool like FunWall! The world might come
crashing down! And of course there are no risks in
academia!
I'm berating you for being an idiot, not for taking
risks. -tom
\_ Creating jobs is not meaningful? Past the point
of diminishing returns on growing the economy? So
now you're an economist? Your statements boggle the
mind. You berate people because you are unwilling to
allow for the possibility that your base of knowledge
may have a priori flaws, be incomplete, or flawed in
its application. This is why many people think
you're an overbearing asshole. -dans
\_ What do you think "a priori" means?
\_ Why do many people think you're an idiot? -tom
\_ Because they never met me in person, and
listen to third-hand reports from assholes
like you? -dans
\_ Occam's Razor disagrees. -tom
\_ bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha -dans
\_ I've met you and I think you are an idiot.
-- ilyas
\- i have not met you (or at least if i have
\- i have not met yoyu, or at least if i have
did make an impression, positive or neg,
didnt make an impression, positive or neg),
but *multiple* people have mailed me to ask
in almost these exact words "do you know
this dans@sloda dood? is he as much of a
pud as he appears to be on first impres-
sion?" --psb
this dans@sloda dood? i was looking at a
job at slide and was wondering if he is as
of a pud/prick as he comes off" --psb
\_ 'dood'. What word choice. -dans
\- it's an irish word. i am half irish.
\_ I've met you and you seem like a perfectly
reasonable fellow to me. -ausman
\_ PS you're so hot, I want your
ass now!!! -!ausman
\_ Not funny to sign my name to things
I didn't write. -ausman
\_ Over 20 million people use FunWall, and that's
just one Slide application. But, hey, you work in
a role that supports researchers and academics so
you must know more than all those foolish plebes!
At one point, people thought email was frivilous.
\_ frivolous.
moron.
----------------------------------/
\_ Ah yes. Clearly typos and minor spelling
errors are a good metric for evaluating
intelligence and clue. -dans
Not so much anymore. At one point people thought
that the web was a toy. Not so much anymore. Philo
Farnsworth, the inventor of TV, wanted it to be a
tool to educate and inform the masses. It didn't
work out that way. I don't presume to claim
FunWall will someday be a valuable medium for
artistic expression or information distribution, I
merely allow for the possibility. You presume to
write it off, and your knowledge of the domain is
guaranteed to be worse than mine. Who's the idiot
here? -dans
\_ dans? is that you? |
| 2008/1/18-23 [Politics/Domestic/California/Arnold, Politics/Domestic/President/Bush] UID:48968 Activity:low |
1/18 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22725498 Bush calls for $145b tax relief (cuts) to rescue us from recession! Go trickle-down-economy! Reaganomics works! \_ Well, the other side is saying we should transfer wealth from rich to poor. And? \_ It is good that Bush and Republican Congress have been fiscally responsible, so that now we are in a downturn, we can spend some of the money we have been saving the last seven years. \_ You do realize that's one of the reasons R's are pissed at Bush and congress, right? And why some of use went to I? -emarkp \_ Yeah, I have heard some grumbling from my evangelical (R) brother. Did you switch to I? Is there any chance you will actually vote for a D? \_ Yes I did, and (for instance) I never voted for the Governator. If a D had a decent plan, I'd be happy to vote for him/her. But it's gotta be more than Hope or Change -emarkp \_ Unfortunately the R version of "saving" is moving money into the pockets of the rich. \_ If the rich buy more fences to keep out the poor, they'll have to hire the poor to build them! Yay, stimulated economy! |
| 2008/1/18-23 [Politics/Foreign/MiddleEast/Iraq] UID:48969 Activity:nil |
1/18 Some slides of how violence has decreased in Iraq, from General Raymond
Odierno's briefing yesterday.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives2/2008/01/019573.php
\_ Hey, did you guys ever find those WMD you were looking for there?
\_ JAMA says over 150k civilian deaths. I guess if you kill enough
people, the killing with eventually stop, eh?
http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/NEJMp0709003 |
| 2008/1/18-23 [Consumer/Camera] UID:48970 Activity:nil |
1/18 Okay, this is awesome. Photo stabilizer made from a washer, string,
and bolt [metacafe.com]
http://csua.org/u/kij
\_ While this may be better than just plain hand holding, I
wouldn't call it "image stabilization." Yes, it can be called that
if you consider a generic definition. But given the context of
photography, I consider it misleading. At best, I would call it
reverse monopod. It does have some value in that it takes very
little room compared to a monopod.
\_ It's not as good as a monopod. A monopod only allows camera
rotation about the vertical axis, while this method allows
rotation about all three axes. But then this method is still
better than hand holding, and IMHO whoever invented this is a
genius. |
| 2008/1/18-23 [Uncategorized] UID:48971 Activity:nil |
1/18 Bobby Fisher died. I don't play chess, but I think he's famous. |
| 2008/1/18-23 [Industry/Jobs, Industry/Startup] UID:48972 Activity:high |
1/18 Slide raises 50M on 500M valuation: http://www.csua.org/u/kiq Notably, the money came from wall street investors, not the valley. Also, we're hiring. -dans \_ historically how many people actually get jobs/employees via motd? my point is http://monster.com probably gives a better hit ratio \_ do sysadms get less/more options than developers? \_ I'm not sure. Organizationally, the ops branch of the hierarchy is parallel to dev. One thing that makes it hard to compare is that our ops team is much smaller than our dev team. -dans \_ half a billion? The crazy is strong. \_ the real question is how much are you worth TODAY? \_ It's all just paper money and AMT tax absent a liquidity event. The direction this suggests we're headed in is more important to me. -dans \_ ok, you're hiring. How *competitive* are you wrt to stock options now that you got more funding that'll dilute options? \_ If you know enough to ask that, then you know that dilution would be considered secret and subject to NDA. I have no complaints, and I think it's still a good opportunity or I wouldn't be promoting it. -dans \_ alright let's say I join what % of ownership do I have, 0.00000001% for an engineer 2/3/4? What will that amount to when it's acquired? 1/2 mil? 1 mil? 10 mil? \_ Yes, I understand that. No company with half a clue would disclose those numbers to you without making you sign an NDA. If you're interested, send me a resume. -dans \_ "... a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a pie!" \_ We can do better than the Richter Scales suggest. -dans \_ I would love to own 1/100th of 1% of GOOG. \_ Um, did you just compare GOOG to Slide? It is to laugh! \_ No, I was replying to the person who said that a fraction of a fraction of a percent is a waste of time owning. Was that you? Can you follow a conversation in English? Heck, even 1/100th of 1% of Slide is worth 50k, which isn't chicken scratch. \_ 50k isn't really much at all. If you are working at a startup, putting everything you've got into it, probably getting less than market value for your work, AND you win the IPO lottery (even at a good company with smart people the odds are against you) 50k is pretty pathetic. You should be able to make that kind of money by working those overtime hours on a contracting gig over a year or so. \_ This is good general advice, but several points don't apply to Slide: - Our salary and benefits are at or near market (though we don't do 401k matching). - At this point, our odds of a successful outcome are significantly better than a typical startup. - I would expect a new hire to get appreciably more than 1/100th of a point. -dans \_ Don't stomp my changes please. \_ I didn't. -dans \_ Unless you are one of those spoiled rich kids that went to school on mommy and daddies dime, your first $50k is *huge*. It allowed me to pay off my credit card debts, my student loans and was most of my first down payment. Plus, this company will be worth much more if and when it goes public. Also, 1/100 of 1% is a very pessimistic number, it is probably more like that amount per year. -self made $M \_ 50K is a lot of money. 50k on a long (4 year vest?) high risk bet that requires you to work 60+ hour weeks however is not a lot of money. There are easier, faster, and more reliable ways to make 50K in this industry. I'm not saying that's what people at Slide are going to get, I'm just saying if that IS all you get if you spend 2-4 years taking a small startup public then you got screwed. \_ 50k on paper. It doesn't mean anything unless it's liquid. -dans \_ Actually it does, but unless you have taken a lot of finance I cannot probably explain it to you. A big change in your real net worth is important though, even if it is not liquid. \_ It might matter to me in practice if, e.g. I wanted to use my paper wealth as leverage, but I've seen lots of otherwise smart people get burned trying and failing to do just that. If you've experienced a big change in your real net worth, how did you use what you learned in your finance classes to your advantage? -dans \_ I could see this if, e.g. you were to try to leverage your paper wealth, but I have little interest in doing so since I know many people who got burned by trying and failing to do so. Have you experienced a big change in your real net worth? Did you use what you learned in your finance classes to your advantage? -dans \_ It should change your risk profile and cause you to shift investment assets to compensate for the gain, to stay properly diversified. In short. |
| 2008/1/18-23 [Computer/SW/Database] UID:48973 Activity:nil |
1/18 http://money.cnn.com/2008/01/16/news/companies/oracle/index.htm Oracle buys BEA for $8.5B. What does this mean for BEA employees? \_ bend over. |
| 2008/1/18-23 [Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:48974 Activity:low |
1/18 http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/h3/Current Can someone tell me what the "Table 2" -1387 number means for January 16, 2008? It's not a big deal right? \_ I don't know, you tell me. What does that even mean? \_ All bank cash reserves are borrowed from the Fed as of Jan 16? \_ All bank cash reserves were borrowed from the Fed on Jan 16? ... since the banks did something else with their cash reserves? |