go37pi

"All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." -Tolstoy

I liked the article but would agree that it may have benefited from being more explicit in its writing. Here's what I got out of it. Maly asks, "Why would you continue to wear a hoodie even though you're hot and would feel better not wearing it?" The answer that @kevinalexbrown implies and I'd agree with is that fashion is an advertisement about yourself. But that's not all.

When the advertisement is more important than the person, even if you would feel better without the hoodie, you keep it on, to feed your image. Whether that's right or wrong in the general case is beyond my scope to say. Maly is using Zuckerberg's choice as a prism on facebook and modern tech in general, saying that those who adopt facebook will have to make similar decisions, that people who always believe they are being watched may elevate the need to project an image over other more human needs.

The key to the article is that Maly believes Zuckerbergmay have kept his hoodie on because it was more uncomfortable to take it off than to experience physical discomfort, and that people who are being watched may do the same. I enjoyed the vignettes but Maly could've benefited from highlighting Zuckerberg's choice as the "strange thing" that his article grew out of and then using the history of the hoodie as a layer on top of the "strange thing" instead of juxtaposing the two threads.

That reminds me of a short science fiction story, (I think by Isaac Asimov?) but I can't for the life of me remember what the title was. The protagonist was a writer, who began begrudge the time he would wait for his bus and time waiting for red lights and time waiting in general. By virtue of some machine, he was able to get everything in his life in sync, so that he never had to wait for other people or other things anymore. By the end however, he was unable to write anymore because he found that those times of randomness were when he was able to find his inspiration.

The following is a vignette from a series of vignettes on improv by Billy Merritt:

[THUMP, THUMP, CRASH] The closet door explodes outward and inside the closet there is a 6 foot worm standing upright. It is green with bits of moist hair all over the body. The head of the worm has two giant eyes that always seems to be crying, and pinchers for a mouth. It makes a noise that is a cross between a hiss and a donkey bray.

Creature: What the fuck is that?!?!

MASTER: That is my worm.

Creature: Your what?

MASTER: My worm. We all have them.

Creature: I'm pretty sure I don't have a worm. I think I would know if I had something like that.

MASTER: Yours may not be as big, but you definitely have one, I can tell.

Crerature: How can you tell I have something like that? Is it inside me? Will it kill me? Jesus, get it out of me!

MASTER: EASY. Once you become an improviser, once you feel you have it down enough that you can improvise with anyone at any time. A worm develops inside you.

Creature: You mean once I finally get it, I get this, this worm inside me. I don't want that, it's disgusting.

[the worm weeps a little louder]

MASTER: The worm is all your bad habits. All the rules you break in order to make a scene work. It feeds off of your bad habits it lives off of denials and bad object work.

Creature: Well then don't you want to kill the worm. Your worm is so big.

MASTER: Thank you. You can't kill the worm, just like you can't eliminate all bad habits. Sometimes you have to break the rules in order to further the scene and go where you never thought you could. You must except your worm, you have a symbiotic relationship with it.

Creature: How do you know when you have a worm?

MASTER: You will know. It will speak to you. You will find yourself doing a scene and you will realize that what you are doing is wrong, then a little voice will say "do it, see what happens" , that is the worm.

Creature: Should I always listen to my worm?

MASTER: No, if you feed it too much it will consume you. You need to develop a relationship with your worm, know your worm, know when to let your worm out to play, and also know when to keep your worm inside.

Creature: Why is your worm so big?

MASTER: I'm a level 37 improviser, a shaft of light, My worm has grown along with me. But I still have to control it, make sure it doesn't get out of hand, or out of the closet.

Creature: What happens if you lose your worm, or if it dies.

MASTER: Then you become a improrobot, making automatic responses, and doing automatic scenes. You run a risk of losing your creativity, your life force. You lose the truth.

Creature: So I must embrace my worm.

MASTER: Yes. Would you like to touch my worm?

Creature: No.

WORM: HSSSSSSSEEEOOOORRRRRRWWWWWWW.

- http://www.improvresourcecenter.com/mb/showthread.php?s=51a2...

I don't think it's anyone's place to say what your worm is and what it isn't, only you know, but I think it's interesting to think about.

I'd think that the non-invasive restriction is most likely related to the FDA's distinction between significant risk devices and non significant risk devices. In addition to traditional study approvals(Independent Review Board etc.), significant risk devices require FDA approval to begin testing for effectiveness (IDE applications) and are fraught with risk.

I don't remember offhand if finger-stick blood glucose testing devices are termed significant risk devices or if they are given exemptions. If these devices are given exemptions, then this would likely be a good precedent to follow to execute lab on a chip type devices.

I agree that the lab on a chip analysis represents the most exciting part of the implementation, but I also think that it would be interesting to see what types of associations we can get with usual metrics such as pulse, blood pressure, etc. when the data is more easily obtained.

Further information on significant and non-significant risk devices is available on the FDA website: http://www.fda.gov/MedicalDevices/DeviceRegulationandGuidanc...

Really cool article, I learned a bunch. It's cool that she talks about the role that imitation plays in a creator's growth. A different sphere but reminds me of this rap from the song Dr. Carter.

  Good afternoon Dr. Carter
  I don't know about this one
  His confidence is down, vocab and metaphors needs work
  And he lack respect for the game
  [LW] Uhhhh let me see
  [FN] You think you can save him?

  [Lil Wayne]
  Okay respect is in the heart so that's where I'mma start
  And a lot of heart patients don't make it. But, hey, kid
  Plural, I graduated
  Cause you can get through anything if Magic made it
  And that was called recycling Re: reciting something
  Cause you just like it so you say it just like it
  Some say it's biting but I say it's enlightening

I believe he is saying that traditional metrics of mastery such as the "10,000 hours" of work metric are incomplete because they are extrinsically defined metrics. Venkatesh makes the point that except for a few well defined fields such as mathematics or violin (fields with predictable boundedness), such extrinsically defined metrics do not provide much useful information.

Therefore, using the analogy of relativity, Rao proposes a new metric of mastery based on intrinsic metrics. Metrics that he believes may provide insight as to whether you are truly improving if your work spans that of multiple fields. These metrics function as axes for your journey through "endeavor space". These axes are rework, referencing, and releasing. If you are wondering whether you working with grit or wasting your time, a self evaluation via these axes can help to tell you whether you are working towards mastery or not.

You're right about the financial expected value, but I think you might be disregarding the trust aspect of the transaction, which I think was why Airbnb was so successful. Buying into the brand reinforces a particularly optimistic world view that people who are likely to use Airbnb enjoy.

Plus, when you are giving your key to another person, the risk is not just monetary, but the additional emotional risk of just being violated. I think it was very telling that EJ was particularly betrayed by the lies in the ongoing email updates and not just the monetary loss.

I think its a good problem solving tactic to try to look for analogous situations and gain insight into our current dilemma in doing so.

I think a better analogy might be a sit in. If you occupy all the seats in a restaurant, I think it kind of qualifies as a meatspace DOS. I guess the difference is that in civil rights sit ins of the 60s, the people sitting in actually wanted service.

I guess the digital analogue would be a bunch of people requesting permission to donate to Wikileaks, rather than permission to load the page. It seems the subtle difference is that civil rights groups actually wanted the service that they deny to others, while anon wants a service different from the one they are denying to others.

I guess its up to individuals whether they think the difference is significant.

The control protocols are not well documented at all, starting in 1996, all cars are required to have OBD ports.

The manufacturers don't want people to know the control protocols for various reasons (security, manufacturers make money selling repair materials and codes to repair shops, licensing codes to third parties etc.)

But it is possible to discover the control protocols, a friend and I worked on it for his Toyota Yaris I think by monitoring all the outputs from the OBD and changing a status (locking a door) and watching what bits change. We got a lot of equipment and help from a professor at school. We used a GPS and ended up making a little app that monitored where the car went, its speed, and various car statuses on google maps. There's a lot of info out on the Toyota Prius if you feel like getting started.

While I can agree that jumping through hoops to meet regulations sucks, the cost of failure and the potential for unintended consequences justifies the high market entry costs. To be fair, the FDA is constantly making decisions (with regards to approval) that ethicists have struggled with for millenia. Furthermore, its not readily apparent what constitutes an effective drug in many cases due to the placebo effect.

For an example of the FDA's good work, if you have the chance, take a look at the FDA's 483 for the McNeil plant that recently got shut down (the children's Tylenol, Benadryl, etc. recall). Its kind of horrifying: http://www.fda.gov/downloads/AboutFDA/CentersOffices/ORA/ORA...

Perhaps a more relevant example would be the case of United States v. Caputo (7th Cir. 2008). Caputo had gotten clearance to sell a small sterilizer of surgical equipment without tubes or hinges. His customers, being satisfied with that equipment, requested a larger sterilizer instrument that could sterilize equipment with tubes or hinges. Caputo, meaning well, and believing that the changes between the two equipments were trivial (as it would seem at first glance) produced what his customers requested and sold and marketed it. Turns out that one of the opthalmic instruments being sterilized had brass joints that reacted to the peracetic acid being used to sterilize. It resulted in numerous people being blinded. Of course, he later failed to report the cases of blindness to the FDA, which resulted in further problems. But I still believe that the point can be made that the possibility for unintended consequences and the high costs of mistakes justifies the high barrier to entry that the FDA imposes.

In the case of the snake antivenin, its a long process to produce antivenin in general. Its made by injecting a sheep or horse (older antivenins used horses, newer ones tend to use sheep) with the venom and then gathering and purifying the antivenin that the sheep or horse produces in response (Animal rights groups have historically protested in locations where antivenin is made). Hopefully the government or some public interest organization will fund further production of the antivenin, its unfortunate that antivenin is not more durable.

We can stop using it, and create or support alternatives.

We're used to the cost of a service being its monetary price, or more recently, the demands it makes on our attention. Perhaps a new type of model is being developed in which the price of a service we desire is not in the form of money or attention, but our data. And in this case the way a company uses our data is a real "cost", rather than a mutually beneficial outcome.

I think that threatening to withdraw and withdrawing payment, whether monetary or otherwise, will prove to be a significant balance on the actions of companies. If the changes are significantly detrimental, consumers will take the actions they consider necessary to address those concerns.

I can say with pretty strong confidence that its due to 1. On long trips this situation can get pretty interesting if you end up finding groups of other cars that are on the highway for similar amounts of time. You could say that the group takes on a dynamic similar to a herd hiding from a predator.

The riskiest position for a car is the leader position and the last position, as these are the easiest positions to get picked off by the police. Most people want to go faster, but don't want to get caught. Often times you'll see people alternate the leader position as a way to share the risk and acknowledge that the other driver is taking greater risks by taking the leader position.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1914020220100319 has a year by year summary

Kevin Kelly has a blog dedicated to "self quantification" and has a bunch of interesting resources and thoughts on the process. For example, one interesting study he did was on the efficacy of caffeine on his daily productivity. The blog is worth a look: http://www.kk.org/quantifiedself/

I guess we both agree on the long term trend and at this point, that's all that really matters.

But the task of creating highly reliable industrial robots is really quite difficult and quite a bit more expensive than $50,000. We have 12 robots in our facility and the field testing and applications testing process for a similar facility elsewhere is taking approximately 2 years and counting. This doesn't include the entire development and specification process of developing the robots as well as the control systems. Each robotic system is upwards of $5,000,000.

A lot of this cost comes from the additional points of failure. Large systems are prone to failures due to small, cascading errors. This necessitates a larger testing and development period.

This is different I'm sure for other industries however. The cost of a failure is exponentially greater in pharmaceutical manufacturing as compared to other forms of manufacturing. Its possible that costs could be much lower in other industries where the cost of a failure is reduced.

I echo that sentiment. To share another testimonial, I work in a vaccine manufacturing facility with control systems and robotics. The only reason biologics manufacturing facilities haven't been built overseas with the same zeal as other factories is the stringent requirements by the FDA, MHRA, etc. on manufacturing facilities that use live cultures. Many of the technician jobs are similarly dedicated to pushing carts and transferring components to the robots for processing. Because of the reduced efficiency of old drug discovery methods, many of these jobs are taken by college educated science majors who are finding that jobs in drug discovery research are quickly dwindling.

However, I disagree with the idea that robots are going to be able to take over in a five year timeframe.

I agree with you that the capabilities for robotics to do these tasks exist. "The future is already here - it is just unevenly distributed." I doubt however whether large manufacturing companies would be willing to shoulder the huge investments needed to develop robotics for these applications even in a healthy financial climate. Maybe this type of development could come from a company that proposes to do consulting work for manufacturing facilities, for example, Honeywell.

Additionally, I've seen that while companies see automation as an asset in pharmaceutical manufacturing, they also view it as a huge liability, as a single automation error can lead to enormous problems that take time to detect and can have huge costs, while human error generally leads to small mistakes that can be corrected and detected easily. Not sure how it is in other manufacturing subindustries.

That's a good point, I was implicitly assuming that the lost power due to efficiency losses would be greater than the gained power due to cheaper costs.

This solar cell has a "conversion efficiency of 9.6 percent, which is 40 percent higher than previous attempts to create a solar cell made of similar materials."

Current solar cells have approximately 20 percent efficiency. Unless this solar cell is extremely cheap, I think this is a long way from practicality.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a4/PVeff%28r... - graph of best research cell efficiencies

EDIT: "The researchers estimate that if the technology can be taken beyond its basic state right now and achieve 12 percent efficiency, it could be an economically viable alternative to current products." - from CNET news http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-10451641-54.html

When reading this article, I was reminded of a passage from Dostoevsky's "Notes from Underground":

"But I repeat for the one-hundredth time, there is one case, only one, when a man may intentionally, consciously desire something even something harmful to himself, something stupid, even very stupid, namely: in order to have the right to desire something even very stupid and not be bound by an obligation to desire only what's smart. After all, this very stupid thing, one's own whim, gentlemen, may in fact be the most advantageous thing on earth for people like me, especially in certain cases. In particular, it may be more advantageous than any other advantage, even in a case where it causes obvious harm and contradicts the most sensible conclusions of reason about advantage - because in any case it preserves for us what's most important and precious, that is, our personality and our individuality. ... I believe this, I vouch for it, because, after all, the whole of man's work seems to consist only in proving to himself constantly that he's a man and not an organ stop! Even if he has to lose his own skin, he'll prove it, even if he has to become a troglodyte, he'll prove it."