Viewing profile — jmaistre

The Ashley Madison data breach was such a disaster for the company because it saved its customers' real names and credit card numbers. It didn't have to do it this way. It could ha…

If books and blueprints for advanced technology were available, I wonder what is the potential for leapfrogging technologies. So instead of burning coal to power steam factories, w…

I hope we can agree that inequality of opportunity is an intrinsically bad thing. If parents are allowed to invest in their own children, then inherently, you have inequality of op…

Imagine that you are a little behind in soccer ability. You never played soccer in high school or college, you are not the most athletic person. Now in your 20s you want to sign up…

I use SpiderOak, since it allows for client-side encryption (zero-knowledge on their part, they have no way of seeing my files).

> In our society we're seen as weak if we cry. Isn't this the case in most societies? My sense from history is that is only acceptable for men to cry at extreme events -- such as d…

" But, more seriously, as a counter, I've spent most of my adult life trying to be less 'manly' and more male (xy-chromosomer ). " Out of curiosity, what does that mean? Were you g…

I have an iPad Air 2 and use it every day. My main use cases: 1. Reading. I love reading the old, free PDF books available from Google books and archive.org. The OCR doesn't work w…

One of the most valuable startup skills is to know which kind of debt has a low interest rate and which kind of technical debt has a high interest rate. Certain things - lack of te…