aquaphile

Finally! Now do the Blues (please, please DOJ and FTC). And the major inpatient and provider oligopolies.

Market concentration across many layers is a huge reason we spend 17% of US GDP on healthcare.

I would love to debate the conclusions with the McKinsey team. I think their analysis was highly flawed. Do Americans consume more healthcare? Yes. Is that the primary reason for our escalating cost share? No. Market concentration at multiple layers (Payer, Provider, Tech/Data layers, etc.) is a huge issue in U.S. healthcare. In most markets we basically have 1-3 companies that have market control of the providers and inpatient facilities, and 1-2 companies that have majority market share on the carrier side. Add in the mess that is distribution (broker-controlled, and concentrated as a well), and you have a witches' brew of mis-aligned incentives, excessive costs, inefficient bureaucracies, and plain-old anti trust behaviors.

Many DARPA projects over the years have approached similar X-65 design goals of increased flight control, modularity/redundancy. One of my favorites was Pulse Ejector Thrust Augmentation (PETA). Wired's sensational take on it is at https://www.wired.com/2011/07/boeings-millennium-falcon-floa...

One of the big benefits of X-65/PETA/et al is generating increased lift at takeoff and landing without the wings. One can think of it as a hybrid or multi-lift design. The wings for flight are smaller since it is augmented with other controlled lift/thrust, and this allows the aircraft to be lighter and smaller since it doesn't need huge wings for the low-speed takeoff and landing.

Yep. Gemalto was hot stuff for a while.

Remember RSA and OPM? The RSA hack had huge implications for the Department of Defense, and was probably a state-sponsored hack (likely China). Around the same time the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) was hacked. So the state-sponsored hackers got to all the private details of anyone with classified access and clearances (which can be used for blackmail or for answering those strange "Who was your 3rd grade teacher?" auth questions to get past an identity test), and simultaneously could hack the rotating MFA codes from RSA.

Auth companies will always be a high value target for state-sponsored espionage.

Remember RSA and OPM? The RSA hack had huge implications for the Department of Defense, and was probably a state-sponsored hack (likely China). Around the same time the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) was hacked. So the state-sponsored hackers got to all the private details of anyone with classified access and clearances (which can be used for blackmail or for answering those strange "Who was your 3rd grade teacher?" auth questions to get past an identity test), and simultaneously could hack the rotating MFA codes from RSA.

Auth companies will always be a high value target for state-sponsored espionage.

Nokia is one of the top cellular/mobile backend hardware providers. 5G is turning out to be a lot more expensive than projected, the rollout has slowed, so equipment makers like Nokia are feeling the pain.

Cool project! I worked on a hybrid airship project.

H vs He. H for the win. H gives 10% more lift than He, and you can manufacture more H. Long-term this efficiency will allow you to haul more sensor payload, or to make a more useful aircraft. H has been used as a lifting gas on other projects in the U.S., and besides, your aircraft is unmanned.

Wind concerns. Addressable, but there will be some days you'll simply be grounded due to high winds. So are helicopters, though. Long-term you may want to look at hybrid lift designs for your aircraft (add some wings for aerodynamic lift, and make it net heavier than air).

Business concerns. The HN community has given some great feedback. The sales cycle will be long, so plan accordingly.

Look at the balance sheet 10K and 10Q filings. Additional Paid-In Capital is basically all the accumulated equity investment. Add in the current long-term debt. That gives you an approximate number for the investment capital to date (though it doesn't include any long-term debt that was repaid).

Despite operating for 14 years (1) and $51,488,000,000 of effective capital investment (2) Uber STILL loses money. The quarterly operating profit they reported is not GAAP net income.

(1) Founded in 2009 (2) $40,550,000,000 of paid-in capital and $10,938,000,000 of long-term debt, from 12/31/2022 balance sheet

Thanks! We worked really hard on the design to be functionally useful while visually striking. We are fans of Bauhaus design.

Weight > The total weight is probably similar at 10 pounds even. The company you mentioned likes to quote partial system weight and doesn't include the weight of their canopies and inserts. We've already made the lightest car seat in the world (2017, carbon fiber) at 5 pounds all in, and one of the lessons we learned was that adding weight can be a good performance trade if done well.

Glad to hear you found the thread interesting.

Kioma does provide an Isofix detachable base, but in the U.S. it is called Latch. Same thing, different name. All U.S. infant child restraint systems (CRS) must either have Latch attachments permanently to the CRS or must provide a separate detachable Latch base.

So we do provide a Latch base. We don't do a base load-leg though, because there are some cool things done with rotation to dissipate energy :) This is one case where the EU regs specified an implementation rather than a result. Otherwise the EU (r129) regs are very well written.

The US standard is FMVSS 213. In Europe, seat manufacturers currently must comply with standards UN R44/04 or UN R129 (i-Size).

A good dialogue is always fun. Thanks for bringing some science to the thread.

You've hit the nail on the proverbial head regarding misuse. Misuse is a problem across installation types: belt-only, and with Latch/Isofix. Some people get so confused they install with both methods.

Lowering misuse is a top design goal. Stated differently: we want to make things so simple that people have to work hard to make a mistake.

You are absolutely correct that belt misuse is a problem (per the cited GDV study). Latch misuse is still a problem too, though.

The studies make clear that misuse is common across installation types, to various degrees. The studies don't do a great job of exploring why the misuse occurred (The 2005 NHTSA study below did ask some good follow up questions). For example, Why did someone not use the belt path correctly? Was it because the slot was too narrow? Was it not visually obvious? Why did someone install both the Latch/Isofix anchors onto the same mount point? Why did someone leave too much slack in the Latch/Isofix anchor or the seat belt? Etcetera. The reasons why people misuse a seat are very valuable to improved public education and improved product design.

NHTSA's 2005 large field study found 39% of CRS (aka baby car seats) were incorrectly installed with Latch. Many of those had multiple errors (e.g. twisted belt plus latch connector turned upside down). Table 11 has the details in https://www.nhtsa.gov/sites/nhtsa.gov/files/latch_report_12-...

10 years later, NHTSA's 2015 study with NCRUSS data found misuse was still persistent: "Overall misuse is considered as having at least one defined misuse present in the car seat or booster seat – the seat may have one or multiple misuses, where one misuse has the same contribution as multiple misuses. The overall misuse is estimated to be 46 percent with a 95 percent confidence interval ranging from 39 percent to 52 percent. By car seat or booster seat type, estimated misuse rates were 61 percent for forward-facing car seats, 49 percent for rearfacing infant car seats, 44 percent for rear-facing convertible car seats, 24 percent for backless booster seats, and 16 percent for highback booster seats." Source: https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/...

So for all those parents out there, read your seat's user manual. The user manual will make it clear how to properly and effectively use the seat belt or the Latch/Isofix anchorages.

Ah, ok, and thanks for clarifying. The Kioma base is low profile (vertical height), and only 1/2 inch out from the passenger seat upright face (your "fore-aft" distance). It does not extend out past the seating face of the passenger seat, or otherwise hang off the passenger seat. Low and slim generally results in a shorter moment arm from the anchorage point (where the latch/isofix mount points are), so reduces the collision forces for the seat/baby.

The Kioma seat is about a standard length, and the width is narrower than competing seats while fitting the same size baby.

Fun fact: the International Standards Organization (ISO) helpfully defined several envelope sizes (r1, r2, etc) to help with baby car seat standardization, and the EU crash regs (see UN r129) even have a test bar that represents the back of a driver's seat.

You're welcome. Thanks for asking! If you have other questions, please drop me a line at support@kioma.us and mention your HN profile.

Feedback is always welcome. Thanks for checking it out! I may botch the response to your points, but I'll give it a try below.

Force > To use the base, yes some force is required. In our opinion, you want force to prevent false-positives on latching. False positives are a big problem with bases, as people perceive latching to have occurred when it actually has not. Visual latching indictors are not sufficient, in my opinion. Our experience and design encourages audio, visual, and tactile feedback to minimize misunderstandings and false positives.

Please note that while a base is convenient (people like the quick click-in, click-out of bases) it is not needed. You can just use the seat belt. Roll with whatever you prefer. Personally, I just use the seat belt.

Fire-aft> I have no idea what you mean by "fire-aft distance". But it sounds like you are worried about angles. We designed the seat to encourage good angles at rest, whether with the lap belt alone or with the companion base. Most automotive seats have a 5-10 degree upward angle. A rear-facing infant car seat should be resting in place at no lower than a 30 degree angle, and no higher than a 45 degree angle. If you go too high it increases choking risk but conversely improves the crash test scores. If you go lower it is better for a baby at rest and has less choking risk, but worsens the crash test score as more force is distributed into a smaller area and less rotation of the seat is possible. All this to say, there is a lot of variability across vehicles and seats in a vehicle, and to the best of my knowledge no car seat base accounts for all the permutations well. Regardless, angles are important because babies (especially younger ones) are still developing the muscles that hold up their head and have less head control than it might appear. For the parents out there, the final back angle should be approximately between 30 and 45 degrees as measured from a level plane, but please refer to your seat's user manual for its instructions. In most scenarios and vehicles the Kioma car seat should rest at an approximate 40 degree angle.

Competitor Comparison > We try to avoid direct comparisons with other companies, because it makes the lawyers wince. However, while I'm biased, from my personal experience I can say I'd take the Kioma any day over the competitors. There are many reasons we built this product, and none of them included "existing [insert company name] does a great job at this!"

Any seat belt in an automobile is a single point of failure by your logic. Seat belts are fantastic tech, though. Seat belt webbing is designed to take 11,120 Newtons (FMVSS 209). Textile science is pretty cool.

<sarcasm> Think of the dollar cost amortization! You need to have more children to average down the cost. So you can use the car seat across 3-4 kids. </sarcasm>

In all seriousness, the problem with donations is people are afraid of attached liability. It is a shame, because car seats can often be used for several years across multiple children. If you keep it in the family and use it across your own kids, everyone is cool with it. As soon as you donate it to someone else, people worry about liability.

I know it isn't much solace, but we try to minimize use of non-recyclable material. The 5 pounds of aluminum in a Kioma car seat is recyclable and will net about $4.00 at current Al spot rates. So you could disassemble it.

Yes to this.

Someone further down the thread had a similar negative response to that phrase and suggested maybe "parent tested" as a substitute? Thanks for the feedback!

Thank you! Encouragement is always welcome.

Great feedback. Thank you! I'll pass it on to the marketing team.

We're happy to license out tech.

Test Results > NHSTA used to publish their test results of all car seats, but no longer do so. FMVSS 213 (the US standard) tests for Head Injury Criterion (36 millisecond), Excursion, and Peak Acceleration in a frontal car crash. So keep in mind the utility of the results has limits, and doesn't test for a whole lot of things that are part of real-world usage in and out of a car. *Big grain of salt.*

I'll give you some real numbers and leave the comparison for you to do (lawyers get itchy if we do the comparing directly). Our carbon fiber seat's best result is HIC 197 in FMVSS 213 testing with a Crabi 12-mo old test dummy. Our friend Eli at Magic Bean's reviewed it in a video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGaU9R6jHCQ The current car seat for sale is of a similar class but doesn't have the $2500+ price tag of a carbon fiber seat.

If you're still curious, we can take this off HN: drop me a line at support@kioma.us and just mention HN and your HN profile name.

NHTSA guidelines on re-use post crash are at https://www.nhtsa.gov/car-seats-and-booster-seats/car-seat-u...

You get both: isofix/latch as well as lap-belt. Each car seat is sold with an accompanying Latch (aka Isofix) base so you can roll with whatever you prefer. However, lap belts are ubiquitous and work really well.

Reasons to use a base:

1) Convenience. It is nice and fast to click-in, click out with a car seat. Super fast and easy.

2) Protect the seat cushions of the car.

3) More constraints on pitch rotation. Which can be good or bad depending on how the seat is designed and rotation is used.

Reasons to use a lap belt only (no base):

1) It is intuitive. Everyone -- including grandma, grandpa, and the babysitter -- knows how to use a lap belt (as opposed to a latch/isofix base).

2) It is ubiquitous. Every automobile and plane seat has one. So if you're hopping into an Uber, no problem.

3) Lab belts are designed to stretch which is actually really good in a collision. The stretching lowers peak acceleration, and therefore lowers the likelihood of injury.

4) Total system weighs less, which translates into less force in a collision (F=ma).

Thank you for the support. You have eloquently explained the innovation conundrum.

I'll add it to the marketing team's todo list. Thanks for the heads up!

I like your sense of humor. The engineers used to jokingly call this the "Orphanator -- the seat so safe only the kids survive the crash." Our marketing people told us to leave the ideas to them....

In a collision, rigidity is actually the enemy. A well designed seat should never be reusable after a crash because all the materials yielded to dump energy. It is better to have energy diverted into stretching, bending, and breaking materials than have it channeled into a baby's body.

We don't use steel (except for one rod), but we do use a lot of 5000 series machined aluminum which is powder-coated. Aluminum is preferable because it is better for creating crumple zones where the materials yield. The other primary material we use is polycarbonate because it has fantastic impact resistance (polycarbonate is used in "bullet-proof glass"). I'll let the marketing team know their materials description failed to impress you :)