Disqus - Latest Comments for mweiksner

Re: Retaining vs Deleting Emails

Michael Weiksner — Wed, 05 Sep 2018 11:47:51 -0000

Perhaps. But the trend is for this kind of forensic analysis to get radically cheaper over time. This exceptional case today can easily become the normal one in 5-10 years.

Re: Retaining vs Deleting Emails

Michael Weiksner — Wed, 05 Sep 2018 11:45:58 -0000

I think that the government needed Google's cooperation. However, they *might* be able to do it if he was using a government computer with key logging enabled.

Re: Retaining vs Deleting Emails

Michael Weiksner — Wed, 05 Sep 2018 09:36:23 -0000

It's also really hard to truly delete emails. Think about the Patreaus scandal. He and his mistress shared a gmail account, and sent messages in draft emails that they then deleted. They were still caught:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wi...

By deleting the drafts, he did not prevent the prosecutors from gaining access. But he did rob himself the chance to refresh his memory beforehand about what might be discovered.

Sadly, you basically have to assume that you are living your digital life completely naked.

Re: Chromebook

Michael Weiksner — Tue, 28 Aug 2018 08:55:46 -0000

1password also has a cloud extension that you can use in the browser.

my daughter was forced to buy a chromebook for school. totally impossible to use for software development. I was thoroughly unimpressed by the chromebook which cost as much as a normal laptop ($800).

what you may want is a linux laptop, because it's the windows software that is the bloat + extra cost.

Re: Fifty-Seven

Michael Weiksner — Mon, 20 Aug 2018 09:32:07 -0000

HBD!!!

Re: Airbnb and NYC

Michael Weiksner — Sun, 24 Jun 2018 11:27:12 -0000

The real culprit of the NYC housing crisis is pied-a-terres. We actually give tax breaks Russian oligarchs would spend fewer than 2 months a year in NYC. Almost half of upper manhattan is empty most of the year:
https://www.nytimes.com/201...

What do you care about -- the cost of the night's stay or the annual cost of renting or owning an apartment?

Airbnb allocates space more efficiently, reducing unused spaces in desirable places like NYC. It is an unmitigated positive contributor by lowering the cost of a nights stay.

BUT it does raise the price of traditional owning or renting. Why? Because it increases the revenue potential of all spaces. This is a good thing! It increases the cost of pied-a-terres and of the luxury of excluding people from your spaces when you aren't there.

What we really need to do is to tax people who *don't* let other people use their spaces when they are gone.

Re: Dapps

Michael Weiksner — Wed, 11 Apr 2018 19:42:48 -0000

Yup. Fixed supply utility tokens have a problem in either/both scenarios.

Re: Dapps

Michael Weiksner — Wed, 11 Apr 2018 09:17:39 -0000

Seamlessly, but application specific.

Technically, it's a hidden layer of the tech stack. Users get cheaper, faster execution without noticing any other differences.

Different applications have different scaling needs: Too much data? Try loomx.io. Lots of repeated transactions? Try state channels. Micro-transactions among many parties? Try Matic.network. Plasma is trying to be a big tent for these L2 solutions.

Re: Dapps

Michael Weiksner — Wed, 11 Apr 2018 08:41:31 -0000

That hasn't happened yet in any networks that I know of -- but it is theoretically possible. You raise another scenario that demonstrates why fixed supply tokens are problematic as utility tokens.

Why would anyone accept a utility token that appeared to be hurtling towards being worthless?

Re: Dapps

Michael Weiksner — Wed, 11 Apr 2018 08:39:13 -0000

Sidechains with delegated proof of stake. Not live yet, but coming soon.

Re: Dapps

Michael Weiksner — Wed, 11 Apr 2018 08:27:42 -0000

HODL problem for utility tokens is real. If they are going to worth a lot more tomorrow, why would you use to buy [file storage/cycles/etc] today?

At Quarters (https://www.pocketfulofquar...), we've made a stable coin worth $0.25 for game play only. It's perhaps the first true utility token.

Players can buy as many as they want with ETH, but they only use them to play games (i.e., they can't exchange them back for ETH). Approved developers can exchange them for ETH. So the utility token can move from source to sink, and we can have a new network that encourages velocity rather a store of value.

Re: Dapps

Michael Weiksner — Wed, 11 Apr 2018 08:10:47 -0000

IMO, special browsers and plugins are for early adopters only.

It's got to work on today's Internet. Then DApps can be ubiquitous and open to everybody.

Re: Flappy Bird Unity tutorial for Android – Full game in 10 minutes!

Michael Weiksner — Fri, 23 Feb 2018 09:21:53 -0000

The Character script did not work for me out of the box on Unity for Mac. I got an error: "The type or namespace name 'UnityEngine' could not be found. Are you missing an assembly reference?"

I was able to resolve the error by adding "using UnityEngine;" before the rest of the script.

Re: When The AI Comes To Your Annual Shareholders Meeting

Michael Weiksner — Tue, 11 Apr 2017 07:17:59 -0000

As the article points out, here's what the effect of AI is at Blackrock:
- 3 tech guys take the job of 34 fund managers.
- fund returns are increased and fees are lowered: investors win
- Larry Fink, CEO, personally makes more than previously

20% of the US economy is going to financial agents. If you control the wealth, why would you want to pay fees to untrustworthy, fallible, self-interested human agents when you can have perfect robots work for (almost) free?

Re: Follow Up To Yesterday’s Post

Michael Weiksner — Tue, 13 Sep 2016 07:12:16 -0000

I use bluehost too. I have occasionally experienced the same issue. By raising and now helping them troubleshoot, perhaps they will be able to fix the issue for all of their customers.

Fingers crossed and many thanks!

Re: Feature Friday: GBoard

Michael Weiksner — Thu, 26 May 2016 07:40:58 -0000

You can see that it was lead by Rajan Patel in this blog post:
https://googleblog.blogspot...

If google it, you can find the rest of Mountain View team borrowed from the Search group that put GBoard together.

Re: Feature Friday: GBoard

Michael Weiksner — Wed, 25 May 2016 09:59:38 -0000

To me the debate is: return of command line interface or search toolbar?

I've literally bet on the former, as an investor in Slash (here's why). Diving slightly deeper, think about:

1) Service integrations. When you get location results, do you want Yelp or Foursquare? When you search for images, do you want Google Images or Giphy? Log in with G+ or Facebook? GDrive or Dropbox?

2) Distribution. Mobile users do 85% fewer web searches a day than desktop user. Slash is partnering with the engaging mobile apps -- the Twitters, Foursquares and Giphys of the world -- to promote adoption.

Potential advantage to Slash, but it is still early days!

Re: Code Execution: Where Are the Clouds Headed?

Michael Weiksner — Mon, 21 Sep 2015 07:57:13 -0000

It is about questions of Control and Cost.

On the control side, it's physical security. Hardware mods. etc.

On the cost side, it is arguable that there is a fixed and variable cost for server deployment. At some scale, it may make sense to own and manage your own server farms and the software on those servers.

And for folks as big as Google, there is also the interaction between cost and control. They get both performance boosts and cost savings by creating an entire ecosystem of hardware, server management & deployment and application logic. And they can guard their secrets closely.

Re: The Return Of The Command Line Interface

Michael Weiksner — Sun, 20 Sep 2015 19:02:58 -0000

The rise of the CLI is a natural repercussion of the rise of API-first software development. It is trivial to write a CLI if you have already created an elegant API, yet the CLI is powerful. Once you have committed to making a great external and internal API, it's a no-brainer to offer a CLI.

Some of the powers of a CLI: unit testing; integration testing; and a sandbox for 3rd-party developers.

Long-live the CLI!

Re: Two Charts

Michael Weiksner — Tue, 30 Jun 2015 11:46:15 -0000

Really interesting data. It's amazing that Nasdaq is up 7x, even though TEV/Rev is pretty constant. Late stage companies are only up 60% higher ($130 in 2014 vs $80 in 2006).

Are late stage valuations is actually lagging the increases of public tech companies?

Re: Code Execution: Where Are the Clouds Headed?

Michael Weiksner — Mon, 12 Jan 2015 10:56:04 -0000

Until you have product/market fit, the only thing that matters is reducing the feedback cycle time via launching with the smallest possible batches.

If you get traction, you can evaluate if you need your own servers and can raise the investment required to do that.

Otherwise, only "fat" startups need to even consider managing their own servers.

Re: EndlessTV Releases Series of Apps to Provide TV-Like Experience for Mobile

Michael Weiksner — Fri, 09 May 2014 14:50:53 -0000

Thanks for the write up and the link to the play store!

Re: Endless News – EndlessTV and Newsy Join Forces to Create Endless News App

Michael Weiksner — Mon, 24 Feb 2014 14:04:03 -0000

Thanks for covering our announcement! What do you think of our app, Endless News?

Re: Putting Tom Perkins Comments into Context

Michael Weiksner — Sun, 26 Jan 2014 20:44:01 -0000

Interesting point. Maybe they need to follow the "Accenture" route and move away completely from KPCB named heritage.

Re: Feature Friday: Quotes

Michael Weiksner — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 09:06:25 -0000

“When you discard arrogance, complexity, and a few other things that get in the way, sooner or later you will discover that simple, childlike, and mysterious secret known to those of the Uncarved Block: Life is Fun.”

The Tao of Pooh
http://www.goodreads.com/wo...