This is really the only viable way to support FOSS. Considering the amount of money some people make in tech, they should allocate a % of that to donating to open source projects each year. But no, nothing’s going to change the way we live because we can always take but never give, and now things are changing for the worse.
I could keep throwing money into my stock portfolio, did I make it better, or worse?
The only metric that matters here is ROI.
Did YC increases its ROI and produce a higher percentage of successful startups during Sam Altman’s time? This is the question to answer, and the one upon which he shall be judged. Everything else is pure vanity.
Stocks are very different from startups. For one, if YC invests even in something absurd like "Tinder for Potatoes", the value of the startup goes up.
You can't achieve the same effect for stocks unless you are investing millions in low cap stocks to prop up it's values and even then short sellers will squeeze you out.
Don’t these cases come up all the time and nothing ever comes from it?
Also, it’s hard to see sellers as getting ripped off when the buyers agent fee is factored into the price. If there was no fee included you would expect to see a drop in price, and this is what happens when a buyer purchases a home without an agent.
Nope this one is different, and it will go to the Supreme Court. The plaintiffs are two of the most successful and feared law firms. They've won billion dollar judgements against Apple, Toyota, etc.
MLS is a racket, and I wish them the best of luck.
>What should be concerning to MLS leadership, to Associations, and to large brokerages and national franchises is that the lawyers involved in this case are seriously scary dudes. In past legal actions against NAR, against the MLS, and against large real estate companies, the lawyers bringing the case tended to be small plaintiff’s lawyers seeking a relatively quick payday. Those smaller law firms can’t take on a protracted multi-year litigation with expert witnesses, motion practice, deluging the other side in paperwork and discovery requests and so on... The two lead law firms in this case are Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll and Hagens Berman Sobol & Shapiro. These are two of the most successful class action plaintiff’s law firms in the country. They both appear on the list of Law 360’s “Most Feared Plaintiffs Firms” with some significant victories over really significant companies... Cohen Milstein beat on Apple, for example, in the electronic books antitrust lawsuit.... Hagens Berman is the firm that took a $1.6 billion bite out of Toyota for the “sudden acceleration” problem with some of its cars.... They have hundred of billions in victories between the two of them, quite a lot of lawyers in offices across the country, and a huge war chest for these kinds of complex class-action lawsuits. These are not your average ambulance chasers; these are the guys that cause tightened sphincters for the General Counsel at major corporations, banks, and institutions.... They can keep a lawsuit going for years and years if need be, as they have the capital to keep paying lawyers and expert witnesses and so on. This lawsuit is a serious threat.
Except for the contracts which state that if the buyer purchases without an agent (or accredited agent), then their commission _also_ goes to the sales agent. You don't get off easier in those situations.
In some states, a buyer must be represented by a Realtor. If the buyer has no representation, then generally what happens is that the seller's Realtor nominally represents the buyer as well (dual agency). If you were to try to negotiate to not pay the commission, then your Realtor would probably refuse to represent the buyer, and they might not be able to close.
The requirement is almost certainly for a real estate agent licensed by the state, not a Realtor®, which is a registered trademark of a particular trade association for it's members.
Yes, you are absolutely right, and I'm aware of the trademarking of the Realtor name - that's an interesting story in its own right, and a very interesting approach to regulatory capture. I was just looking for statistics to find out how many people are licensed real estate professionals but not Realtors, but I couldn't find the number -- I'm betting not many. Since we are picking nits -- many states have a different licenses -- agents vs. brokers -- but both can be Realtors. Here's a good link for people who aren't in the know: https://www.frameworkhomeownership.org/blog/broker-vs-agent?...
This is not how contract negotiation works. In a market where housing demand is weak, it would be perfectly reasonable and possible to propose terms of sale which reduce the seller's agent fee or return it to the buyer in the form of a discount. Worth remembering in all forms of contract negotiation (buying cars, etc.) - just because they write it down doesn't mean you (the buyer) have to agree to it.
You're absolutely right that you can negotiate, but one of the consequences of regulatory capture (real estate agents must be licensed by the state, and may be required to complete a transaction) is that agents are disincentivized to negotiate on commission. Also agree that when the market is soft, you're more likely to be able to win a concession.
IDA Pro is not expensive at all for serious professionals in the field. Other common software in the industry costs way more. Nessus is $2k a year, Metasploit like $1500 to $15000, and Core Impact is $30k and up.
If this is expensive to you, then it’s not for you. This is for people who are making real money with these tools, not hobbyists dicking around.
> If this is expensive to you, then it’s not for you. This is for people who are making real money with these tools, not hobbyists dicking around.
That's an odd perspective. Imagine if this type of sentiment were applied to paint brushes. There is a lot of useful work that is not economically viable per se, and to discount that and to be pejorative feels wrong.
It is less odd if you look at it from the perspective of a professional in the field. Being expensive (and a little mean about it) discourages potential competitors from entry.
If you are using these tools you are either defending systems from threats or breaking into systems and making money through illegal activities. There is not really any other useful work you can do with these tools.
I don’t see how the perspective is odd. Having tools like Core Impact and the knowledge of how to use them well can propel you to a six figure income easily. On top of that these tools are also business expenses you can use for tax write offs.
They are certainly worth the investment. The only people who see the price as steep are those who cannot see any viable way to make a decent ROI off them.
1) No one is entitled to a career in cybersecurity or reverse engineering, no matter how poor or sad your origin story is.
2) There are always lucrative opportunities in this world that are out of reach by people who lack some resource. In this case, it's money, but it could easily just have been something like popularity, beauty, connections, location, or even plain old brains.
I always wanted to be popular and loved by many, but I came to accept long ago that it just wasn't going to happen. I'm an introvert, I keep to myself a lot, don't get much pleasure from social outings, and at the end of the day people just don't give a fuck about weird people like that. So I just try to enjoy the gifts I do have and the things that come naturally to me. We all have to accept the realities of our lives at some point, even the poor.
Sorry to hear you're finding it tough. Some people find ways of becoming less constrained by their introversion, but no judgment on you for doing what works for you.
It's true that some pre-existing conditions can limit what options people have, but it doesn't apply to everything.
It's important to be discerning about when this effect applies and when it needn't, and work to open more opportunities to more people wherever possible.
If you are studying to become a (paid) professional in the field, be it offensive or defensive, having a quality, open source, free tool available which is also the defacto standard is a big plus for getting you started. Elitist will fear such competition, those with love for the field of work will endorse it.
>prices are set by what the market is willing to pay
Land is not a normal good so it does not work that way even in theory. A simple example: Flint MI has falling demand and rising prices.
In addition, land is used both for speculation and retirement savings, further inflating the price beyond just being a place to live.
>Anything else is not sustainable
Correct. An ever growing percentage of wealth will go to land owners and rent seeking rather than productive enterprise. The price of doing business in the Bay Area (and similar cities) will drive out industry until there is nothing but the top most classes and their house cleaners, gardeners, waiters and store clerks. A situation perfectly satisfactory for land vendors.
It has happen countless times in the past but apparently were not going to let facts interfere with economic theory.
>God forbid anyone make a profit?
For producing something profit is great. For an exorbitant toll both in the path of job seekers, it is a net harm.
> Land is not a normal good, it does not work that way.
You are right in essence, but using the wrong terminology.
Real estate, at least the kind we're discussing, residential housing, absolutely is a normal good, normal being defined as having a positive income elasticity of demand. Simply stated, when people make more money, they want more house.
The supply side of the equation, what you're referring to, is less straightforward. While, the long-run price elasticity is pretty high, the short-run tends to be fairly inelastic, this is due to construction having lots of high, fixed costs, and financing tends to have very long amortization schedules. Do a lot of construction in a real estate market and it might be ten years before prices start to come down, assuming demand hasn't caught up in the interim.
Most real estate markets clear. Failure of the market to clear can have many causes, the one I see happening most often is the aforementioned low price elasticity in visible parts of dense downtowns. Political action at the local level can create an economic incentive to reduce prices to meet demand.
I see I also blurred construction costs with land costs and new housing with existing stock. I probably should have been more precise and less rhetorical.
But yeah something like moving zoning decisions to State level and financial incentives for development vs under developed parcels would help.
We're in a market in which housing prices have been soaring for a very long time, but for most of this we've been building less housing than even the 90's (and starts have actually FALLEN recently).
There's something broken in the market. Material costs are part of it, but government regulation is certainly part of it as well.
People cope with grief and loss in a lot of different ways. Some dwell, others distract. Similarly, while some folks need to be surrounded by family and friends, others just want to be alone for a while. What's sure is you're never the same afterwards.
I don't think this discussion will be as interesting as people think.
When a game or piece of software you write is shit, you know it's shit, unless you are completely delusional. Thus once it's actually released you'll probably feel some relief that at least it's finally done and you can move on with your life, putting it behind you. Negative reviews aren't a surprise, they are expected. And in large companies there must be some satisfaction being able to say "I told you so" to fools who thought otherwise.
I think it'd be more interesting to find out what it's like being a small indie developer who banks it all on one game they've been working on for years, and then when it finally releases it's mediocre and mostly ignored, making little to no money.
But I don't think it has to be necessarily shit. It can be a good game, and you can be proud of it, but at some point a manager comes in and says "upper floors want to add microtransactions and DLCs here and there". You know as a gamer that it's (or it will be perceived as) a shitty practice and will be negatively received.
That could be for example a nice anecdote to tell (maybe the EA developer in the upper comments?).
What do you mean “the life expectancy of your country”? Do you mean “the total (current + remaining) life expectancy for someone of your age in your country”? Or do you mean “the life expectancy at birth in your birth year in your country”? Or something else?
Why build more housing if people will continue to happily pay these prices to live here? The goal isn't to cram as many people as possible in a single pcity.
Can I ask what your back problems are and how they started? Were they from doing the squats and deadlifts themselves or other injuries? I see plenty of people past their 40s still doing squats and deadlifts so it's not like there is a general age limit it seems.
For the last five or so years, I've had more or less constant pain/stiffness in my lower back, which is definitely aggravated by lifts like squats or DLs. Heck, running too often aggravates it. At work, I have a sit/stand desk, and I have to alternate between sitting and standing throughout the day, because doing too much of one or the other starts to hurt.
It seemed to come on gradually. What initially caused it I don't know... I played football in high school, I've lifted weights since I was a teenager (only cutting out squats/DLs when they became too... risky), I was in the Army for a bit, who knows... should probably get a doctor to look at it.
My father started having problems with his lower back around the same age (30s), so maybe there's a genetic/hereditary issue. Though at least he still manages to do squats in his 60s. I wonder if having a longer spine (I'm about 5 inches taller than him) would make my issues worse?
