What Is Wrong With California's Billionaire Tax?

Reed Hastings supports higher taxes on rich people and still calls California's billionaire tax a smash and grab. He wants loopholes closed, including cheap long-term capital gains and estate taxes. Proposition 40, the California ballot initiative, is a different case: super poorly written, and built as a one-time tax.

The proposed tax is supposedly 5 percent. If it passes, a follow-up at 50 percent is the worry that makes the plan a crazy smash and grab. A tenth of a percent every year, small and ongoing, probably would have won. The initiative does not appear to be aimed at that smaller permanent tax.

Favoring higher taxes on rich people can sit beside a no on a single California ballot.

Reed Hastings on Hollywood’s future, Netflix’s shakeup and knowing when to leaveat 48:13

Founded and Funded

How Did the CrowdCow Team Pick Their Business

As Ethan and Joe, the founders of CrowdCow.com , were brainstorming ideas for a new business, their friend Brendan stumbled in with his passion for grass fed beef.

After careful consideration, they realized that not only was farm-sourced beef growing in popularity, it already had a solid devoted following, and market trends that indicated it would be a fantastic opportunity there and then.

Before embarking on the mission, they surveyed their friends and realized there was a lot of unrealized demand. People were already looking CrowdCow, all they had to do was make it a reality.

How Crowd Cow Went From Cow Tipping to Building a Growing Supply Chain Connecting Consumers With Ranchers With Joe Heitzebergat 1:33

The Failory Podcast

The Beginnings of 750 Words

In 2009, Buster started 750 Words as a side project. It currently makes +$25,000/month.

He shares how it all started and the journey towards where the platform is today.

Bootstrapping a B2C Startup to +$20k/Month with Buster Bensonat 27:35

Rework

What Are the Steps in Tackling Cloud Cost Optimization

Basecamp team started by looking at the legacy apps and comparing real traffic to their forecasts. It turned out that by re-planning their spent , and taking advantage of AWS prepaid instances, they were able to save 250k out of $500k they were putting into legacy systems. After that, they wrote some tools to display what they were spending and where, and the team looked for sudden increases. Lots of charges were not obvious, and they had to go through AWS documentation’s and pricing charts to figure out what each line item was for. It was very time consuming, but at the end, Blake and team were able to save ~20% of their cloud storage bill.

Spending in the Cloudsat 6:53

The Stack Overflow Podcast

Why Did Intel Use the Wrong Pi?

James Gosling says Intel used an incorrect version of pi for sine and cosine because of an early launch and restrictions on what silicon could do at the time.

Sine and cosine repeat, so only the span from negative pi to positive pi makes a difference once an angle is larger. Range reduction folds the angle back in by taking the angle modulo 2 pi, and Intel's pi for that step was slightly wrong. In the numerical analysis community, a rotating shaft in a motor or a propeller on an airplane turns RPM times time into an angle, and the result is the sine and cosine of a very large angle.

The mistake looks like a minor nit. The day starts with issues people have moving software across wildly dif

Elevators, toasters, and the birth of Javaat 13:45

Rocketship.fm

What Is a Distraction Myth

That smartphones are distracting because of notifications. Although they can be annoying, it’s an overstatement to say that they are the main cause of distractions. As humans, we have the ability to tune them out and focus on our goals.

Making Timeat 9:22