HN user

brandelune

125 karma

[ my public key: https://keybase.io/suzume; my proof: https://keybase.io/suzume/sigs/99fpZMTgqGU9scC4BLaNsNTHaShnf9hU2thTgZCRj_A ]

Posts2
Comments44
View on HN

Interesting. So, when the "open source" movement was born out of a desire to become business friendly, it did not envision that the approach would eventually come back, 30 years down the road, to nastily bite them. Problem is big corps live long, longer than the average concentration span of a free software shop. And they have plenty of money and corporate hacks to co-opt "open source" and then take over. But hey, "open source".

How many digital nomad influencers vs would-be entrepreneurs who keep wasting time on IT social networks? This ratio alone should make it very clear to you that most of that world is fake and just here to entertain you when you feel alone in front of your machine.

The AI hype is finally over.

Meta's language models, GH Pilot, real life car auto-pilot. When it fails, it fails big. And the "we were 10+ years early to market" is just a big lie that bought them plenty of VC money. Good for them.

It is "carbon neutral" because of a bet on the future of trees that will be planted in replacement for the burned ones. The future trees do not exist yet. And with global warming probably won't come soon enough. So that's extremely stupid and criminal to do what they're doing.

Do I support my "local community" when I type on a given keyboard layout ? And when I switch the layout because I need to type in a different script, do I betray my "local community" ? And what about I live in a country that's not my "original" local community and need to use yet another layout ? Do I feel insecure when I don't see a flag I know in my menu bar ?

Actually no. In Japan, where I live, the country side is covered by development projects that destroy rice pads, mostly because there are tax incentives for that. In France, where I come from that's the same.

Perfectly good arable land is not being misused for development projects that don't mean anything when you know for ex. that Japanese population is in decline and creating individual houses far from the center of the city is going totally against what should be done to counter potential food crisis and the real environmental crisis. Etc.

It outproduces salad, but not potatoes, wheat, and most of all humus. Also the need for heavy machinery has a real cost in green house gas emissions (same issue as with electric cars).

There are real ecological services provided by a healthy land and natural agriculture that can't be provided by such food factories.

As @systemvoltage wrote, this is good for a heavily centralized system that's owned by big corporations looking for big profits but that's not a solution to the global environmental and soon to come (and it's already here for a lot of us) food/water crisis.

From the World Economic Forum at Davos...

"Over a lifespan of around 60 years, whales ... accumulate an average of 33 tonnes of CO2 ... By comparison, a tree absorbs up to 48 pounds of CO2 a year."

The modern version of "apples and oranges" ? "whales and trees"

A KK in Japan is currently the least expensive option. Basically all you need is to pay for the registration paperwork (about ¥300k) and what used to be a minimum capital of ¥10 million has now no minimum.

There used to be Yugen (limited responsibility) with a minimum capital of ¥3 million but it disappeared with the new KK law.

That was about 12 years ago.

First, relax.

A company is just an entity that allows you to pay less taxes overall.

Don't worry for not having been able to start much.

Regarding all the paperwork, go to the tax office (or the relevant offices) and ask them for help. They are always willing to help. Be honest and sincere and they'll sometimes fill the stuff in your place if necessary.

One thing you can do is shift your English teaching activity to the company. That's good for your taxes.

Do not hire an accountant for anything right now. You'll lose money.

I've lived here for 22 years, had my company for 12, I'm not doing anything magic with it but it pays the bills.

Send me a mail if you want.

If companies here started by respecting Labor law, they would not have to set such goals, because there would not be any karoshi, there would not be wage theft, pension theft, etc. and the economy would be booming with rested Japanese families visiting places all over the country.

It is a little hypocritical of the Japanese government to pretend to be doing something when the ILO treaties regarding labor issues are not even respected.

OLPC was a huge success. But not the way Negroponte expected.

The OLPC scared the industry to death. MS was so scared that it made Windows work on it. Tablets did not exist as consumer goods at the time (we had some but only for businesses and they were not practical to use) and all the major PC maker were expected year after year to churn out low cost laptops for the "education" market.

Then tablets came and the whole product category just disappeared.

Married households fare well because the tax system and plenty of other institutions favor married households. It doesn't have to the the case.

Marriage is mostly a "capital" redistribution system and with strong public services (ie shared services) there is much less need to focus on the nuclear family as a protection (sharing of ressources) network.

Ex. When a few years back pension laws changed in Japan and housewives got the right to get a pension separately from their husband, the rate of divorce boomed.

There is nothing in the nuclear family that makes in a natural fit to what humans are as social animals.

Just like NGOs are making a change. And that's what's criticized in the article. You can't just click away misery.

The idea of online donations is nothing new. The idea of online donations to support people with health issues is nothing new. Give to your local Red Cross. Give to the Army of Salvation. Give to your local groups. Help the people in need in your neighborhood.

There are plenty of things you can do locally to alleviate people's pain and suffering, and it does not involve sending money through a site that feeds on voyeurism.

Except that I don't live in the "West". And I've seen my share of the world, and done my share of NGO work at home and in the places where it's directly helpful. I also know that taxes are used especially in the West to fund the military industry that contributes to killing people all over the place. So I am well aware of the ambivalence of "taxes". But that's not what I am talking about. I am talking about "taxes" as a way to create a strong public service, not as taxes to create even stronger dictatorships. Also, places where the Red Cross/Crescent and BWB won't go are also very unlikely to be places where Watsi will go.

The question is, would Watsi work if the only thing it offered were pooling of donations to anonymous care receivers. The article suggests that it would not.

But that is the same idea as taxes. Taxes, that a lot of people like to hate, offer that service already, and they are pretty efficient (except when lawmakers prefer to make business owners richer by crippling public services).

So Watsi is only offering voyeurism as a business model. And that's what sucks about Watsi, and that's why this article is 100% correct.