lesterbuck

"We envision a system where all Defense Department computers worldwide are connected with reliable networks based on packet switching." I'm sure language like that was in the original proposal for ARPAnet circa 1968, and I'm sure most professionals looked at that and were "very, very skeptical". DARPA has that "advanced research" in its name. If most professionals aren't "very, very skeptical" about the ultimate commercial success of their projects, I'd say they are doing it wrong.

This is rather impressive. In the video, for just a moment I thought he was going to take off directly from the freeway. Top speed of 100mph, range of up to 500 miles. How can I get a test ride?

It does require a pilot's license, and has lots of regulatory hurdles...

It has everything to do with it being a funny hat. The power structure had decided that women wore low power clothes, and the men wore high power clothes. So we can snicker at their clothes, even if they were an admiral.

For example, waiters wear those funny aprons or other uniforms. Because that way you can tell who is serving the meal and who is buying the meal.

As an aside, in today's U.S. Navy, the clothing is somewhat less important. My cousin was recently promoted to two star, and the ceremony was performed by the Chief of Naval Operations. He hung around for chatting afterwards and I couldn't help myself. I asked why my cousin had more medals on his chest than he did. CNO gave a great reply (he was a submariner, fewer chances for medals) and we agreed that the rigid linking of number of medals to rank has been relaxed in the modern military.

Ari Meisel's Less Doing podcast devoted one episode to an interview with an expert in this procedure:

Podcast #59 Glenn Taylor - Fecal Microbiota Transplants

For more info visit http://lessdoing.com/ Ari's book http://www.lessdoingbook.com In this episode Ari talks with Glenn Taylor of the Taymount Clinic. Glenn specializes in applying Fecal Microbiota Transplant (FMT) techniques to a broad range of gut conditions. FMT restores normal gut microbiota by implanting Standardized Gut Flora from tested and optimized sources. Listen to how Glenn has seen patients literally cured from debilitating illness such as Crohn’s, Ulcerative Colitis, IBS, Multiple Sclerosis, Rheumatoid Arthritis and other disease simply by restoring their gut bacteria to a normal balance.

http://podbay.fm/show/605938952/e/1397717818

There are some strong indications that the boom in manufacturing in China is not permanent. With the decline in the importance of labor, the rise of robots, and the importance of protecting IP in manufacturing, Byrnjolfsson and McAfee suggest that much of manufacturing will be coming home over the next few decades.

http://www.amazon.com/Race-Against-Machine-Accelerating-Prod...

Most ridiculous Putin's requirement is to weld all manhole covers.

At least in the past, welding manhole covers closed for the presidential motorcade was standard procedure in the US.

But that was when the Secret Service had a clue...

No, the GP is correct and "calories consumed >> calories burned" is a gross oversimplification. For example, one extra Oreo cookie a day ends up in several pounds gained over a year. Tiny changes in net calories can have very large effects in equilibrium weight. In addition, it is so easy to say "just eat less", but it is very (very) well documented that some overweight people can eat less and lose weight, but they are looking at being extremely hungry every second for the rest of their lives. Once a weight set point has been established, your body can scream at you forever until you regain that weight setting. So easy for "normal" weight people to say "Just eat less".

This seems like a fascinating book, written to a general audience. Alas, it is priced more like a textbook, way out of the range of the average public. What a shame it will have a very small reach.

Where is the Burning Man Auto Wash service? With powerful vacuums for that special "no residual seeds" detailing? Or at least the Burning Man Avoid The Man infoproduct? It must not be common knowledge if so many cars hit the highway with dust.

A great Mixergy interview[1] was with Herb Sorensen, author of "Inside the Mind of the Shopper"[2]. There were many fascinating revelations about the grocery business. For example, he went through the four revenue sources for grocery stores and profit on selling the goods was in fourth place, behind real estate, shelf fees, and something else I can't remember. He also explained that there is an optimum layout for a store, with counterclockwise flow.

[1] http://mixergy.com/interviews/brick-mortar-retailers-herb-so...

[2]http://www.herbsorensen.com/herbsorensenauthor.html

I've read "Do The Work", the later, shorter companion to "The War of Art". Resistance and procrastination and related, but not identical. You get resistance about creative acts that expose you to public assessment of your work, or really anything that might upset the status quo in your life. Sure, you can procrastinate about a 600 word article or a term paper. But when you avoid even starting to write your first novel, or coding on your side project startup, that's getting into resistance. I think the more ego we wrap up into a task, the more resistance rears its ugly head.

I'm guessing the point is to avoid the rookie mistake of saying something like:

"The total market in X is $Y billion, and if we only get Z percent market share, we will be a great success."

The hard part is to get that first net dollar of profit in a market, not to dream about some fraction of the entire ocean.

Do investors take special training to avoid rolling their eyes when entrepreneurs give them the "only X percent of the market" line?

My father is age 92, and in 2001 he lost his central vision to macular degeneration. He wrote long documents on his PC before, but afterward he never had much dedication to figuring out how to use a computer with assistive software for the blind (or more lately, smart phones in assistive mode). Thus we entered a years long search for usable CD and MP3 players. Most devices have tiny uniform buttons and depend on LCD indicators. The best we could find for a long time was a Sony S2 sport CD player that had a hand strap that kept the thumb positioned to work buttons without needing to look at the device.

But years ago he got the free (from the US government) digital talking book player[1][2]. This device is an excellent engineering and user interface solution for delivering audio material to blind users. The buttons are all large and report their functions by audio. There are all sorts of built in modes, including an extensive set of self-tests and diagnostics. Around the US, there is a service infrastructure so if there is any problem with the devices, the user just drops them off at a local library and takes a replacement.

These devices can play prerecorded DRMed audio books or MP3s delivered on USB cartridges or thumb drives. The Library of Congress maintains a large collection of downloadable books called BARD[3].

[1]http://www.loc.gov/nls/digitalbooktraining/LOC_01/LOC_01.htm...

[2]http://www.loc.gov/nls/transition/Digital%20Talking%20Book%2...

[3]http://www.nh.gov/nhsl/talking_books/bard/

Sounds like a great business opportunity for a SaaS app that nails the details of nanny accounting in all fifty states.

Not exactly. Turns out you can sell via Amazon, or you can sell directly, but if you use the undocumented Amazon-only tool to construct your .mobi, you can't sell that directly. And Amazon is now blocking the output of many/all other ebook construction software so you can't use Send to Kindle or email. USB is the only option to load a book.

http://devblog.avdi.org/2014/04/02/why-does-amazon-hate-eboo...

You mean Paul Graham of the incubator that backed 630 companies, each at a $225,000 pre-money? Oh, ok. If you convince 630 companies started by Stanford engineering grads to take a $225,000 pre-money, then you can go telling other people they should be pickers too.

I love this post, and laughed out loud at that line.

Wow, we must be having two different discussions. I don't disagree with your last comment. In fact, not a single word of my comments have anything to do with the internet, and, in addition, my original example predates the web by a good ten years. I only object to your making blanket statements about it being "unethical" to <insert absolute statement>. That is hardly a relativistic bullshit argument. In fact, entire fields of human study are devoted to the intricacies of the edge cases of such "embarrassing arguments." If only ethics could be reduced to predicate calculus.

Also: if someone puts a contract in front of you that requires you to discriminate against African Americans: no, I don't think you can ethically sign it.

Again, you make a simplistic statement that ignores the real world. When social systems are realigning, there is a period when you ignore the plain terms of the contract because you know people aren't enforcing it anymore. Whether that is happening with AirBnB or not is not my point. My point is that it is really easy to make a blanket statement about being ethical in contract law. The chance of that statement actually being the "ethical" choice in all cases is, effectively, zero. The real world is much too complicated to reduce it to the logical exactitude you are claiming.

My first thought was that dysgraphia was a breakdown in the linguistic construction of a sentence, etc., but then I remembered the word "aphasia", so I had to look them up:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dysgraphia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphasia

I wonder why the keyboard solution to dysgraphia is easier than handwriting, when both seem to require fine motor skills?

A deed isn't a contract, but a deed restriction sure is:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deed_restriction

A contract is an agreement between two private individuals. If one of those individuals believes that the terms of the contract are antiquated and thus cannot honestly provide an assurance of honoring them, that person is ethically bound not to execute the contract. All the Latin in the world doesn't get you around that.

That is really a very simplistic view of the real world of real estate. For example, in 1983 when I bought a Houston house, I read every scrap of paper involved in the transaction. (Title company closers call us "readers.") The faded Nth generation copy of the deed restrictions ("an agreement between two private individuals") had horrific language about not allowing those of other than the white race to live in the property (unless in servants quarters). By that time, that language had been neutralized by the Supreme Court, but there was a good period of time where it had legal force but had to be ignored by those of good conscience. George W. Bush got the one news cycle treatment about that as the same language was in the deed restrictions he signed, as well as in many subdivisions from that era. That language carries on in the record forever.

The OP makes the rookie mistake of confusing the Marriage Problem and the Secretary Problem. The Marriage Problem is the famous article by Gayle & Shapely (1964), on optimal matching (two-sided), and is the basis for The Match, used to place medical residents into hospitals. The Secretary Problem is a problem of optimal choice (one-sided).

As an aside, the best thing about the Marriage Problem is that it shows that it is much, much better to be the side making invitations instead of the side awaiting invitations. So being a guy is a pain in (generally) having to invite the woman, but that power translates into guys tending higher in their ultimate stable matching range than women. (Surprise! Hospitals make invitations to residents, not the other way around.)

My first name is Aubrey, which completely flipped to a girl's name in the US about ten years ago. According to this chart, the fraction of female Aubrey's is approaching 12% at birth. When that fad wears off, it will make a nice spike in the curve for many decades. By the way, Aubrey means "elf leader" or "king of the elves".

www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=how+old+is+aubrey

Because the "neutral" Swiss company Crypto AG was backdoored by the NSA long, long ago.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_AG#Back-doored_machines

I like that idea. Whenever there is a form that asks for my social security number, and it's not some "under perjury" government statement, I always flip a bit somewhere in my number. With any luck, I have poisoned a lot of databases about me.

The FTC held an all day summit on robocalls in 2012, and ran a contest to find the best proposal to handle the problem. The problem is hard to solve, and the winning proposal does not seem to be spreading much:

http://www.ftc.gov/news-events/events-calendar/2012/10/roboc...

Aereo is providing the service of establishing a remote receiver for the public to pick up OTA broadcasts outside the transmission area.

I was in the Aereo beta in Houston (I didn't keep it, found it kind of boring, fuzzy and laggy, and not matching how I watch OTA on multiple TVs at once). When I tried to watch a Houston OTA stream in San Antonio, I was politely told that that was not allowed. There is no technical reason this is not allowed, but I'd guess Aereo blocks this for now to keep the legal issues bounded.

IBM Watson can do most of that today, in specific fields like medicine, and is growing into a general purpose learning and deep Q&A system.

This is actually a serious problem, and really solving it would be very, very profitable. For an example of the issues involved, listen to the Mixergy interview by the founders of TouchFire, and iPad keyboard. They describe the baroque method of hiring a manufacturing consultant so you don't get eaten alive by a bad Chinese manufacturer.

http://mixergy.com/steven-isaac-touchfire-interview/

Let me know if you would like to talk more about this. Contact info is in my profile.

My understanding is that the MOOC companies are barely scraping buy on their current revenue model, which is pushing a certificate for $50-$100+. If there was a way for the companies themselves to monetize discussion groups, they would be all over it.