Sam_Odio

I thought the same (“corporate junk”) early in my career... then I had to start getting dozens/hundreds of people to execute in a coordinated fashion against a defensible plan...

Interesting - these have exactly the design polish I'd expect from working at FB, Twitter, DBX, etc... From what I've seen most of the people I've worked with at those companies care more about the quality of my thinking than the polish of my docs.

Paul - great work. Was thinking of doing the same. I'd love to collaborate on some sort of shared resource/repo of docs like these (github?) and contribute a few of my own.

Related:

Why Britain doesn’t build (worksinprogress.co) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36477481

https://xkcd.com/327/

Wonder if CRV is reacting to the same underlying trends causing Warren Buffet to sell stock (e.g., Cape / Shiller PE ratio is close to an all-time high)...

That particular right to flexible mistakes applies only to him.

Not true.

Source: worked for Zuck.

Dropbox | Full-time | Remote North America

I work with Drew (the DBX CEO) on 0-1 bets at Dropbox. I'd love to chat with former founders/early employees passionate about project management, task management, calendaring, or the intersection of the above products with ML/AI. Send your LinkedIn to odio+vip@dropbox.com.

This is an special problem for the uninsured that struggle with mental health.

A close friend struggled with bipolar. She was uninsured and making close to minimum wage…calls to suicide prevention hotlines resulted in thousands of dollars in new bills from ER visits and even involuntary psychiatric care.

She was struggling to pay rent. Being discharged in effectively the same condition as before but with new debt she wouldn’t be able to pay off for years…the medical bills for involuntary psychiatric care were their own special sort of crazy.

See https://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/appi.ajp.2020.2...

For those that believe Brad's take on Wikipedia's content isn't adding a fair amount of value...

Presumably, if Legiblenews takes off and doesn't add value, Wikimedia is free to compete with it. Wikimedia could form a for-profit company that donates more of user revenue to the foundation and feature that company on Wikipedia. Therefore, for the foreseeable future, Wikimedia effectively retains the option to copy & crush Brad's side-project. And if Legiblenews takes off Wikimedia does nothing at all...they will still almost certainly receive more $$$ than the current state of the world.

In that way, Wikimedia is outsourcing innovation to Brad, who Wikimedia is well-positioned to copy/compete with in the future, and being paid to do so. While Brad loses money.

I'm not 100% sure who is on which side of "fair," but ultimately if it complies with Wikimedia's license I'm good with it. And if you don't like it, why not start something better?

Paying back debt requires income, which is taxed.

In this example you continue to incur new debt, but at a rate not more than the growth rate of your assets.

In this example you will always have more in assets than you will borrow, so any new borrowing will be well collateralized. So yes, you can do this.

there's a valid reason as to why it's being done (to prioritize Americans out of work)

The "Fixed pie fallacy" [1] is probably both one of the most important tenants of modern policy-making, yet it's rarely explicitly discussed or debated.

Cyclone_, your thinking relies on this fallacy, namely that if one person is working a job, that's one less job available. [2]

In reality, there is quite a bit of empirical research that indicates when people work (especially highly skilled jobs like in tech), it does not reduce (and may even increase) the jobs available to others [3].

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lump_of_labour_fallacy 2. https://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/07/opinion/lumps-of-labor.ht... 3. https://siepr.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/publications/...

When I read these comments I'm left wishing we could be a more supportive community when peers try something new. I hope we can find a way to support Niko.

It saddens me that many engineers don't start projects for fear of embarrassment from forums like these.

My first startup failed for all sorts of legitimate reasons. My second startup sold to Facebook for millions. And all of them sounded like a bad idea at the start.

Let's not be a modern slashdot and miss the forest for the trees. What if Niko or someone here is successful? How will history judge the incessant critiques?

No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame.

Interesting thesis, but...

The prediction that participants in the sleep condition would have greater discriminability compared to participants in the wake condition was not supported. There were also no differences in reliability.

Most cases are not caught because there is a direct march, but because there are multiple distant relatives that match and allow detectives to triangulate the suspect. Final confirmation is done w/ direct testing after probable cause.

Faking your own dna has little effect on this process of triangulation and can easily be identified as you won’t share expected traits with relatives.

Good luck...

I wish conversations about public healthcare in the US included discussions about innovation in the healthcare industry.

We don't need to argue that consolidating buyers (e.g. single payer) has more market power and can negotiate prices down. This is an accepted principle among economists.

I am very curious about what affects single-payer in the US would have on global healthcare innovation. E.g. concepts like:

the high spending of health care consumers in the United States is arguably funding not only global pharmaceutical innovation but is also facilitating the availability of new medicines to other countries at much lower prices than domestic consumers pay.

https://arcdigital.media/u-s-health-care-reality-check-1-pha...

The pricing appears to undercut a notion promoted by FDA officials that approving more generics can help relieve the pocketbook pressure many Americans feel over the cost of their medicines.

I'm surprised the author is making the arugment that more competitiion doesn't drive down prices - despite the large body of evidence to the contrary.

It's accepted belief that when competition fails to drive down pricing among pharmaceuticals, it's usually due to regulatory decisions. There are several studies that have been done on this exact topic, one even finds that price regulation actually leads to higher prices by discouraging market forces [1].

1. https://www.regjeringen.no/globalassets/upload/kilde/hod/hdk...

I don't think about this a lot, but I assume that all of the interesting ways to distribute power from a single engine to 1-4 wheels are, all of them, inferior to having a dedicated motor for each.

While off-roading it's not uncommon to completely loose traction on two wheels (search for cross-axle articulation for a way to mitigate this). I've also lost traction on three wheels during steep hill climbs, rutted, muddy traverses, and on sand.

In situations like that locked differentials are vastly preferred as you can transfer the majority of the car's torque to 1-2 wheels. A motor for each wheel (or each set of wheels) would not be preferred as 1/4 or 1/2 of the vehicle's torque is often not enough to maintain forward momentum.

The challenge is that the axles of many stock vehicles are not designed to withstand all that torque, so breaking your vehicle's axle when all the torque is transferred to one wheel is a real risk.

The article itself (despite the sensationalist title) is not extremely insightful - investors aren't expecting an auto-manufacturing startup to be cash-flow positive while quickly scaling production.

In addition the content at times even contradicts the title...

"RBC analyst Joseph Spak, who has a $180 price target, said strong initial orders for the Model 3 could help Tesla achieve positive free cash flow"

...

"In February, the company said it expected to be cash-flow positive in March."

A more accurate title might be: "High Model 3 demand poses growth challenges and an increased need for capital."

I say this because if the Model E looks like that, it wouldn't be a proper Tesla.

That graphic is a image of the Model X. http://www.teslamotors.com/modelx

"Instead of fixing smog, China building surveillance tech to help see through it."

Misleading title; it presents false choice.

Now I chuckle whenever I hear some idiot snapping shots of their receipt or food, it's not the camera shutter, it's the sound of insecurity.

It's common to take photos of receipts for business purposes. Is there a situation where that type of behavior indicates insecurity?

Perhaps you didn't hear back because they were building (or had plans to build) a POS system that they weren't ready to talk about.

While the instructions to report bugs on the whitehat page are not localized, the terms Facebook is referring to (https://www.facebook.com/legal/terms) are.

As far as I can tell this is mostly a consequence of Uber responding to the market (i.e.: competitors like Lyft). With Uber X, Black car drivers no longer have a monopoly on convenient transportation (and from what I hear, that has significantly decreased their business). I can't entirely fault Uber for this...they need to adapt or die.

Not sure why this is getting downvoted, seems like a valid point (specifically, if they dislike Uber they should stop using it). Can anyone elaborate?

Your statistics are seriously flawed.

Actually, I think you a) misunderstood the claim in point 2, and b) take issue with the assumptions - not the math/statistics - in point 3.

your math in point 2 assumes you will certainly find yourself in a life threatening situation while carrying the device.

In point 2 the likelihood of a life threatening situation was not assumed or calculated (that's point 3). The conclusion, restated: If there's a 1/3500 chance you'll be able to effectively use the device to save your life, you're breaking even while mitigating risk.

And your point 3 probably vastly overestimates the fraction of life-or-death calls.

You've stated that I've made assumptions and you're right - which is why they're labeled as such. Feel free to suggest yours.

I carry a PLB at all times in my vehicle [1]. In the US this device will summon rescue via satellite. I recommend it for anyone who spends time in remote areas. If you value your life at $1MM and there's a 1 in 3500 chance [2] that summoning emergency services in a remote area will save your life then this is a helpful risk-mitigating tool [3].

1. http://www.amazon.com/ACR-Electronics-ResQLink-Personal-Loca...

2. $280 / $1MM ~ 1/3500.

3. A useful metric might be 911 calls, of which there are 240 million in 2008[4], for the US population of 305 million. If you assume 5% of the calls are life-or-death, that your daily odds of needing to call in remote areas are the same as the country mean, that you spend 5 days a year in remote areas, and a 5-year useful life for the device, then there is a 0.2% chance the device will save your life.

240/310 * .05 * 5/365 * 5 ~ 0.002

4. http://www.911dispatch.com/info/fact_figures.html

Consumer reports found that E15 causes a drop in fuel economy that's more than 15% [1], meaning you're burning ethanol with your gas for no apparent gain and to the detriment of the environment in the form of increased emissions.

Ironically, on top of it all you're actually increasing your dependence on fossil fuels since since e15 requires more fossil fuel to get you the same distance as e0.

Can someone explain the argument for ethanol-based fuels?

1. http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/2011/01/the-great-ethanol...

No. A growing company is not necessarily a company designed for growth.

Startups are rarely profitable since a company designed for growth reinvests its revenue back into the company to create future growth (think a "ramen profitable" startup vs a "lifestyle business").

Large profits mean the company has run out of investment opportunities.