CRASCH

Any startup that needed a year of runway now needs five years of runway. Runway is money needed before the company can survive off of profits.

If company A has $1M in expenses and $1M in investment, after the tax change it will need ~$5M in investment.

Protests are when you peaceably assemble to air your grievances.

Riots are when people assemble and commit crimes. Especially felony crimes like arson, destruction of property, etc.

These are riots.

I would like to see them enforce equivalent salaries on H1B visas. There should not be a financial incentive for companies to do this.

The original purpose was to bring in talent where it could not be found in the US.

I believe this would be great for H1B visa employees and regular employees.

If companies want to offshore they still can and they still do. Companies that currently abuse the system would hate it.

Right now they are considered a platform, not a publisher. Platforms can't be sued for libel. They are acting as a publisher. Remember the Covington Boys, CNN (A publisher) etc. got the pants sued off of them for Libel. That is one rich kid. Anyway if it is determined they are a publisher they can be sued. So if you were to post that I'm an Orange NAZI on twitter. I could essentially sue you and twitter, if I prove that I am not an Orange Nazi I could win millions. Both you and twitter would pay. No one knows if you have enough money to pay out 8 figures but everyone and his lawyer knows twitter does.

I'm surprised the FEC isn't involved as well. It would seem like a donation in kind to block candidates and elected officials from twitter.

JFK wouldn't even recognize the Democratic party.

I read "whale fail". I expected an insightful article on the failure of large software projects. smh.

I think this falls under a reasonable interpretation of the unlimited.

a reasonable person would understand that there are bandwidth limits both technological and environmental. A reasonable person would expect that the level of service they signed up for would continue or get better over time.

I see two issues.

One is that after a certain amount of data is used they limit bandwidth. If you limit something it is hard to call it unlimited.

The other issue is that early on throttling was not in place. They specifically added throttling to entice users to switch to more lucrative data plans.

According to the website the ranges are the same for the RWD.

S60 208

S85 265

P85 265

The dual motor configuration increases range on all models.

S60D 225

S85D 295

P85D 275

A back door is a vulnerability regardless of its intended use. There is no way to assure it can't be used elsewhere. I would be shocked if the existing decryption method used internally at Apple wasn't fully available to other agencies. How hard would it be for a three letter agency to get someone in the right position to obtain the keys and tools?

The closing of this vulnerability makes business sense for Apple. Considering how connected these devices are only, marooned data would not already be available elsewhere. Perhaps a photo that wasn't uploaded or a note taken. Everything else is accessible. Location data is available via cell tower logs. Voice calls, call history, SMS, email, web history, etc... all available already...

I wish that was the complete list of EOL products from MS.

They mostly use mules, they get the mules from phishing too. So the money is transferred from one victim to one mule, the mule agrees to send 90% of the money via a non traceable method. The mule is eventually on the hook for 100%.

This is slightly off topic but may be of value. When I solve a particularly difficult problem, I stop and ask myself a couple of questions that help me grow as a developer.

* If I created the problem, How could I have avoided creating this problem? Was it a design error, was I careless or sloppy, did I fail to test or understand something?

* How did I solve the problem? What steps did I take to solve it? How can I optimize my problem solving skills to solve problems quicker. Does this apply to a broad range of problems or is likely a unique problem?

I once did a fixed bid contract that was sized by someone else at $150K.

I completed the bulk of the work over three days. I spent about 40 hours on it total including the production roll out.

I most likely could not pull that off again because I had very specific domain knowledge. I knew the software I was modifying and I knew exactly what to do over all of the various systems.

Small world.

This is kind of closing the barn door after the horses get out and I realize there is a delay in getting new versions out.

Check the OS version against a list of tested versions.

If the version isn't in your list of tested versions refuse to run, or explain that the software may not work properly and please do not post reviews.

I don't think it is as black and white. It could be a signal that they aren't a real buyer, or it could be a signal that they do want to buy.

This is what I say when a potential customer of significant value asks for a feature. "That is an interesting feature. That is the first time someone has requested that feature. I think it might have some value in our core code base and other customers might find it useful. I can build the requirements for the feature into your PO. I'll find out when we can deliver that functionality and we can start working on it as soon as the PO is signed."

That is strange. I worked on the NPAC (Number Portability Administration Center) software. I also worked on WLNP. There isn't a technical reason why this won't work. Full number portability is supported in the US and Canada. Wireless porting simplified the process and eased the requirements to port numbers. My best guess is that, they would be able to port land lines in the not too distant future, once they meet the requirements for land line porting.

Seriously? This is link bait.

It is hard enough to pick a winning portfolio of companies. Would anyone really intentionally handicap themselves and not try to pick the best ones? At the expense of their portfolio?

If a green woman walks in with a hockey stick graph, VBM, kicking ass, they will line up to write her a check.

From the perspective of working on file systems, I don't see a viable way to innovate and monetize. I completely see the OP point of view, from his perspective. I disagree with the conclusion though.

It is true that a lot of the big startups aren't innovating in technology. They are innovating in the business model space. But that doesn't mean you can't create some innovative technology to build a startup around it.

It depends on the platform and what type of backup you are looking for.

It used to be that a backup was a full or image backup. It is a bit funny how I used to say I have a backup and it meant a backup of my entire computer. If I didn't, I'd say I had a backup of the database, or a backup of home. Now if someone says I have a backup I assume it is just of some of their files.

There are really now three types of backups.

Image or full backups - These are far more useful. You can actually fix your computer without reinstalling and reconfiguring everything.

Partial backups - Files and Folders, unfortunately letting the software try to select the "Important Files" is fatally flawed on windows. They generally select based on file name and location. If you use any software slightly off mainstream you will want to make sure those data files are backed up.

Sync - Sync software maintains a copy online which is good for most files and is essentially an extra copy or backup. But some files or directory structures are troublesome like build directories, databases (especially email databases like outlook pst files). Make sure they support multiple versions...

Begin shameless plug...

Hybir Backup recently won "Software Product of the year" from the DaVinci Institute.

I wrote Hybir Backup https://www.hybir.com It is windows only for now. Hybir Backup performs full online backups and full local backups (simultaneously). Bare metal restores can be done from the windows PE 3.0 recovery environment.

The interesting part to the technology is the data identification and global data de-duplication technology. Essentially only data unique to your PC needs to be uploaded. First backups on relatively clean machines are pretty quick. If you have a bunch of unique user data, you will have to upload it just like the other services. The advantage is all of those other files are backed up too.

During a full restore only files that are truly different need to be restored to fix the computer greatly speeding the restore process when a computer won't boot, but the disk is still functional hardware wise.

Another cool feature is that if you backup online only, and need to do a bare metal restore, you don't have to download the full image. You can simply backup another PC to a USB drive. You probably need another PC to burn the recovery CD you didn't burn before the problem anyway. Any data that is common and identical on the USB drive will be copied from the USB drive. The unique bits will be downloaded at the same time. You have a fairly good chance of not having to download the OS, MS Office, etc.

The software is free to use for local image backup and supports network drives. It works great for a small office environment and includes the data identification technology. This makes it really efficient storage wise. It is probably the only free local backup solution that has global data de-duplication.

Me too. This is what I use. It was dead simple to setup. It had great default settings. Pfsense also has an agent package available for it and is a one click setup. It was also very easy to setup custom scripts for monitoring my custom back end software. I tried nagios, hobbit, opennms, and others recently and zabbix worked best for me.

I have a very similar background. Scary similar. I'm older though. I've had similar feelings at various times. Is this it? Really? Lame...

I used to get excited about new technology and it did seem that something cool and amazing would come out all the time. Just an endless stream of wow. I just can't get hyped up about some mash up, retread, or social widget. I don't think I've changed I think the industry has.

That isn't really a bad thing though. It is an opportunity. I used to wait in anticipation for someone to come to market with a product or solution I foresaw. That rarely happens now with market driven development. That is the opportunity. Don't languish that the amazement isn't there. Make it. You have the skills. I'm sure you see the deficiencies. The industry is now so stagnant in true innovation, this gives us, the technical entrepreneurs the opportunity to innovate.

How to rekindle the flame? I don't know if this will work for you. This is what I do. I buy a new toy and hack on it. A computer or phone. I find a new programming language or something like pfsense (router) and play with it. Find some software that sucks and build one that doesn't. Scratch an itch.

What itch would I scratch right now if I wasn't busy. I'd build a soft bios driver that would emulate a CD/DVD drive. This would load an emulated CD/DVD driver into a PC bios just like a SAS card loads its driver into the bios. This would allow you to select multiple iso images from a usb drive and then boot to that emulated CD/DVD. Right now you can't really do that.

TLDR: I have a somewhat funny story...

I got married in 1997 the same year I started working on local number portability. Local number portability is the system that allows people to keep their phone number and change their carrier. Wire line local number portability happened first and then wireless number portability went live in November 2003. I had been working in this area for about six years.

About a week before the system went live. I'm on site and in a meeting. We were covering all the test results and launch plan details. I get a call from my wife. I figured it was important because she knew I was on-site. I take the call. she says, "Guess what I just heard. You are going to be able to change cell phone companies and keep your number! Isn't that cool?" "Um, Hun what do you think I've been working on for the last six years?"

I go to bed late sometime after 3:00am and before the sun comes up. It really sucks trying to fall asleep when it is bright.

I stay up late out of necessity. I work from home (on my startup) and I have a large family. That means the only time I get uninterrupted time is after 11:00pm. I need the uninterrupted time for the difficult problems. Other work I can bang out during the day.

The down side is I sleep until noon.

When I had a 9-5, I stayed up until 2:00-3:00 got up at 8:00 and was in the office by 9:00. I would catch up on sleep over the weekends.

I look at it as a hidden golden feature.

If I don't want to talk to someone. I simply say "The cell signal isn't great here. I may drop you."

I then slide my fingers over the magic drop call button. The call degrades and gone....

The screen is great and all but the best feature is that I can magically get a bad signal whenever I want if I hold it just right.

I hope if they must implement this that they turn it on its head.

The sale would take place in the state that the seller is located in, not the buyer. At the very least it would be less work. One state tax code to deal with instead of 50. The bonus is that most online retailers already have to collect tax for in state purchases.

It seems like they stretching the definition of cloud a bit.

What happened to the cloud, it is almost meaningless now. I should say it means everything, which has no meaning.

It is like the new version of Multi-Media. It has pictures and text so its Multi-Media.

I'm going to go play on my personal cloud Multi-Media gaming platform now.

I wish they had the original Mac 128k I bought in the fall of 1984. I painted all summer to be able to buy that.

No one wants to train new employees. It is expensive.

I totally disagree with the filter. I don't want employees that aren't going to tough it out and quit mid-project either. That isn't what we are talking about though. We are talking about people that probably switched jobs for any number of reasons. Not hiring someone just because they switched jobs or independently consulted, that seems so arbitrary it is almost comical.

It really is a two way street. I worked at a place that had 98% employee retention for multiple years through the boom. Almost everyone there was heavily recruited and almost no one left. Even the people that were previously independent consultants and the ones that had job hopped. Why? It was a great place to work with above average compensation and awesome people to work with.

My point is that if you compensate people well and you provide a great place to work you don't have to filter for potential job hoppers. You are then free to filter for the important things like work ethic, aptitude, skill, and fitting in.