All the talk about standalone GPS/navigation companies going away... I say there are a lot of creative ppl at those companies and they will find great products to sell. Their creativity is now freed from need to preserve existing revenue streams.
With expensive roaming data plans, a standalone gps is still cheaper. Unless Google implements pre-caching of routes on google map/navigation.
- Peng-Toh
Sanjeev, that is sometimes the way it works: everyone who ever said "best thing that ever happened to me was to quit or get fired." Peng-Toh, for people who roam that is a good argument. Not sure how many such folks exist.
- Daniel Dulitz
Data roaming is VERY expensive. If you going on a vacation in foreign land, it'll be far cheaper to buy a Garmin map. Or do without GPS. Or rent a car that comes with GPS.
- Peng-Toh
Or buy a prepaid SIM card for data roaming. Or find a wifi access point to get the directions. But anyway, GPS/nav companies will not stay in business selling gadgets to people who would otherwise use data roaming. They will stay in business because they'll remake their business.
- Daniel Dulitz
Disruption does have a cost. Plans are scuttled, investment is wasted. Garmin's headquarters are in Olathe, Kansas -- if the company can't make it, employees may have trouble finding similar employment nearby, and families may suffer. The eulogies are premature in any case -- but what would you do if you were in charge of Garmin, Daniel?
- ⓞnor
"If you already use Google Voice, you can add Google voicemail to any mobile phone you've linked to your account. If you're not using Google Voice yet, you can request an invitation or ask someone with a Google Voice account to invite you."
- Daniel Dulitz
Using one of these makes it much easier to rethread a tie.
"[W]hat would the effect be if China decided to sell a chunk of its Treasury bill holdings and put them in other currencies? The answer is that China would, in effect, be engaging in quantitative easing on behalf of the Fed. The Chinese would be doing us a favor! (And doing the Europeans and Japanese a lot of harm.)"
- Daniel Dulitz
Ah, when I read the title, I assumed it was about folks being "extremely terrified of chinese people" :P
- Adam Lasnik
That's a tuna can next to it. The federal form is the top half, the California form is the bottom half, and at the very bottom is the "envelope" a/k/a "cardboard box" that it will be sent in. Life is weird!
- Daniel Dulitz
We invest using Parametric, which holds individual stocks and trades them to track indices while harvesting losses. So there are many thousands of trades, each of which has a gain or loss to be itemized. As long as I don't have to keep track of it myself, it's pretty entertaining.
- Daniel Dulitz
I would hope you could file that electronically!
- Gabe
Are you planning to send in the tuna can? That would be a nice absurdist touch.
- Doug
Doug :-). Gabe, it is ironic that electronic filing works well as long as there isn't anything unusual about your submission. If you just need to fill in the form fields, it's great. But if one of your entries has a footnote and other entries cite to attached documents, you can't file electronically. (One does that, I have discovered, in order to provide more information that would otherwise be sought in an audit.)
- Daniel Dulitz
From an IT perspective, the difficulty with electronic filing is in correctly referencing documents generated by other parties (K-1s etc.). Surprisingly nontrivial. If it doesn't have a URL, we are so screwed. And even if it does...
- Daniel Dulitz
I have to admit I had ana's WTF?! reaction too at first. But the Parametric explanation clears it up.
- Matt Cutts
It's a shame you can't just email them a PDF for them to print out themselves, then.
- Gabe
I only had a 128 page tax return this year, mostly from living in Germany last year. For the first time in my life, I could not understand every line of it and that freaked me out. I'm so glad I didn't go with parametric.
- Piaw Na
Since when does the IRS require a tuna can with tax returns?
- Jim Norris
Yes, I just discovered Boxxy. Where have I been all my life. For my next act, I'll discover The A-Team. Anyway, I disconnected my YT from FF just to avoid polluting my stream with this, but here it is. </shame>
- Daniel Dulitz
After being initially enamored with boxxy, I ended up preferring the old fashioned keyboard and web browser most of the time (Mac mini setup). Boxxy just hasn't been reliable enough.
- Karl Rosaen
from Android
Karl, lol! Funny, that was my experience on my Mac mini too (and worse on my Apple TV). :-)
- Daniel Dulitz
from IM
"In Mr. Syndor’s world there are only two types of people: (1) those who believe in property rights– defined as our current level of copyright or hopefully even stronger, and (2) copyright haters – defined as people like me and the late great British scholar and jurist Sir Hugh Laddie, since both of us have expressed a desire that copyright be effective for its purpose and since both of us have annoyingly insisted on an evidence-based approach to law."
- Daniel Dulitz
@jackiebo I didn't see the ones with guns; the medical helicopter was on upper Page Mill for a bicycle accident 90 min ago. #paloalto
"This was unusual for Japan, because although most Japanese city centers seemed to be filled with hundreds of unregulated and overdriven speakers, I've rarely, if ever, been beckoned in English and in person. It caught me off guard. I wandered over."
- Daniel Dulitz
Comments include "we may have been stupid enough to send both bushes to washington but a clear out house isnt our doing here in houston. try switzerland" and "I wouldn’t just go to the bathroom in there… I think it’d be funny as hell to have sex with your gal in there."
- j1m
NYC. It's beautiful here. And I haven't even FriendFed yet this trip!