DanI-S

If you're interested in this approach, there's a similar spreadsheet-based pattern available for building trivia-style games for the Google Assistant platform:

https://triviatemplate.com/

I guess I'd summarize the feed conversion part as follows:

- Crickets are slightly better than poultry at converting poultry feed into protein.

- Crickets are great at converting processed grocery store waste into protein; poultry can't do this at all.

- Both species are awful at converting low quality food waste (a mix of chicken poop and straw) into protein.

- The efficient feed conversion of modern poultry comes only after years of research, development and breeding; the efficient feed conversion of insects comes "out of the box" and will only improve over time.

I'm one of the founders of Tiny Farms. I think you're probably recalling an article published in PLOS ONE last year that suggested the sustainability of crickets might not meet the hype.

We were obviously very interested in the study! It turns out that the paper missed some crucial factors that make insects a sustainable, efficient protein source.

I guest-wrote this post with some details; do take a look if you're interested.

http://blog.exoprotein.com/crickets-vs-chicken/

> "Proper machine learning systems would probably distinguish between someone doing something with a red flag only occasionally and a fanatic who does something based on a strong belief"

The point of the article was that even "proper" machine learning systems will generate either false positives or false negatives, either of which are damaging enough that they compromise the effectiveness of the approach.

Very cool, looking forward to hearing from you!

Hey there - I'm a software engineer and web developer based in California. I write web apps and infrastructure for a living, and I teach basic web programming concepts at a local hacker space.

It's really inspiring to see this happening. I'd be more than happy to donate my time over the weekend of Feb 22nd-23rd, as a remote engineer, for any/all of the teams taking part in this event. Drop me an email at dan@situnayake.com if you think I could be useful!

Insects are already eaten regularly by ~60% of the world's population. It's not so much inventing a new industry as improving the tooling of one of the oldest.

That said, there'll always be a demand for a variety of protein sources. We've had access to complete plant protein for thousands of years, but we consume more meat than ever. Vegetable protein will likely always be the cheapest, and that has been the case since the dawn of agriculture.

Meat is expensive to produce. Insect protein is cheaper and more efficient, but insect farming technology is still very basic. http://www.openbugfarm.com

I've been hoping for years that the EU will eventually mandate that a service must be obliged to delete on request - irretrievably, not by merely flagging it as "deleted" - any data held about a given individual.

To me, this is a natural part of the concept of privacy. I can have momentary privacy: the assurance that nobody is currently watching through my window, listening to my phone calls, or reading my emails as I send them. But there's no assurance of future privacy if we don't have the right to destroy our old data, wherever it may be held.

When people provide an entity with information, they're doing so under the framework provided by current legislation regarding privacy and freedom of information. If these rules are subject to change - through new anti-terror legislation, for example - their information may become accessible in ways that they did not expect when it was originally provided.

I don't think it's possible to maintain any real sense of privacy while this remains the case. How can your data be considered private when it can be opened up for inspection at a later date, under a different regime? There's currently no way to participate in a connected economy without giving away your future right to privacy.

Edit: and the reason I've been hoping the EU will do this is that, realistically, nobody else will.

I'm fairly optimistic about the future of Bitcoin, and I own a few myself. However, I don't think this was a responsible post to make.

> When the price suddenly dives, you may want to consider buying. It's always paid off so far. It seems like a solid investment strategy

This isn't really an "investment strategy", it's just speculation - betting on the short term future and hoping it pays off. It's a fun way to gamble your money, but it's a lot riskier than the OP suggests. A "solid investment strategy" is putting a fraction of your paycheck into an index fund each month, not trying to predict the price of Bitcoin.

If you've really done your homework and you think the price of Bitcoin will go up in the long term, by all means buy a couple. Don't worry about waiting for the price to spike down; in fact, maybe stagger your purchase over a period of time to smooth out any variation (this is called 'dollar cost averaging'). Don't try to speculate on short term fluctuation; you will probably get burned.

> Consider this: If you have $10k lying around [...] your $10k will become $14,262 after fees

Or, the price could drop to $500 and you'll lose a few thousand. Can you afford to lose a few thousand dollars, even for a few months while the price recovers? Would you be better off investing it in something less risky? Do you know that you won't need that money in 6 months to pay for emergency surgery, or to fund 3 months' runway for your new startup idea?

You should try to think of investment return as compensation for taking on risk. If there's a large return in a short time, there's probably a big risk, too. Some people can afford to take big risks, but most of us can't.

> Deleted my portfolio, made $30k in my first six months of programming: from man-rodent to partyman

> This is everything wrong with tech-startup culture

In my experience, this isn't really tech-startup culture, it's entertainment industry culture. If you know anyone who has ever worked in film, music or videogames, it's a fairly typical thing.

> "Walking around Tokyo, I often get the feeling of being stuck in a 1980′s vision of the future"

I'm British, living in the US, and I've always felt this way about America. I recently heard from an American friend that he felt exactly the same when visiting Britain.

Not sure what to make of it, but it's interesting!

For anyone having trouble believing that their computer can network using sound, give this demo a try:

http://smus.com/ultrasonic-networking/

I suspect many people create their content in Word because they have learned the hard way that sometimes, when you click "Submit", the page goes blank and you lose all your work.

Do you mean these?

http://inhabitat.com/spudware-cutlery-made-from-potatoes/

Potato, not corn, but they're good.

In retrospect, I shouldn't be so surprised that people here have chosen to read it as proclaiming Science as being superior. That doesn't stop it from being disappointing, and even a little disturbing. Many people here will become leaders of tomorrow; I hope they are able to pick up some intellectual maturity along the way.

I posted the article. I don't feel that it makes sense to say that one side of the dichotomy is superior to the other. The main point is that the dichotomy is false.

He also attempts to justify the social implications of his position by saying that we can still have high levels of risk-taking and innovation but without suffering an oligarchy by severing the connection between wealth and power.

This is a nice idea, but in reality the power that comes with wealth is an even greater motivator than the improved quality of life that comes with cash. He suggests that his motivation for becoming wealthy was increased security; well, what position is more secure than one of great power? There's no reason that removing the link between wealth and power would reduce motivation less than flattening top level income.

F1 is as much about the drama and the personalities as it is about the cars and the technology. If they can attract some big name drivers, there'll be an immediate audience.

A huge amount of insects eaten worldwide are collected just like this. We wouldn't recommend it, though; they are likely to be contaminated with pesticides, fertilizers and other environmental pollutants.

Crickets thrive in the 80s; their optimal temperature is generally around 86 degrees. They also enjoy around 80% humidity for much of their life-cycle. While there are plenty of US regions amenable to their production, it's fairly easy to keep them at the appropriate temperature in any insulated, climate-controlled environment.

If you're curious about growing crickets in your home state, drop us an email if you'd like to know more: contact@tiny-farms.com

We're working on a lot of fronts, from designing farming processes through to developing feed and the substrate that the animals occupy.

With regards to sustainability of input: insects have an inherent feed conversion ratio far higher than conventional livestock, meaning they create more body mass per gram of food, but the actual food source varies from species to species. Since many species can consume things that are currently underutilized, like corn husks, there's a lot of potential for capturing wasted energy.

As a co-founder of Tiny Farms[1], we're betting on the growing need for alternative sources of protein. Humanity's current protein supply is inefficient, unsustainable and won't scale to feed the future world.

Our particular domain is edible insects; we wrote this article about why entrepreneurs should get involved:

http://www.xconomy.com/san-francisco/2013/09/10/5-reasons-dr...

[1] http://www.tiny-farms.com

The fact that you are concerned about this is justification for attendance.

One way to deal with income inequality is to shrug your shoulders and pretend it's okay - "let them drink latte" - which is what this guy is recommending.

Another way is to claw back some of the financial regulation that once protected America's middle class from the full force of market instability. Take a look at this chart comparing income inequality and bank failures over the previous century:

http://www.tobinproject.org/sites/tobinproject.org/files/ass...

There's not some magic force of technology driving growing inequality. In fact, even in this writer's argument, technological aptitude provides one of the only routes out of the lower classes. Inequality is growing because of financial deregulation since the 1980s.

Exactly.

Perhaps given more time to tend our own gardens, make our own tools and furniture and work on our houses, we'd be a happier and more prosperous civilization.

Thanks, Charles - for what is both an interesting take on the NSA's coming recruitment crisis and the best short range forecast of the evolution of Western culture I have yet to read.

Rather than catching two criminals by invading public privacy, I'd prefer to pay for the social safety net that would prevent unemployed middle aged men from having to rob banks to make ends meet.

Privacy should not be spent like money. You can earn more money, but privacy is finite.