I would check out https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Scalability . In the paper published by "Satoshi Nakamoto" he detailed a technique called pruning in which old transactions that can longer affect other transactions are drop from the blockchain
Yes, my bad on the poor phrasing. However, for the past year I averaged under $1.5/package and considering I bought some really big items that is pretty close to free.
Kevin is an successful angel investor and an influencer in the techs space. Not to mention that every company that he has worked with have nothing but good things to say about him.
Google currently employees more than 20,000 people. I'm sure at this point they have plenty of engineers. A couple guys with some sense of design will not hurt the bottom line but have huge potential to add some much needed polish to Google's social initiatives.
I don't understand this argument. Neither 1 day nor 10,000 days in jail repays damages to the utility; meanwhile, neither 1% nor 100% of damages serves society's goal of deterring crime. What is the point you are trying to make? That people should either be punished for crimes, or required to repay damages?
From what I can tell, virtually every crime against property has a process for settling damages irrespective of the amount of time served in prison. "10-15 months in jail AND a fine not to exceed $50,000", and so on.
The amount calculated as damages affects the kind of crime that it's categorized as though, which is why it's relevant. In the U.S. at least, if you cause $50 of damage, that's a different crime than if you cause $50,000 of damage, with different sentence ranges (same with theft, which has various categories based on dollar thresholds, and can actually switch it between a misdemeanor and felony).
That might not be the right way to do it, but it's the way it's currently done, anyway, which means that courts have to inquire into the "true" damages sustained in order to determine what crime the person should be charged with.
A solution could be not to take damages into account in cases like this, so the crime would just be "stealing a meter's SIM card and using it", which would be the same crime regardless of how much money that cost the utility.
It doesn't look to me like the detention time involved here was computed from the damages. The two issues are orthogonal. We appear to agree on this point.
They are not orthogonal. Amount of estimated damages differentiates between kinds of theft (petty larceny vs grand) and is pretty much directly used to calculate imprisonnement duration in hacking cases. Some 30000 USD/year, IIRC. That's why companies always inflate their damage reports. Severe abuse of justice for the defendant and the company risks pretty much nothing.
Companies "always" inflate their damage reports... but in this instance, the number cited came directly from their upstream billing. Can you square that circle for me?
In non-tech cases, my impression is that upstream billing isn't taken as solid proof of the amount of damage incurred. For example you might have a very expensive contract with a visits-your-house personal mechanic who you've agreed will be your exclusive car-repairer. Thus when you're hit in an accident, you automatically incur a large bill of $X, due to your pre-agreed subscription with the mechanic. But for either civil or criminal damage computation, a court would normally determine how much damage was caused by looking at what the repair cost would've been with a "normal" mechanic at prevailing rates instead.
...meanwhile, neither 1% nor 100% of damages serves society's goal of deterring crime.
I would tend to disagree with this. Having to repay damages removes the benefit associated with the crime, so for ordinary sane people, it would act as a deterrent. In my opinion, jail is more appropriate for crimes where the criminal is likely to be an ongoing danger to society and no other option (probation, mandatory classes, etc.) would have the desired effect.
It's not much of a deterrent if you only pay the damages (assuming a reasonable definition of damages, which apparently doesn't exist here).
You have a nonzero chance of getting away with the crime, in which case you don't pay - so your expected return for the crime is higher than for not committing it. This is exactly the kind of thing that higher deterrents are supposed to prevent.
Actually, in France many Internet-related companies don't even care about complying to this. That's why they're firstly sending their lawyers. BTW Google is not alone in this case, some major french companies are also suing the state.
In the meantime, if the police or justice come asking for information, many will slow down or block the process by invoking technical difficulties (it already happened with Hadopi).
Our current government (yep, I'm French) is driven by fear when it comes to the Internet, it's not the first they try to promote meaningless laws... So far, fortunately, they're not enforced as the authorities claim.
I guess the team turned it down in the hopes Path will be many times the offer. I just don't see how an iPhone app can worth more than $120 million. I think the most successful app would be angry birds, but i doubt even the most optimistic valuation would put them over one billion.
Angry Birds, in a sane world, should be worth no where near one billion. They have sold less than 100 million copies, and I doubt they can keep on repeating their success year after year. It's a fad that will soon be replaced, just like Doodle Jump and Flight Control before it.
I don't know. I don't think Angry Birds is an interesting game, but it's obviously blowing up like mad, so I don't pretend that any rational dictum will predict that it dies down.
You don't see plushies and fan art for the other games - and you shouldn't ignore all the ways the creators profit from the franchise. They also make a bunch of themed releases like Halloween. They may also have hit a tweenage demographic susceptible to crap like Silly Bandz, Bratz, and other inane ztuff.
You've missed the point. Sure, it's 'blowing up like mad' but the important thing is that Roxio have been able to turn the Angry Birds game into a brand: selling movie rights (!) something even EA struggle with, so quickly, getting a deal with FOX for marketing and developing a range of real-world merch to go along.
All on the back of one simple little app that looks and feels like a flash game. (i love it, don't get me wrong, but it is not anything special)
Did Harbor Master or Flight Control do this? No.
It takes a lot to think big and that's where the big players are-- and worth a good chunk of money too.
even though pg says "there’s no reason for companies to turn it down"
There would be an advantage to being the only company not to accept the funds. i imagine the press and standing out in the herd might be well worth passing on the 150k.
Plus i think others angles and VCs will through money at you knowing you turned down the easy money.
That doesn't seem a terribly good reason to turn it down. A valid reason might be that the company is already profitable or has "enough" runway from a friends & family or non-YC seed round. In this case the convertible note's due date (or interest, if there is none?) might somehow be a problem, as it forces the company to sell more equity to get a conversion valuation. It goes beyond my knowledge of these things, however.
Chase Adam Founder, Watsi
Shana Fisher High Line Venture Partners and Board Partner, Andreessen Horowitz
David Lee Founder, SV Angel
Apoorva Mehta Founder, Instacart
Kathryn Minshew Founder, The Muse
Zach Sims Founder, Codecademy
Fred Wilson Partner, Union Square Ventures