As Bruce Schneier noted, Biometrics not a panecea...
One more problem with biometrics: they don't fail well. Passwords can be changed, but if someone copies your thumbprint, you're out of luck: you can't update your thumb. Passwords can be backed up, but if you alter your thumbprint in an accident, you're stuck.
I'd go out on a limb and say they will probably stick 8 out of the next 10 sea landings, and no less than 9 out of 10 RTL landings.
Spoken like a pointy haired boss in training...
FWIW, I'll go out on a limb and say that that given the percentage of recovered first stages is integral to SpaceX profitability, Elon Musk probably would know better than most and he apparently has stated publicly that last time when he predicted a 50-50 chance of sticking the landing, that he pretty much made it up and he had no idea...
You can gain a whole lot of mass but you're up against the inverse square law. That gravitational 'force' (yes it's really just a geometrical distortion of spacetime) falls away rapidly with distance. The distance is what keeps those remote objects safe.
How can it be "just" a distortion of spacetime and a " 'force' "? There needs to be some actual force to do the distorting of spacetime. You don't get to put quotation marks around "force" and parenthetically claim that gravity is not a force.
The human understanding of the physics behind gravity is not a settled science.
One popular school of thought (called general relativity), that gravity is simply a result of mysterious property of an object called "mass" distorting the fabric of space time so it only appears as a "force" with a field. With this school of thought, you can also think about the strange "force-like" dynamics (e.g, attraction or the change in momentum over time) we observe with gravity fields are really an artifact of our frame of reference (we assume that space-time is not distorted) but in the space-time, really nothing than distorted space time). There is no "force" exhibited by matter that distorts surrounding space-time, but the distortion of space-time is an emergent property of mass (and strangely energy).
However, we know that general relativity is inconsistent with our current understanding of quantum mechanics, so it is probably "wrong", so another school of thought is that analogous to other fields (e.g., electromagnetic fields), the apparently gravitationnal dynamics can be explained by the exchange of particles (or virtual particles) which have been coined as "gravitons". These gravitons would work similarly to how photons mediate the electromagnetic force (and presumably would exhibit wave particle duality like photons).
Of course that often begs the question of what is mysterious mass like property of an object? Some speculate that it is merely parts of an object interacting with a scalar "higgs-field" (it has to be scalar-like, or the "mass-effect" would be different in different directions) caused by an exchange of higgs particles.
How this might all relate back to the first school of thought is called the search for the grand unifying theory. If you figure that one out, a Nobel prize in physics awaits...;^)
Dwar Ev threw the switch. There was a mighty hum, the surge of power from ninety-six billion planets. Lights flashed and quieted along the miles-long panel. Dwar Ev stepped back and drew a deep breath. "The honor of asking the first question is yours, Dwar Reyn."
"Thank you," said Dwar Reyn. "It shall be a question that no single cybernetics machine has been able to answer." He turned to face the machine. "Is there a God?"
The mighty voice answered without hesitation, without the clicking of single relay. "Yes, now there is a God."
Sudden fear flashed on the face of Dwar Ev. He leaped to grab the switch. A bolt of lightning from the cloudless sky struck him down and fused the switch shut.
The ones I installed about ten years ago are already putting out less than half of the power they originally did so they'll never pay off. Then there is something wrong with your installation. I would let it checked.
It is impossible that a solar panel degrades by 50% over ten years.
Although the PV cells usually don't degrade by 50% in 10 years (more like 1% per year), there are some issues that can cause net output loss like this. Usually when you see problems like this it can be as simple as a dust problem, but more than likely it is a problem with the inverters.
Also possible is that installations in high thermal cycling environments (e.g., rapid freezing, thawing) can cause PV cells to degrade up to 4% per year due to factors like moisture ingress, material stress on encapsulating material, etc. You can also see panels made of generally poor materials can see rapid degradation, w/o high thermal cycling, but that is very unlikely.
I have a startup that I have been trying to get funding for in order to finish the product. It is highly technical but all the features I have finished work great. I think it will be 10x better than anything else on the market that it will compete against (it does data management). Yet I can't seem to get any attention from investors. If they can't understand it in a 20 second elevator pitch, they have no interest.
Investors need exit strategies. If you don't have an exit strategy for your investors they aren't interested.
Do you actually think they would be happy to give you a pile of money with no idea how they would get their money back (and get some reasonable return rate on it)? Investors don't want to hold on to their investment for the duration of your career (or your interest/involvement in the business). Can you get sold to a big company (who can understand the value of your product), or can you ever get big enough to go public? If not, are you going to pay the investor a royalty for every unit sold (which implies can your product even generate enough revenue to do that)?
Of course if you are doing something that is part of the current "fad", they may already have an exit strategy figured out before you even talk to them, but if you aren't doing something along the beaten track, you will have to distill your thoughts on the "exit" topic as part of that 20-second elevator pitch too...
I suspect your potential investors probably dismiss your idea is too small for an exit strategy (e.g., it's a product not a company) or perhaps your company is sized/structured to be uninvestable (e.g., maybe it's just you so there is nothing to keep you from taking the money and blowing it on blackjack and hookers if you get diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor).
Also, have you thought of why there is nothing 10x better on the market today? Perhaps not very many people will pay for something 10x better because what they get for "free" (bundled with other software they need) is good enough? Or maybe the size of the market that will pay for something better is too small to support a large company (even though it might be enough to support small mom/pop company w/ no investors)?
both Facebook and Google looked like pretty crappy bets when they started out.
bullshit, google was already up and running with its current revenue streams and corporate philosophy in place before they went public
Well, Google had Stanford U. backing and Andy Bechtolsheim (sun) and David Cheriton (sun) as initial investors and Ram Shriram (amazon) on the board pretty much since day one...
Facebook was pretty much funded by its acting "president" Sean Parker (napster) seeking out funding from the Paypal Mafia (which includes Reed Hoffman CEO of Linked In) by a convertible note (contingent on Facebook getting to 1.5 million users from the summer to the end of 2004). Although they missed the contingency, the holders decided to convert the note instead of call the loan because they thought they had a good valuation.
So, I doubt either Facebook nor Google looked like crappy bets to the original investors. They both had excellent pedigrees from the get go...
I always marveled at the ability of VCs to dump metric tons of money into something that usually has no business plan (and no, "get bought by Google!!OMG!!11!!" is not really a practical business plan).
Isn't some of this that they *know* the startup has no business plan? I always thought they were more or less shopping for clever ideas and that part of the VC investment was applying some semblance of business discipline, both to help actually get the clever idea turned into an actual profitable venture and to make sure their money doesn't get spent on bespoke custom Nerf weapons, strippers or otherwise totally flushed down the toilet.
I'm sure a lot of startups are completely worthless ideas, but I would bet that there are some that are actually valuable but die off because the people behind them have absolutely no business sense at all.
Although in theory getting VC investment includes some of the VC's "business sense", however, the business goals of the VC aren't necessarily aligned with the founders (and often not the employees either). Generally the goal of the VC on an early-stage startup is to attempt to execute a 3-5 year plan and then 'exit'. An exit will generally either result in the ability for the VC's to deploy their winnings (if any) on the next big thing, or have the company crash and burn. The basic business sense that a startup gets from a VC team is often that time is of the essence and to optimize the burn rate (e.g. the spending of investment capital vs the performance the exit plan strategy). In fact, sometimes they will install a management team in your company to make sure you follow the plan if they don't trust you.
FWIW, VC's generally don't invest in clever ideas, they invest in teams that can execute exit plans. A typical VC firm will probably get pitched a dozen ideas that are more-or-less similar, but they generally only pull the trigger on investments that they think they can assist in executing an exit plan. I'm sure there are some startups that fail because they have absolutely no business sense, but it isn't clear to me that applying typical VC business sense would generally result in "success" from the founder's point of view either (because the VC's would probably kick those folks out of their own company for not having any business sense).
... all the hot chick in the class now look used up and spit out, kind of like bag ladies, while all the plain girls that couldn't get a date in high school to save their lives still look the same, like they haven't really aged in 40 years.
The flame that burns twice as bright burns half as long. -- Laozi
That app is hardly the future of NPR, because NPR probably has no future after the demise of radio. While there have been occasionally cases of successfully monetizing podcasts, I think it highly unlikely that NPR would be able to offer the high-quality programming it is known for through solely podcast revenue.
So, when the radio is replaced with streaming (which it probably will), you think NPR is just going to shrivel up and die? You think the millions of people across the nation who listen to NPR on the radio will decide to stream Justin Beiber instead of a Terry Gross interview? Really?
NPR is in a tricky spot now with the radio stations, but they do have a unique product with a sustainable demand and will work it out.
I disagree, they have a unique product sure enough, but having a somewhat captive audience of commuters in their cars who happen to overlap with the set of people that will part with some of their income to donate to a public radio station because of a daily habit (of driving to work) isn't something to dismiss either.
Also programming fees paid by public radio stations make up about 40% of NPR's revenues and 10% from other distribution channels (e.g., cable, satellite, etc). If 1/2 their fees went away, NPR would be likely forced to rely on Corporate sponsorship (currently about 25%) and Grants (only about 15%). It probably won't be the same NPR given that funding would be dominated by corporate sponsorship.
The myth is that NPR is federally funded. Actually, federal funding of NPR comes through the public radio stations. Actually, federal grants are made to public radio stations, and public radio stations pay fees to NPR for their programming using this grant money (along with other local fund-raising sources).
a LOT of cities have laws against tiny hotel rooms and apartments. Are they also factoring in the costs of legal fees fighting these stupid laws put on the books?
FWIW, most of the laws on the books prevent tiny hotel rooms and apartments are "fire-code" laws. For example, in Washington state, a transient accommodation provider (e.g., a hotel) must provide 36" wide path on one side of a permanent bed and 18" wide path on one side for a temporary bed (e.g.,rollaway) for egress in case of a fire. No triple bunks and any double bunk beds need to have sufficient unobstructed vertical space so that an adult may sit up comfortably between the bottom and top bunk, or the top bunk and ceiling.
Not sure that these are completely "stupid" laws...
Sucks that in today's world we are forced to choose between sleeping well and living well.
Sucks that in today's world people have been tricked into somehow equating living well, to having a well paying job...
Unless you are skating at or below the poverty level, living well generally has less to do with your income (and material possessions) than other aspect of your life (health, friends, family). As many lottery winners will tell you, money doesn't generally make you happy.
What better way to help them survive, then by ending a captive breeding program?!?
That might not matter, as no Orca raised in captivity has survived release into the wild. Ergo, you can't repopulate a wild population with them. Maybe techniques to do it successfully could be done, maybe not.
As a secondary thing, the '40 years without a capture' made me wonder if there might not be a secondary reason that they're not talking about - specifically inbreeding. How many generations in are they? Do they have enough lines to keep genetic diversity up?
It's more complicated than that. Although they are only really on their second to third generation (it's only been 40 years), a couple of the second generation are cross-generational (e.g, Mother & Son offspring). To avoid too much inbreeding, they have attempted crossbred Pacific Northwest and Northern Atlantic orcas (strangely, scientist have frown on this as they don't approve of whale population diversity).
I suspect that since the expensive breeding program has been generally unsuccessful, (successful calfs don't begin to replace deaths and there are lots of stillborns), and that public opinion has been running against them, they are simply just cutting their losses...
As Robert Heinlein wrote decades ago, "Do not handicap your children by making their lives easy".
On the flip side, if you want to conspire to make your kids lives easier than their peers by letting them avoid the challenge they would have getting a decent education in a public school...
Sure as a parent, there is a certain amount of shielding you want to give your kids (say if the local public school was infested with gangs, guns, drugs, etc.), but tracking your kids at an early age to an highly academic (or religious depending on your school) program might better serve your desires as a parent, than their interests as a life learner. There is also something to be said about exposure to diversity (in religion, ethnicity, income, etc) that is greater in a public school environment.
And if your goal is actually to send your kid to an "ivy-league" school, you might actually be better off with having them attend a public school because of the big-fish-little-pond effect. Not just an antecdoe, but actually illustrated by this study
Quality of life doesn't equate to wages... Nice try though on the Citizen Dividend.
The problem with "money" and "wages" is that those game tokens don't have the same economic value to everyone.
Wealth denominated in cash give people a certain amount of freedom and independence in our current society which makes some people happy. But that isn't the total equation. For example, why do rich people want to run for political office. They eventually realize some things that money can't buy and they want those too, or their perceived quality of life suffer. Why do lottery winner on the whole unhappy? Because friends and family alienate them and the become unhappy.
On the flip side, lack of wealth in our society reduces your options and that makes most people feel unhappy. At the bottom of that rung, you basically are begging for survival (be it from the govt, or a church, or the street corner). Will money solve these people's problems? Maybe some of them, and certainly solving such problem will make some people happy.
The people in the middle. What about them, how do they define quality of life? Employment? Take in consideration a job. You aren't just paid in cash, most people are also paid in "respect". You can get that respect in cash, you can get that in "brownie-points", you can get that in influence, or (and this part kinda sucks) you can get that *relative* to other folks... It actually doesn't take much cash to improve the average person's perception of their quality of life, just give them more than their peers. Of course you can replace cash with any other similar observable commodity. Take away the possibility of one-upping their peers in one dimension like cash, they will of course find another one (e.g., influence, access to fame, all the way down to head-butting or taunting that my dad can beat up your dad or my kid is smarter than your kid).
It's just human nature that people feel some are more equal that others. Of course if you just change the "income" system and force it on people, they will adapt, but saying that improves people's quality of life on average (of course the people on the bottom rung will improve) is something that doesn't take into consideration human nature. By forcing them to "beg" to the government for part of their "income", you might be increasing the number of consumer goods they can buy, but leaving the government to define the marginal purchasing value of any additional money they earn (which would no doubt could be a huge leveling force). The government already has this lever by being able to inflate currency, so why don't they use it? Of course they use it a little (to keep people from hording game tokens), but why not use the full lever to increase income equality? Basically because it hurts upward mobility (reduces people's feeling of independence because they can't save for the future) and as a result many people don't like it (it reduces their perceived quality of life).
In the end, you might realize that you aren't defined by your "income", or even your "employment level" or how much shit you can buy, but sadly these are the relative frameworks that many use to define their quality of life. But nothing is as tangible or countable as people might desire. Think about people obsessed with "likes" hoarding friends on social media like facebook although the quantity is high, is the actual quality high?
On the other hand, on the observation people only listen to what they agree with, can't argue with that one... That's not politics, that's human nature.
All I can say is that being a pre-internet email sysadmin in the era that transitioned between <machine1!machine2!user> with some atrocities of decnet mail addressing thrown in and sent over modems with uucp/uumail, the appearance of <user@machine2.domain> email addresses really helped to make sendmail.config parsing files totally insane with both left to right and right to left name resolution and routing rules that persisted until we could afford to get directly attached directly to the internet and talk to other mail servers directly...
I think I still have nightmares about those days;^)
In my opinion, Microsoft stacked the deck against Win RT (to Intel's benefit). Although Win RT was a port of the WinAPI, you couldn't develop for it unless you were a professional developer. I was just about to buy a WinRT machine, until I found out Msft *disabled* the capability to write WinAPI apps in their released WinRT (it was present in the beta version).
They apparently did this under the guise that they wanted to force developers to write "Metro" apps that would work on their tablets, rather than port WinAPI apps to WinRT. Had WinRT been able to run more WinAPI apps (than office), one might make the argument that Microsoft was all in for WinRT, but as it turns out Microsoft was just all in for WinPhone/Metro. WinRT was a crippled afterthought (kind of like WinNT for DecAlpha). There was no way WinRT would ever become dominant because Microsoft's focus was on WinPhone instead.
Intel simply placed their bet: Linux datacenter, Win8 for server to desktop to low-end laptops, and Android for mobile. Microsoft placed their bets on Win8 for high-end to low-end laptop, and WinRT/WinPhone for mobile... Intel basically used Microsoft's Win8/WinRT segmentation as an opportunity to create a firewall around the remainder of their low-end PC laptop business and spent their time "investing" $2B+ money in their mobile Android business against WinRT/WinPhone.
I can't tell if you are proposing a Hunger Games or Shirley Jackson's The Lottery Either way, that's messed up, man. That's messed up. I'm in.
Wasn't going for the "tribute" or "sacrificial offering" angle, but if people think making sacrifices to the global warming gods they appear to worship for something as banal as more driving privileges would be entertaining, who am I to stop them... But I'm not buying that lottery ticket;^)
Let's say 1 million people die or are maimed all over the world thanks to human driven cars. How much "carbon emissions" will be caused by all the funerals, ambulance trips, etc. this entails? Couldn't we say autonomous cars will "save" on "carbon emissions" due to avoiding 1 million such experiences?
Don't let this click bait headline fool you.
Just my $0.02.
On the flip side if we didn't eliminate 1 million people from the *future* driving pool by killing or maiming them with human driven cars, couldn't we say that by the impact of their collective future driving trips, autonomous cars (by sparing lives) will cause more emissions in the future?
Think of it kind of like why we have a hunting season for deer. Since humans have eliminated many of the predators at the top of the food chain, if we don't cull the herd, the deer often face a future of starvation (e.g., they use more resources than the environment can support).
Although we could potentially limit driving more humanly by say a lottery for people that are allowed to drive rather than simply off-ing a million folks (then again, in most states there is a lottery for deer hunting licenses, so maybe it's not totally different). They already do something like a lottery in many congested cities like Mexico City (odd-even), Beijing (mod 5), and New Delhi (even-odd).
Caveat: I'm not a lawyer. But I don't see why this needs to be complicated.
But if you *were* a lawyer, you would instantly realize why everything needs to be complicated enough to need a lawyer. Everyone has to eat you know... Kind of like hammers wanting nails..
This is probably a great thing for lesbian couples trying to conceive. No more going to sperm bank and picking out some random stranger to be the father of your kids. Now just make sperm from your partners stem cells.
Or single women who want to marry themselves... Why would such a woman want to have any random child, if they could have themselves as a child?
Maybe we should stop this line of discussion before George Lucas's lawyers start chiming in...
Slashdot Mirror
As Bruce Schneier noted, Biometrics not a panecea...
One more problem with biometrics: they don't fail well. Passwords can be changed, but if someone copies your thumbprint, you're out of luck: you can't update your thumb. Passwords can be backed up, but if you alter your thumbprint in an accident, you're stuck.
I'd go out on a limb and say they will probably stick 8 out of the next 10 sea landings, and no less than 9 out of 10 RTL landings.
Spoken like a pointy haired boss in training...
FWIW, I'll go out on a limb and say that that given the percentage of recovered first stages is integral to SpaceX profitability, Elon Musk probably would know better than most and he apparently has stated publicly that last time when he predicted a 50-50 chance of sticking the landing, that he pretty much made it up and he had no idea...
You can gain a whole lot of mass but you're up against the inverse square law. That gravitational 'force' (yes it's really just a geometrical distortion of spacetime) falls away rapidly with distance. The distance is what keeps those remote objects safe.
How can it be "just" a distortion of spacetime and a " 'force' "? There needs to be some actual force to do the distorting of spacetime. You don't get to put quotation marks around "force" and parenthetically claim that gravity is not a force.
The human understanding of the physics behind gravity is not a settled science.
One popular school of thought (called general relativity), that gravity is simply a result of mysterious property of an object called "mass" distorting the fabric of space time so it only appears as a "force" with a field. With this school of thought, you can also think about the strange "force-like" dynamics (e.g, attraction or the change in momentum over time) we observe with gravity fields are really an artifact of our frame of reference (we assume that space-time is not distorted) but in the space-time, really nothing than distorted space time). There is no "force" exhibited by matter that distorts surrounding space-time, but the distortion of space-time is an emergent property of mass (and strangely energy).
However, we know that general relativity is inconsistent with our current understanding of quantum mechanics, so it is probably "wrong", so another school of thought is that analogous to other fields (e.g., electromagnetic fields), the apparently gravitationnal dynamics can be explained by the exchange of particles (or virtual particles) which have been coined as "gravitons". These gravitons would work similarly to how photons mediate the electromagnetic force (and presumably would exhibit wave particle duality like photons).
Of course that often begs the question of what is mysterious mass like property of an object? Some speculate that it is merely parts of an object interacting with a scalar "higgs-field" (it has to be scalar-like, or the "mass-effect" would be different in different directions) caused by an exchange of higgs particles.
How this might all relate back to the first school of thought is called the search for the grand unifying theory. If you figure that one out, a Nobel prize in physics awaits... ;^)
(with apologies to Michael Crichton)
Ian - God creates intelligence, god destroys intelligence. God creates man, man destroys god. Man create AI.
Ellie - AI destroys man, women inherit the earth...
Perhaps a different, more historical view from the 1950's http://www.alteich.com/oldsite...
Dwar Ev threw the switch. There was a mighty hum, the surge of power from ninety-six billion planets. Lights flashed and quieted along the miles-long panel. Dwar Ev stepped back and drew a deep breath. "The honor of asking the first question is yours, Dwar Reyn."
"Thank you," said Dwar Reyn. "It shall be a question that no single cybernetics machine has been able to answer." He turned to face the machine. "Is there a God?"
The mighty voice answered without hesitation, without the clicking of single relay.
"Yes, now there is a God."
Sudden fear flashed on the face of Dwar Ev. He leaped to grab the switch.
A bolt of lightning from the cloudless sky struck him down and fused the switch shut.
Hedge there bets, stupid people do sometimes too...
-Dick
ftfy (fixed that for yoda)
The ones I installed about ten years ago are already putting out less than half of the power they originally did so they'll never pay off.
Then there is something wrong with your installation. I would let it checked.
It is impossible that a solar panel degrades by 50% over ten years.
Although the PV cells usually don't degrade by 50% in 10 years (more like 1% per year), there are some issues that can cause net output loss like this. Usually when you see problems like this it can be as simple as a dust problem, but more than likely it is a problem with the inverters.
Also possible is that installations in high thermal cycling environments (e.g., rapid freezing, thawing) can cause PV cells to degrade up to 4% per year due to factors like moisture ingress, material stress on encapsulating material, etc. You can also see panels made of generally poor materials can see rapid degradation, w/o high thermal cycling, but that is very unlikely.
I have a startup that I have been trying to get funding for in order to finish the product. It is highly technical but all the features I have finished work great. I think it will be 10x better than anything else on the market that it will compete against (it does data management). Yet I can't seem to get any attention from investors. If they can't understand it in a 20 second elevator pitch, they have no interest.
Investors need exit strategies. If you don't have an exit strategy for your investors they aren't interested.
Do you actually think they would be happy to give you a pile of money with no idea how they would get their money back (and get some reasonable return rate on it)? Investors don't want to hold on to their investment for the duration of your career (or your interest/involvement in the business). Can you get sold to a big company (who can understand the value of your product), or can you ever get big enough to go public? If not, are you going to pay the investor a royalty for every unit sold (which implies can your product even generate enough revenue to do that)?
Of course if you are doing something that is part of the current "fad", they may already have an exit strategy figured out before you even talk to them, but if you aren't doing something along the beaten track, you will have to distill your thoughts on the "exit" topic as part of that 20-second elevator pitch too...
I suspect your potential investors probably dismiss your idea is too small for an exit strategy (e.g., it's a product not a company) or perhaps your company is sized/structured to be uninvestable (e.g., maybe it's just you so there is nothing to keep you from taking the money and blowing it on blackjack and hookers if you get diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor).
Also, have you thought of why there is nothing 10x better on the market today? Perhaps not very many people will pay for something 10x better because what they get for "free" (bundled with other software they need) is good enough? Or maybe the size of the market that will pay for something better is too small to support a large company (even though it might be enough to support small mom/pop company w/ no investors)?
Just food for thought...
both Facebook and Google looked like pretty crappy bets when they started out.
bullshit, google was already up and running with its current revenue streams and corporate philosophy in place before they went public
Well, Google had Stanford U. backing and Andy Bechtolsheim (sun) and David Cheriton (sun) as initial investors and Ram Shriram (amazon) on the board pretty much since day one...
Facebook was pretty much funded by its acting "president" Sean Parker (napster) seeking out funding from the Paypal Mafia (which includes Reed Hoffman CEO of Linked In) by a convertible note (contingent on Facebook getting to 1.5 million users from the summer to the end of 2004). Although they missed the contingency, the holders decided to convert the note instead of call the loan because they thought they had a good valuation.
So, I doubt either Facebook nor Google looked like crappy bets to the original investors. They both had excellent pedigrees from the get go...
I always marveled at the ability of VCs to dump metric tons of money into something that usually has no business plan (and no, "get bought by Google!!OMG!!11!!" is not really a practical business plan).
Isn't some of this that they *know* the startup has no business plan? I always thought they were more or less shopping for clever ideas and that part of the VC investment was applying some semblance of business discipline, both to help actually get the clever idea turned into an actual profitable venture and to make sure their money doesn't get spent on bespoke custom Nerf weapons, strippers or otherwise totally flushed down the toilet.
I'm sure a lot of startups are completely worthless ideas, but I would bet that there are some that are actually valuable but die off because the people behind them have absolutely no business sense at all.
Although in theory getting VC investment includes some of the VC's "business sense", however, the business goals of the VC aren't necessarily aligned with the founders (and often not the employees either). Generally the goal of the VC on an early-stage startup is to attempt to execute a 3-5 year plan and then 'exit'. An exit will generally either result in the ability for the VC's to deploy their winnings (if any) on the next big thing, or have the company crash and burn. The basic business sense that a startup gets from a VC team is often that time is of the essence and to optimize the burn rate (e.g. the spending of investment capital vs the performance the exit plan strategy). In fact, sometimes they will install a management team in your company to make sure you follow the plan if they don't trust you.
FWIW, VC's generally don't invest in clever ideas, they invest in teams that can execute exit plans. A typical VC firm will probably get pitched a dozen ideas that are more-or-less similar, but they generally only pull the trigger on investments that they think they can assist in executing an exit plan. I'm sure there are some startups that fail because they have absolutely no business sense, but it isn't clear to me that applying typical VC business sense would generally result in "success" from the founder's point of view either (because the VC's would probably kick those folks out of their own company for not having any business sense).
... all the hot chick in the class now look used up and spit out, kind of like bag ladies, while all the plain girls that couldn't get a date in high school to save their lives still look the same, like they haven't really aged in 40 years.
The flame that burns twice as bright burns half as long. -- Laozi
That app is hardly the future of NPR, because NPR probably has no future after the demise of radio. While there have been occasionally cases of successfully monetizing podcasts, I think it highly unlikely that NPR would be able to offer the high-quality programming it is known for through solely podcast revenue.
So, when the radio is replaced with streaming (which it probably will), you think NPR is just going to shrivel up and die? You think the millions of people across the nation who listen to NPR on the radio will decide to stream Justin Beiber instead of a Terry Gross interview? Really?
NPR is in a tricky spot now with the radio stations, but they do have a unique product with a sustainable demand and will work it out.
I disagree, they have a unique product sure enough, but having a somewhat captive audience of commuters in their cars who happen to overlap with the set of people that will part with some of their income to donate to a public radio station because of a daily habit (of driving to work) isn't something to dismiss either.
Also programming fees paid by public radio stations make up about 40% of NPR's revenues and 10% from other distribution channels (e.g., cable, satellite, etc). If 1/2 their fees went away, NPR would be likely forced to rely on Corporate sponsorship (currently about 25%) and Grants (only about 15%). It probably won't be the same NPR given that funding would be dominated by corporate sponsorship.
The myth is that NPR is federally funded. Actually, federal funding of NPR comes through the public radio stations. Actually, federal grants are made to public radio stations, and public radio stations pay fees to NPR for their programming using this grant money (along with other local fund-raising sources).
Trump 2016
Suddenly I feel this aura of safety leave the room... Perhaps it's some musings left by python enthusiast ;^)
Yahoo lost as a Big Internet company when it outsourced search to Microsoft/Bing and focused on content.
FTFY...
a LOT of cities have laws against tiny hotel rooms and apartments. Are they also factoring in the costs of legal fees fighting these stupid laws put on the books?
FWIW, most of the laws on the books prevent tiny hotel rooms and apartments are "fire-code" laws. For example, in Washington state, a transient accommodation provider (e.g., a hotel) must provide 36" wide path on one side of a permanent bed and 18" wide path on one side for a temporary bed (e.g.,rollaway) for egress in case of a fire. No triple bunks and any double bunk beds need to have sufficient unobstructed vertical space so that an adult may sit up comfortably between the bottom and top bunk, or the top bunk and ceiling.
Not sure that these are completely "stupid" laws...
Sucks that in today's world we are forced to choose between sleeping well and living well.
Sucks that in today's world people have been tricked into somehow equating living well, to having a well paying job...
Unless you are skating at or below the poverty level, living well generally has less to do with your income (and material possessions) than other aspect of your life (health, friends, family). As many lottery winners will tell you, money doesn't generally make you happy.
What better way to help them survive, then by ending a captive breeding program?!?
That might not matter, as no Orca raised in captivity has survived release into the wild. Ergo, you can't repopulate a wild population with them. Maybe techniques to do it successfully could be done, maybe not.
As a secondary thing, the '40 years without a capture' made me wonder if there might not be a secondary reason that they're not talking about - specifically inbreeding. How many generations in are they? Do they have enough lines to keep genetic diversity up?
It's more complicated than that. Although they are only really on their second to third generation (it's only been 40 years), a couple of the second generation are cross-generational (e.g, Mother & Son offspring). To avoid too much inbreeding, they have attempted crossbred Pacific Northwest and Northern Atlantic orcas (strangely, scientist have frown on this as they don't approve of whale population diversity).
I suspect that since the expensive breeding program has been generally unsuccessful, (successful calfs don't begin to replace deaths and there are lots of stillborns), and that public opinion has been running against them, they are simply just cutting their losses...
As Robert Heinlein wrote decades ago, "Do not handicap your children by making their lives easy".
On the flip side, if you want to conspire to make your kids lives easier than their peers by letting them avoid the challenge they would have getting a decent education in a public school...
Sure as a parent, there is a certain amount of shielding you want to give your kids (say if the local public school was infested with gangs, guns, drugs, etc.), but tracking your kids at an early age to an highly academic (or religious depending on your school) program might better serve your desires as a parent, than their interests as a life learner. There is also something to be said about exposure to diversity (in religion, ethnicity, income, etc) that is greater in a public school environment.
And if your goal is actually to send your kid to an "ivy-league" school, you might actually be better off with having them attend a public school because of the big-fish-little-pond effect. Not just an antecdoe, but actually illustrated by this study
Something to think about...
Quality of life doesn't equate to wages... Nice try though on the Citizen Dividend.
The problem with "money" and "wages" is that those game tokens don't have the same economic value to everyone.
Wealth denominated in cash give people a certain amount of freedom and independence in our current society which makes some people happy. But that isn't the total equation. For example, why do rich people want to run for political office. They eventually realize some things that money can't buy and they want those too, or their perceived quality of life suffer. Why do lottery winner on the whole unhappy? Because friends and family alienate them and the become unhappy.
On the flip side, lack of wealth in our society reduces your options and that makes most people feel unhappy. At the bottom of that rung, you basically are begging for survival (be it from the govt, or a church, or the street corner). Will money solve these people's problems? Maybe some of them, and certainly solving such problem will make some people happy.
The people in the middle. What about them, how do they define quality of life? Employment? Take in consideration a job. You aren't just paid in cash, most people are also paid in "respect". You can get that respect in cash, you can get that in "brownie-points", you can get that in influence, or (and this part kinda sucks) you can get that *relative* to other folks... It actually doesn't take much cash to improve the average person's perception of their quality of life, just give them more than their peers. Of course you can replace cash with any other similar observable commodity. Take away the possibility of one-upping their peers in one dimension like cash, they will of course find another one (e.g., influence, access to fame, all the way down to head-butting or taunting that my dad can beat up your dad or my kid is smarter than your kid).
It's just human nature that people feel some are more equal that others. Of course if you just change the "income" system and force it on people, they will adapt, but saying that improves people's quality of life on average (of course the people on the bottom rung will improve) is something that doesn't take into consideration human nature. By forcing them to "beg" to the government for part of their "income", you might be increasing the number of consumer goods they can buy, but leaving the government to define the marginal purchasing value of any additional money they earn (which would no doubt could be a huge leveling force). The government already has this lever by being able to inflate currency, so why don't they use it? Of course they use it a little (to keep people from hording game tokens), but why not use the full lever to increase income equality? Basically because it hurts upward mobility (reduces people's feeling of independence because they can't save for the future) and as a result many people don't like it (it reduces their perceived quality of life).
In the end, you might realize that you aren't defined by your "income", or even your "employment level" or how much shit you can buy, but sadly these are the relative frameworks that many use to define their quality of life. But nothing is as tangible or countable as people might desire. Think about people obsessed with "likes" hoarding friends on social media like facebook although the quantity is high, is the actual quality high?
On the other hand, on the observation people only listen to what they agree with, can't argue with that one... That's not politics, that's human nature.
What more could you fucking want?
A nice 15 year old scotch and a hamburger would suffice I think.
Treasure any 15 yo single malt scotch whilst you still can...
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/n...
All I can say is that being a pre-internet email sysadmin in the era that transitioned between <machine1!machine2!user> with some atrocities of decnet mail addressing thrown in and sent over modems with uucp/uumail, the appearance of <user@machine2.domain> email addresses really helped to make sendmail.config parsing files totally insane with both left to right and right to left name resolution and routing rules that persisted until we could afford to get directly attached directly to the internet and talk to other mail servers directly...
I think I still have nightmares about those days ;^)
In my opinion, Microsoft stacked the deck against Win RT (to Intel's benefit). Although Win RT was a port of the WinAPI, you couldn't develop for it unless you were a professional developer. I was just about to buy a WinRT machine, until I found out Msft *disabled* the capability to write WinAPI apps in their released WinRT (it was present in the beta version).
They apparently did this under the guise that they wanted to force developers to write "Metro" apps that would work on their tablets, rather than port WinAPI apps to WinRT. Had WinRT been able to run more WinAPI apps (than office), one might make the argument that Microsoft was all in for WinRT, but as it turns out Microsoft was just all in for WinPhone/Metro. WinRT was a crippled afterthought (kind of like WinNT for DecAlpha). There was no way WinRT would ever become dominant because Microsoft's focus was on WinPhone instead.
Intel simply placed their bet: Linux datacenter, Win8 for server to desktop to low-end laptops, and Android for mobile. Microsoft placed their bets on Win8 for high-end to low-end laptop, and WinRT/WinPhone for mobile... Intel basically used Microsoft's Win8/WinRT segmentation as an opportunity to create a firewall around the remainder of their low-end PC laptop business and spent their time "investing" $2B+ money in their mobile Android business against WinRT/WinPhone.
I can't tell if you are proposing a Hunger Games or Shirley Jackson's The Lottery Either way, that's messed up, man. That's messed up. I'm in.
Wasn't going for the "tribute" or "sacrificial offering" angle, but if people think making sacrifices to the global warming gods they appear to worship for something as banal as more driving privileges would be entertaining, who am I to stop them... But I'm not buying that lottery ticket ;^)
Let's say 1 million people die or are maimed all over the world thanks to human driven cars. How much "carbon emissions" will be caused by all the
funerals, ambulance trips, etc. this entails? Couldn't we say autonomous cars will "save" on "carbon emissions" due to avoiding 1 million
such experiences?
Don't let this click bait headline fool you.
Just my $0.02.
On the flip side if we didn't eliminate 1 million people from the *future* driving pool by killing or maiming them with human driven cars, couldn't we say that by the impact of their collective future driving trips, autonomous cars (by sparing lives) will cause more emissions in the future?
Think of it kind of like why we have a hunting season for deer. Since humans have eliminated many of the predators at the top of the food chain, if we don't cull the herd, the deer often face a future of starvation (e.g., they use more resources than the environment can support).
Although we could potentially limit driving more humanly by say a lottery for people that are allowed to drive rather than simply off-ing a million folks (then again, in most states there is a lottery for deer hunting licenses, so maybe it's not totally different). They already do something like a lottery in many congested cities like Mexico City (odd-even), Beijing (mod 5), and New Delhi (even-odd).
Caveat: I'm not a lawyer. But I don't see why this needs to be complicated.
But if you *were* a lawyer, you would instantly realize why everything needs to be complicated enough to need a lawyer. Everyone has to eat you know...
Kind of like hammers wanting nails..
This is probably a great thing for lesbian couples trying to conceive. No more going to sperm bank and picking out some random stranger to be the father of your kids. Now just make sperm from your partners stem cells.
Or single women who want to marry themselves...
Why would such a woman want to have any random child, if they could have themselves as a child?
Maybe we should stop this line of discussion before George Lucas's lawyers start chiming in...