Jobs wasn't just a successful visionary, he was also a guy who bought a hundred identical black polo shirts to last him till he die, and someone who refused medical help for an entire year and tried to cure his cancer thru diet (which might have made a fatal difference, we'll never know), Do you really wish to idolize him, or just the benign and successful aspects of his personality? Can these even be differentiated?
My purchases only qualify for the quota needed to trigger interest payment on my checking account if I choose "credit." Also, merchants are charged differently depending on the choice. So it's a useful question.
That's precisely the point, though. If you could only use debit cards as debit cards and credit cards as credit cards, they wouldn't need to ask which way I would prefer they run it.
I'll say that 90% of my purchases are done with a credit card.
My financial mentors have taught me that debit cards are a scam and that they're something you don't want to use unless you like getting hit with $30 fees to do $3 transactions. You don't want to use them to check into a hotel, buy gas or buy a rental car.
If you're using a credit card, there's no reason for them to ask that stupid question. If you're using a debit card it gives them a license to screw you two different ways.
I do use debit cards to (i) access my health savings account, and (ii) access my paypal balance, which gives me a pool of "mad money" that I can refresh by selling the things I buy with it.
I think the media is portraying it this way because there are a lot of people who get into fields and do work they way they're "supposed to", i.e., told to by peers and bosses, rather than, as this kid did, actually going through and figuring things out. Every medical breakthrough is a puzzle that's been solved, but some people aren't as interested in solving the puzzle as listening to what their boss says. Which makes sense, nobody wants to get fired, it's just suboptimal for problem solving.
The post was entirely about flaws in its parent post's reasoning. The flaws were correctly identified. What does this have to do with your assumptions about the author's perspective?
Because it is defending the status quo. Everything that was said is true, but nothing was said that didn't defend the old perspective. It happens a lot - you defend an opinion you had, and when you come up with some good evidence in your favor, you pretty much stop there. But if you had tried to see it from the other side, you may not have been so defensive.
Cultural/memetic inertia is really hard to overcome, mostly because of this I think.
Wow, has HN been taken over by business types already?
Don't you think Mayer has enough capital, connections, reputation, experience, etc. that if she started a company to do what she wanted, how she wanted, it would be completely different from your average college-grad startup?
I mean, come on now. There's no comparing the two.
You can be interesting without forcing your perspective on others. You don't have to tell other people they're wrong in order to tell them how you feel, though it often happens with nerds like us.
If you're really passionate about something and motivated to change the world, and you meet someone passionate and motivated about something that conflicts, there are not many peaceful outcomes. Basically either one person gets steamrolled so bad they have no power left, or one (or both) simply defer to the other.
I still think you can have professional disagreements and make a compromise without being uncourteous and unprofessional. Of course, it's harder when the other party isn't being professional, but it's still possible.
