CEO Friday: Why we don’t hire .NET programmers « Expensify Blog

CEO Friday: Why we don’t hire .NET programmers « Expensify Blog:

"Programming with .NET is like cooking in a McDonalds kitchen. It is full of amazing tools that automate absolutely everything. Just press the right button and follow the beeping lights, and you can churn out flawless 1.6 oz burgers faster than anybody else on the planet.

However, if you need to make a 1.7 oz burger, you simply can’t. There’s no button for it. The patties are pre-formed in the wrong size. They start out frozen so they can’t be smushed up and reformed, and the thawing machine is so tightly integrated with the cooking machine that there’s no way to intercept it between the two. A McDonalds kitchen makes exactly what’s on the McDonalds menu — and does so in an absolutely foolproof fashion. But it can’t go off the menu, and any attempt to bend the machine to your will just breaks it such that it needs to be sent back to the factory for repairs."

Android May Be the Greatest Legal Destruction of Wealth in History

"Imagine if Ford were faced with GM paying people to take Chevrolets? How many would they be able to sell? What if you received $0.10 for every free Pepsi you consumed? Would you still pay $1.50 for a Coke?"

Think about the software industry. What is the cost of writing code? What is the cost of a single copy of the compiled code? I would love to write further about this but the author does such a great job that it just seems a no-brainer to quote him again:

"When software was first imagined as a business, it seemed like a miraculous dream. Because the variable costs were zero, you would make near 100% profit on each incremental unit that you sold. Perhaps the resulting counter-force to this is that if someone can afford to build a near equivalent code base, than they can at their option price to marginal cost ($0.00), the very definition of perfect competition."

Bayesian Inference

Learning about Bayesian probability theory

Bayesian probability theory is a branch of mathematical probability theory that allows one to model uncertainty about the world and outcomes of interest by combining common-sense knowledge and observational evidence.

I've never been good at math gets a chuckle. ...

I quote: 

1. Many people think math is about application. Yet, they do not see how the (higher) math will apply in their everyday activities or careers. 
2. In general, we teach mathematics incorrectly. We treat it as something to memorize and repeat. We don't see mathematics as one of the highest accomplishments of being civilized. We forget that math is more about art than about application. 
3. ... 

The fear and use of mathematics and physics

Please read the article on http://wpgaurav.wordpress.com/2011/02/18/the-fear-and-the-use-of-mathematics-and-physics/ and tell me what you think of it. Thanks.