What an utterly random and unprovoked denigration of activists.
Claiming activists primarily generate "moral satisfaction" is like claiming that the primary output of entrepreneurs is ego. It doesn't just miss the big picture, it misses everything.
Check the prices on ubercab versus regulated taxis.
2 mile: $7.15 v $17.80
5 mile: $13.90 v $32.50
10 mile: $25.15 v $57.00
idling: $0.45 v $1.25
The expensive ones are the less regulated cars of ubercab.
And for what it's worth, in New York, the only time I've had bad experiences with Taxis were times I waved down a livery, or got another unlicensed taxi.
"The cab stand in your hand". Tags of "taxi", "cab" and "taxi stand". A name that includes the word "cab".
They're clearly positioning themselves as a taxi company, then saying "oh, but we are not a taxi company!" when called on it. The whole thing reminds me of Napster when they tried to claim they had nothing to do with all the pirated music available via Napster.
Other apps, like taximagic, avoid the trouble by simply dispatching a taxi instead of playing this limo / taxi licensing game.
I find it fairly offensive that they're trying to complain that they're just too innovative, when the reality is that they entered a heavily regulated market and made a conscious decision to ignore the regulation. Too bad, so sad, deal with it.
Mobile taxi hailing is obviously coming, but I'd back the horse that is smart enough not to piss off the taxi and limousine commissions in the launch city. That seems like an action that's likely to get them extra governmental attention in every new market they address.
A github account just makes it slightly more likely that the candidate's experience involves more open source, and less proprietary code.
Personally, I'd rather filter candidates based on factors that relate to their performance. After all, bad hires are very expensive... as such, most of these shortcuts strike me as incredibly misguided nonsense.
Although, if your opinion is correct, it doesn't mean anything that I can't look you up online.
That's on purpose. I establish new HN accounts from time to time because I despise the fact that many people will upvote old users more readily, or will cite 'user for a long/short time' as though it means something.
FWIW, if you look at any of the senior people who work for me, they'll have little to no activity during their tenure. Here's why:
1) One individual has final responsibility for our platform. We run a modified version of FreeBSD, which includes both changes that are only appropriate for our own use, and some changes that are more generally applicable.
The other devs and admins submit any patches they need on all the servers to the individual, and he deals with them. Sometimes they stay private, sometimes they go public, but when they go public they go out in his name. He has responsibility of tracking when they're accepted upstream, and when they're included in the base distro.
2) The vast majority of our platform is very, very tried and true. We use a few cutting edge bits of software (new versions and new features), but that's the exception. As such, most of our bugs are found well in advance.
3) The most troublesome bits of our platform are commercial or completely proprietary, so support on those parts doesn't hit a public mailing list anywhere.
I was trying to understand why your response annoyed me so much, and I realized it's because if I had to lay off my best unix guys, you advocate that employers google their name, see nothing on the mailing lists, and pass on them. That annoys me.
I take a lot of pride in being a good employer, and meanwhile you're standing there advocating anally-extracted screening criteria that would hurt my guys.
Yes. I'm sure. (I just googled a couple of the most prominent names.)
They work around it, or more often they realize that somebody else has found the same bug and just track that. Or they'll feel generous and submit a fix via some bug tracking system other than a mailing list.
If you're using that as a proxy for unix-fu, you should know that it's a REALLY shitty proxy in my (roughly 20 years) of experience.
It's hard to read that and think of you as anything other than a liar (or perhaps an obnoxious pedant).
That's truly meant as constructive feedback.
edit: seriously. I figured it'd be better somebody tell him that on HN before he says it to a media personality without thinking of how it will be perceived by some.
Claiming activists primarily generate "moral satisfaction" is like claiming that the primary output of entrepreneurs is ego. It doesn't just miss the big picture, it misses everything.