johnny99

Are you aware of alternatives to RFID that avoid the risk of being jammed?

I have trouble believing Armatix would develop a version targeted at law enforcement without taking that into consideration.

Dominic Wilcox created something similar to this in 2011, I think as a satiric art project. It looks like a plague doctor's mask: http://dominicwilcox.com/portfolio/finger-nose-stylus/

To see a proper implementation, which allows someone to work at a high level, is awesome.

"Politicians in wealthy countries are more interested in supporting groups that produce measurable results such as the number of lives saved by vaccinations than in less-quantifiable goals such as building health infrastructure."

I don't get that at all. Building 14 clinics, adding 700 hospital beds, training a thousand nurses... all infrastructure, all far more quantifiable than measuring lived saved by vaccinations.

In any case I agree with those who find the whole thing a false dichotomy.

I've heard this argument and don't buy it. Technically I think you are correct--if you presume there's an inverse correlation between helmet use and cycling rates, the health benefits of riding would save more lives than would be lost by the lack of helmets.

But it's not a tradeoff. Cycling rates have skyrocketed over the last 5 years in SF and NYC, without any real change in attitude towards helmets. We can thank bike lanes.

The car analogy doesn't hold water either--the most effective safety device for cars is the seat belt. Nobody thinks seat belt use is a sign of a risk-obsessed driver, and likewise, wearing a helmet doesn't mean you treat biking as a risky behavior. In both cases they're just sensible precautions for a common activity.

Watches with heart rate monitors have been available for a while, and you can use them when running, or walking, or sitting on your ass.

Built into handlebars seems limiting, and error prone--what happens when you're wearing gloves, or braking

Might be similar to financing offered by car companies: is a less-known aspect of what they do, but I believe very lucrative.

For that matter GM has offered insurance deals before: http://www.autoblog.com/2011/07/10/free-car-insurance-from-g...

This is actually a Turing test.

Another harsh take: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/09/opinion/joe-nocera-the-new...

Not that I think he's biased (I have no idea), but perhaps he should have read more diverse authors to begin with, to have a more diverse pool to choose from.

I prefer to know what he actually likes, rather than what he thinks would look best if he claimed to like.

That's warped. Not that I have illusions about academic collegiality (I've worked in higher education), but that sounds more like the behavior of a certain car service's execs, not a university president.

Or SEO'd at all. It's easy, and maybe appropriate, to hate on SEO, in part because it works. If you have a bunch of people pouring money, thought, and energy into optimizing crap content, and many people producing high-quality /niche/non-commercial content giving it little to no thought, it's not surprising that the crap floats to the top. It doesn't require malfeasance on Google's part.

The other thing to consider is that Google has to optimize for the general case. If their mission was The Best Physics Search Engine or The Best Academic Search Engine, they might do a better job with more esoteric material. But it's meant for everyone, and most people want less detailed, more digestible content.

I'm intrigued, and would love to hear of anyone's experience using this, particularly in a production environment. One question: does it have performance implications, one way or another?

Nothing, but you get a bank loan for that, or bootstrap. VC money comes with strings, including the expectation of high growth.

I agree very much with your sentiment, but I think the solution isn't changing VC, it's finding other kinds of capital.

I use Lyft all the time and almost always just hop in the back, say hello, and... do whatever I'd be doing in an Uber or a taxi, just with a nicer driver and supporting a company I actually like.

Drivers don't seem to mind at all. If anything I get the sense they're kind of relieved not to have to put on a show.

Snopes has a good explainer largely debunking one of the nastier pieces of misinformation circulating about MLK, which touches on FBI surveillance of him:

http://www.snopes.com/history/american/mlking.asp

Retention is directly related to promotion imo. You can't promote someone you can't keep.

Very much agree that learning from other industries should happen, and I've asked myself the same question. Why is computer science moving backwards, when other traditionally male fields have become much more gender balanced?

I think those stories are apocryphal. But regardless, the reason to work hard creating products is because it's intrinsically satisfying to do good work and be productive.

Build something to amuse and delight, to help people be more productive, to solve a problem, or to hone your skills. Making things is wonderful. Stealing other people's content and profiteering is pathetic.

I sort of agree with you but I think you're overdoing it. There are reasonable restrictionists, and reasonable restrictions. Like even most gun fans agree fully automatic weapons and RPGs shouldn't be privately owned. High-capacity magazines are more debatable and there's no clear line--but 50 or 100-round magazines, I think there's a reasonable argument for banning them.

Focusing on cosmetics is silly, and some advocates of restrictions would just as soon see all guns gone, but I think most people just want to see common sense applied.

It wasn't 500 years ago, but homesteaders similarly had to make from scratch most of what they wore, and used, and ate. I've been reading the Laura Ingalls Wilder books with my daughter, and Wilder goes into quite a bit of detail about all the very many things her family had to be able to do themselves, using only raw materials.

In general, everyone in the family is absolutely always working, and they all have a wealth of craft knowledge which had been passed down through the family. Extended families and neighbors work together when many hands are needed. They're kid's books, but really interesting nonetheless.

The cost of a bad hire is incredibly high. If pairing for a day (I agree with general sentiment that more than a day or two is too much to ask) reduces the chance of that, this could be very worthwhile.

Middle-aged dad here (not a recent grad). I agree that asking 3-4 days of a candidate is too much. But if the ask is more reasonable (one or two days, perhaps spread out), the candidate is paid market rates or higher, and the project is well-defined, I think this can benefit both parties. The last point is important: doing this requires work on the part of the company, and the participation of a member of the engineering team for both guidance and evaluation.

I did this myself before starting my current gig and was glad I did--I started the job confident that I liked the work, and the people. And by paying market rates you essentially get a small signing bonus. Consulting rates should be higher than the equivalent salaried hourly.

The research I've seen claims that the benefit of diversity is higher performance, not increased collegiality. They may even be inversely correlated. From a Kellogg School of Management (Northwestern) piece (1):

"The mere presence of diversity in a group creates awkwardness, and the need to diffuse this tension leads to better group problem solving... while homogenous groups feel more confident in their performance and group interactions, it is the diverse groups that are more successful in completing their tasks."

(1) http://insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu/article/better_decis...

If that's the norm in the midwest, it's perhaps worth noting that the author teaches at Rose-Hulman, in Indiana (which has a phenomenal reputation, fwiw).

Couldn't agree more. Narrative is part of being human. Talking can be interactive (think Socratic method), but linear narrative--stories, poems--has been with us forever.

Medium and friends recognize this. Apps like Talko do too in their own way--taking a basic form like voice and allowing things like asynchronicity.

To me part of the allure of a passive income project is being able to control more than just the technical aspects--to be able to define the customer-facing and business pieces too.

Perhaps more importantly, your chance of producing meaningful income goes up exponentially if it's a one-person show. A small startup has the overhead of at least ramen-level salaries for a few people, possibly an office or shared space. If they've taken seed money their investors will be pushing for growth over profitability or possibly even revenue. If you're doing a profit share, even in the best of cases it may be a looong time before there's any profit, even if there is meaningful revenue.

Every startup is a longshot. It's an even longer shot if you're taking a sliver of profit from people whose interests may not be well-aligned with yours.

This is before AOL bought Netscape, before Loudcloud/Opsware, before Ning, before A16Z. It's interesting, knowing what came later, to see how he's described. It's a sympathetic profile, but it hints that he might be a one-hit wonder. The last quote is good: "And while it's unlikely that Andreessen will change the world again with another Mosaic-like discovery, Mary Meeker, an analyst at Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Co., says: 'He'll be a great CEO--5 to 10 years from now.'"

Appreciate that you posted without self-promoting, but I'm curious: what's your bootstrapped project?

That is interesting, but not nearly so much as the piece--it's long, and worth reading in its entirety.

Thanks for the candid reply. Some juvenile part of me was hoping you'd say it was now a colorless, odorless gel.

What prompted the question is the recent spate of articles on gut flora. That was the first thing I thought of when I heard of Soylent--what does it do to your microbiome? If anyone can speak or speculate knowledgeably on the topic, I'm curious.

What's your poop like?