drusenko

"Making a living" is simply doing something that enough people find value in -- the more people and the greater the value provided, the more money you make.

Many artists focus on the process of art as one that is for themselves, which is completely fine - but don't expect to make a living out of it unless you are lucky and what you like is also what a lot of other people find value in.

Some of the art/music that the author describes as "mediocre" really should be "mediocre to me". Lots of popular music, for example, seems to find a common denominator that can appeal to the preferences of a large number of people with pretty divergent artistic/musical tastes, knowledge, education, preferences, etc. Many people find the music to be very enjoyable -- the author not included, obviously.

In that way, art and music can diverge. While successful music often provides somewhat smaller value to a large number of people, successful art can provide large value to a smaller number of people who can afford it.

In either case, understanding your target market, their characteristics, preferences, etc, is extremely worthwhile, because if you want to make a living from it, you need to be providing value to others and not just yourself.

That's not to say that all art has to be for others, just that you probably shouldn't expect to make a living on it if you have a target market of one.

How is growing wide good policy?

The answer is probably shockingly simple: because the AG’s office likely wasn’t aware of the Reddit behavior when they issued the press release.

I can’t find the original article I read but here is one recent one:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/03/02/republica...

Agreed that we can’t wait. The large majority of the technology we need already exists, we just need to accelerate the adoption that would happen naturally.

A focus on this “punitive” side of things - that we need to pay for our transgressions through a dramatically reduced lifestyle - is just going to ensure that we drive straight off the cliff.

And yes, the economy is going to need to get us out of this. We need to make sure that the incentives are properly structured for the majority of the transformation to happen via the distributed market mechanisms vs being centrally planned.

Let’s not get defeatist and give up. Europe is implementing a carbon border adjustment, and the U.S. is discussing this as well. If implemented correctly this should reduce the financial incentive to offshore emissions and create one for other countries to reduce their own.

Can you tell me more about why you are equating the mining of metals for solar/batteries with climate changing GHGs - eg why are they both equally as bad? I’m not disagreeing with you, I am genuinely curious to hear your perspective.

I do generally agree with you on your second point that it might not be the most productive action to take - for the time being it would probably be better for most people to focus on electrifying their homes paired with switching over to 100% clean energy (many utilities allow you to choose this option).

This might be accurate today, but it ignores our ability to make technological progress to make our current activities low or no impact.

Further, this line of thinking - that you need to sacrifice your lifestyle in order to save the planet - is IMO one of if not the major reason we haven’t made progress on addressing climate change to date. Plainly put, people tend to be short term selfish, even often at the expense of their own long term interests, and they tend to not want to change their behavior / habits.

We should instead focus on the technological progress that we need to make in order to be able to not only maintain our current lifestyles but possibly have them be better (eg a Tesla is a better car, a heat pump is more comfortable than a furnace, an induction stove boils water faster and has more precise control, etc). To be clear, most of this isn’t technological invention it’s implementation - a lot and a lot of implementation.

Comments so far are missing a major reason travel is likely enjoyable. One of my favorite theories on why time feels like it accelerates as you get older is that your brain tends to only store unique memories. Like that daily commute you do every day and the odd feeling you sometimes get at the end of it where you can’t remember driving…

Travel is a set of unique experiences that form unique memories. Part of what’s addicting and pleasurable is that it helps slow down the perception of the passage of time, among many other positives.

It’s also self reinforcing in that when you think back, you tend to disproportionately remember travel vs other experiences.

There’s clearly a lot more benefits than that, but it certainly seems like a significant factor.

Burning as usual is clearly not sustainable. If you think massive degrowth is the only way out then I’m afraid we’re totally fucked.

Massive emissions reductions can also be paired with CDR to have even more impact since reductions alone — basically no matter how steep at this point — are not going to get us to where we need to be.

That’s not really true. New high efficiency heat pump water heaters - as one example - often have a 1-2 year ROI, which is pretty dramatic. HVAC is actually often the most expensive from an ROI standpoint because of larger upfront costs.

Market forces will lead us down this path eventually but they are not instantaneous, and we don’t have much time to wait. Policy can help 1- accelerate, 2- bootstrap emerging markets (eg creating demand for more induction stoves turns that market from a niche to mainstream, with more competition, more choice, and reduced cost, all of which will serve to boost demand) and 3- finance infrastructure investments that may be beyond reach for many.

On gas infrastructure, yes it is in place but it still requires significant ongoing maintenance costs which would be eliminated if it was shut down.

The reason is not due to renewables, actually. In PG&E territory (which I am most familiar with) more than 2/3rds of your bill typically goes to transmission and distribution costs and 1/3 towards generation. Check out your next bill if you are curious. It’s not a huge surprise that T&D costs so much since that infrastructure keeps burning down the state and there is a lot of deferred maintenance.

It does make for a nice argument to try to decentralize more of the generation closer to where the consumption is happening (eg solar + batteries) to try to reduce our need to invest in T&D.

Electric cars will help tremendously with load shifting once we get bidirectional charging in 1-2 years. A Tesla Model 3 can fully power an average 3000 sq-ft home for 2-3 days. What will be most powerful though is helping the grid with peak shaving by giving some of that stored power back during the worst hour or two of the day.

That said I don’t disagree on some generation challenges, I’m finding it hard to find transparency on our long term plan to meet our power mix needs in the winter with pure renewables and no nuclear. Summer (where we have rolling blackouts currently) is relatively easier though since it tends to be a matter of just bridging the gap for a short while, which you can do in all sorts of ways.

A fully electrified home actually reduces overall system cost through 1- higher efficiency of electric appliances and heat pumps than their gas counterparts, and 2- a significantly reduced infrastructure cost to no longer having to maintain gas infrastructure, the totality of which (scouting, mining, transportation, last mile) is incredibly expensive. In fact, for new construction, it is often cheaper out the gate to go all electric and the efficiency savings in terms of lower electric+gas bills are significant and pure upside.

Moving on to electric retrofits, they are expensive but not crazy expensive. On the order of $2500-7500 per SFH to wire 220/30-50 amp circuits to the right places (HVAC, stove, water heater, clothes dryer, EV charger) and maybe upgrade the main panel - a far cry from redoing the entire wiring. It’s not an insane proposition to think we could retrofit all existing housing stock in a 15 year period if we wanted to take it seriously. We are going to need more electricians though.

Do you know what is actually really expensive? Billions or trillions of dollars in climate disaster losses and mitigation which we are seeing ramp up very quickly. If we continue burning fossil fuels even remotely like we are now, in 20 years time the losses we say today will look like peanuts in comparison.

Buildings make up a very significant amount of the CO2e emissions (depending on the location, often tied #1 with transportation) so doing nothing here is not really an option.

That’s a big misconception. Latest generation heat pumps can work well even in very cold climates eg Lake Tahoe. The “fixes” needed to make that work aren’t that dramatic eg a bit of pre-heating of some parts with regular electric heating elements.

Yes, electrifying everything will result in more peak demand which will require upgrading many house’s main panels. It’s not an insurmountable challenge though, especially relative to dealing with the effects of 2+ degrees of warming.

Legacy code (aka the American legal system) is routinely despised by those new to the problem space. Most experienced programmers will know that the (new to them) code isn’t all flaws, despite its initial appearance - there are a myriad of embedded edge cases and branches that at first blush seem like cruft, but in reality are the result of learning from various failure modes.

As with any complex rewrite I suspect we are doomed to rediscover the rationale for the original design. Hopefully it will end up meaningfully better, and not a Digg 3.0.

This is a pretty well known effect in the Marketing/Comms/PR world though it is generally attributed to a narrative effect rather than detection of deceit.

The way the thinking goes is that humans are wired to tell stories and there are certain stories we are predisposed to. We like to root for “the little guy” and love to cheer on startups, especially those with sympathetic stories, founders, high competence, etc.

We also tend to dislike entities at the very top and in extreme positions of power (eg billionaires, governments, large evil corporations) for a variety of reasons.

At some point in your company’s growth your narrative arc flips and you become the bad guy. The best thing you can do as the company is to try your best to postpone the flip as long as possible, but it is inevitable. When it happens, you are on the downslope and “in the dog house” as far as the media and public perception is concerned and there’s just not much you can do about it. Sometimes the harder you try to explain yourself and fight against it, the worse it gets.

You’ll also notice founders of these companies are often totally caught by surprise when this flip happens. They’ve gotten so used to a sympathetic public and a certain mode of behavior to maintain good public perception - transparent, relatable, “aww shucks” style - and when it flips it can be confusing because this doesn’t work anymore. The perception of them has shifted from “that smart/competent startup person I am rooting for” to “the powerful billionaire CEO that crushes the little people with the raise of a finger” and so the behaviors that come naturally to them take on a different tone entirely from a perception perspective.

When this happens it’s probably time to batten down the hatches and shift PR strategies. The old way isn’t likely to work anymore; the straw has finally broken the camel’s back.

I’m no expert at what it takes to reverse this. My best guess is that you need to spend your time in the penalty box while drawing minimum attention to let the steam blow off faster and not accelerate the roller coaster ride down. Then when you come back after 6-12 months or so, do so with a changed communications strategy that implicitly takes into account the changed public perceptions around power dynamics. You’re not a beloved startup anymore but you can still be “one of the good ones” as far as big companies and billionaire CEOs.

One thing people don’t understand very well is that charging time is not linear - it takes a LOT longer to charge the last 1% than the first 1%. This is important during road trips.

On a typical trip from SF to LA in our Model 3 with 300 miles range, you would think you would stop once “for gas” and charge to 100% as that is the mental model coming from a gas car. However, it takes ~45-60 mins to charge to 100% and only ~10-12 mins to charge to 50%, so the much better option is to make 2 stops along the way and only charge to 50% each time.

When you look at it from that perspective, you need to take 10 mins to stretch your legs every 2-2.5 hours of driving or so, which really isn’t a big deal at all and probably good for you. Using that strategy an indefinitely long road trip in an EV really isn’t a burden at all.

> If you keep compounding growth, like growing GDP at 1-2% a year, within some few thousand years you've grown bigger than all the resources within a sphere the same number of light years in radius.

Would be super interested to see your math. What are the inputs and equation that get you to these specific outputs (a few thousand years, all resources, a few thousand light years)?

Hey there, I'd love to hear a bit more about your negative experience a couple years ago and how we could make things better. Didn't see an email in your profile -- could you email me at david@weebly.com? Would really appreciate your feedback!

I think it's a bit more nuanced. If you have a high title, you get people's attention immediately, but it takes time to earn their respect, and the two are quite different.

Can you email me at david@weebly.com? We looked into this shortly after you posted this comment and can't replicate (also not receiving other complaints)... If you can email me we'll get to the bottom of it -- thanks for letting us know!

In terms of appsec, we run quarterly black box pen tests and annual comprehensive white box pen tests with well regarded firms, and have been rotating vendors on a regular basis for diversity. We also do a lot of stuff internally, like regular scanning, and internal sprints focused on vuln detection. We've been doing this for years. That's not to say we're perfect (we clearly are not) but we do take it seriously.

Obviously, this is a very disappointing situation for us -- we've always taken security very seriously since day 1, it's something that's been core to who we are from the beginning.

That said, how you respond in this situation can be just as important, and so we are making sure to be incredibly proactive in addressing the situation & transparent in how we communicate the details with our customers. Our top and immediate concern has been our users and the safety of their accounts.

A few days ago we became aware that an unauthorized party obtained email addresses/usernames, last login IP addresses and bcrypt hashed passwords for a large number of customers (anyone who signed up prior to March 1 of this year).

At this point we do not have evidence of any customer website/account being improperly accessed. It's also worth noting that we do not store any full credit card numbers on Weebly servers, so any credit card information was not part of this incident.

We immediately starting working on taking steps to notify our customers, and were able to get this out in a matter of a few days. We're initiating password resets as of this morning, and we've also made several improvements to the application including new password complexity requirements and a new dashboard that gives customers an overview of recent log-in history of their Weebly account to track account activity. We also increased our bcrypt work factor from 8 to 10, and all passwords will be automatically upgraded as of the next time a user logs in.

We've hired an incident response firm who is working with our internal team to complete a full investigation. In the meantime, we're examining our stack top to bottom and taking many steps to enhance our network and application security. This is an area we take very seriously and we'll be putting in tremendous effort to ensure this doesn't happen again.

We learned a lot, and things have been completely different this time around. We were much more careful about managing timelines & deliverables much further upstream, delivering features in more of a phased approach to prevent on big last minute merge with unanticipated interaction effects, ensuring adequate time for internal testing as well as external beta testing to uncover bugs of all kinds (regressions, usability, etc), and then cutting scope aggressively if necessary as the deadlines approach to make sure that we maintain a very high quality bar -- those are just a few of the things we've been able to improve on.

Very proud of Weebly 4 and the team that made it all happen, it's both our biggest release ever, as well as our most polished!

we're working on it, thanks!

Interesting. I experienced it differently myself (while I was traveling, both Google and Facebook would show me local language, regional sites), as have others we've tested with. We've done a bit of research into how others do it to come to this point, but it looks like we should dig a bit deeper.

hah, hey Joe! how are things? :)

not too many of us still around from the W07 bach ;)

You can use a number of merchant payment providers, currently Stripe, Square, Paypal and Authorize.net, so you have lots of options.