Levi Asher offers his free memoir of his rise and fall in the dot-com boom of the late 1990s and early 2000s. The autobiography covers Asher's twenty-five years in programming: his founding of the oldest ongoing literature website Literary Kicks in 1994, his success with the dot-com website iVillage in 1999 (and its subsequent collapse), and how all this insanity affected his personal life. It's a quick, entertaining read.
To view parent comment, click here.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
Member since:2005-07-06
Maybe, maybe not?... http://web.mit.edu/krugman/www/ratrace.html
Either way, possibly an important factor is what kind of houses people want and/or expect - and they're a bit different than in the past.
Member since:2011-01-28
zima,
"Maybe, maybe not?..."
Regarding inflation: Some prices have gone up. Others have gone down. There is a lot of wiggle room depending on how one chooses to define the CPI. The CPI is supposed to measure the price for maintaining a fixed quality of life, but the fed's been under pressure to manipulate the index for external purposes, which Alan Greenspan notoriously did during his reign over the fed. Here's a link for anyone who's actually interested.
http://www.shadowstats.com/article/consumer_price_index
Your link was from 1996, which is kind of ancient, I'm not sure how relevant it is today. Food prices have spiralled up, housing prices (even after the crash) are unaffordable, cars, gasoline, etc.
I read in the newspaper that our local food prices are up 30% over a two year period. I had already stopped buying things I used to enjoy due to price increases.
http://www.wnd.com/2008/03/59409/
"Either way, possibly an important factor is what kind of houses people want and/or expect - and they're a bit different than in the past"
That's true, but even so I think today's middle class is financially worse off than yesterday's middle class.
So, the Xbox One disaster continues. Microsoft's policy for dealing with the used games market has reportedly leaked - and it's a clear and direct attack to destroy the used games market. Prices for used games will be set at the retail value of a new game, and retailers have to hook into Microsoft's computer systems and comply with Microsoft's terms and conditions.At an event earlier today, Microsoft unveiled the next Xbox - the third model, but confusingly named Xbox One. The big focus was TV, integrated Kinect, and all the other stuff we all expected to be forced down our throats. I think it took them 25 minutes to actually come to what should be the core of the story: gaming. Nothing groundbreaking in the gaming department, except for how Microsoft intends to handle the used games market and borrowing games from friends: pay up, buddy!
The day has finally come! Jolla has finally announced the launch device for its Sailfish operating system - and by god this is a looker. It's decidedly different from other phones out there, but it has good specifications and carries a relatively reasonably price tag - EUR 399, and it's up for pre-order today, shipping in the fourth quarter of this year.
Why does Google get so much credit in the technology industry? Why, despite the company's many obvious failings, do many geeks and enthusiasts still hold a somewhat positive view on the all-knowing technology giant? A specific talk at Google I/O this week provides the answer.
OSNews is a sponsor of this year's O'Reilly OSCON in Portland, Oregon, USA. A lucky OSNews reader will win a free three-day pass, including two tutorials days. To win the pass, post a comment on this story saying something about Open Source Software or OSCON. We'll pick a winner at random next week. If you don't have an OSNews account, you may email us your entry. Part of the conference is the 9th annual Open Source Awards, and today the 16th is the deadline for nominations. If you'd like to nominate an outstanding open source contributor, do it here. Read on for more information about OSCON. Update: The 20% discount code for OSNews readers is "OSN."
"Windows is indeed slower than other operating systems in many scenarios, and the gap is worsening." That's one way to start an insider explanation of why Windows' performance isn't up to snuff. Written by someone who actually contributes code to the Windows NT kernel, the comment on Hacker News, later deleted but reposted with permission on Marc Bevand's blog, paints a very dreary picture of the state of Windows development. The root issue? Think of how Linux is developed, and you'll know the answer.
This is one of those news items that's fun to write, fun to read, fun to comment on, and where no one will be able to say anything unkind. It's all just one big ball of awesome fluffiness. TuneTracker, the BeOS radio automation software, has just released something very special: TuneTracker System 5, the first version designed entirely and specifically for Haiku. In fact, it actually includes Haiku in the software package. Better yet, TuneTracker also unveiled several system-in-a-box products - which have Haiku and TuneTracker pre-installed.
Exactly twenty years ago, a document was published that played a huge role in establishing the web as we know it today. Twenty years later, and this simple and straightforward document is proof of an irrefutable fact: while closed technologies can change markets, open technologies can change the world.Oh multitasking. That staple of computing that got thrown out the window with many modern smartphones. We got some rudimentary thing in its place - but even as multitasking on phone and tablets improves, its user-visible side remains cumbersome. Windows 8 has a neat implementation, and now it's time Android follows in it footsteps.They're here! Whether that excites you or not remains to be seen, but the Galaxy S4, which will most likely become the best selling Android smartphone of the year by a huge margin, has been reviewed by all the major sites, and there's lots of interesting conclusions in there - although I think most of you will get the gist.
Member since:
2011-01-28
deathshadow,
"Of course what really went wrong is the same thing that continues to trash the economy to this day: Credit and debt..."
Your right, and the worst part about it is that the transition away from cash towards debt & mortgages have raised prices substantially such that those of us who would have been able to afford a house with cash can no longer afford the mortgage inflated prices. Houses are so expensive these days that for most of us the decision is between taking a mortgage that spans our entire life, or not having a house at all. It's become a tax on the working class, one which the wealthy collect and don't have to pay themselves.