pacman2

I like that it is "primitive"

It aims to answer the question, "What should I do after Duolingo?" It is based on https://tatoeba.org/en/

"I'm constantly surprised by these new SASS projects popping up that are being outdone by open source Anki flashcards from 2010."

Trust me, Anki can do very little for Chinese compared to clozemaster and the DuShu app. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.trescher.d...

I found it too playful. I, by far, prefer Clozemaster

https://www.clozemaster.com/

SBIR is in my experience done by

1. Companies that made a business out of doing SBIR grants (I think the previous poster may have meant the same with SBIR farms). They write one grant after another and do some BS research, write reports and in the end, trash the results and move to the next SBIR

2. Small Start-up that a basically linked to big military suppliers and since the big supplier is ineligible to appply, they apply for them and among the big big stack of applicants, they are selected for the SBIR. Must be really superior ideas I guess. Or huge luck :-)

The SBIR grant was designed for neither, but blue sky ideas that VC don't want to fund. My experience with SBIR has been terrible. Especially

A. Idiot reviewers. I can only tell you that an idiot and google are a very dangerous combination.

B. Idiot management. One lady that is in charge of giving out the SBIR has emailed me that she has occasionally given SBIR to inexperienced (speak not having done an SBIR before) researchers. So she basically handles the grants to companies mentioned above under "1", the SBIR farms. She has no idea what she is doing. SBIR was not designed for that.

In my opinion, and I may be wrong, SBIR were designed to be open to the best blue sky ideas that may be too risky or too early stage for regular VC. This already excludes the existence of SBIR farms.

You need to be very good looking (in pictures) to have success. I am a womanizer but not big in Tinder.

I once used the Tinder of an ex girl friend (with her permission) and told her, I find one for you. She was okay looking but not super attractive. Match rate of the guys I chose for her was 100%. Basically most guys use the App like : yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes...

So? A tiny fraction. Of the one billion development cost, how much is early research, done in universities?

You have no idea about this industry. Or for the noob: development costs are tiny compared to costs in clinical trials.

There are some interesting compounds. Dichloroacetate for example. Not patent protected. Feel free to start your own clinical trial tomorrow. :-)

This is wrong. It is correct for early stage. Compared with clinical trials, early stage costs nothing.

The USPTO checks for prior art. The result is not set in stone but if they don't find prior art then they grant the patent. The patent can then still be challenged in court by other companies.

No. Lets take the most extreme example. Medicine. Development and clinical trials cost you more than a billion. Why would I risk this? I let you develop it, I let you do the clinical trials and then just copy it. Even better. I can always sell cheaper than you since I don't have to recover investment costs.

The patents are the only incentives for the investors to accept the risk.

Dude. I just submitted two patents. Patents are the only way a small company can get an edge.

And yes, there is more than software and IT in this world. Good luck to raise non IT capital in tech without patents.

China. Well known.

But regarding the other poster (comment got deleted):

China has a higher average IQ than the US and 3 times the population. So more patents are not surprising in the end.

A fly is unlikely to fly randomly.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A9vy_flight

Yes, it may have advantages. But every advantage comes with disadvantages.

Same with Uber, which is forbidden in Germany. Once you get used to Uber you wonder, how you were you able to ever live without it. Germany is a backward country. Digitization is 3rd world there. Looks, like under Merkel the country has been asleep for two decades. I am not sure they are going to wake up.

How does this work? What is the advantage?

"only 50% cut if something works,"

This is still very generous. I know salaries are very low for PhD students but it is still a generous offer. I think my US university was 1/3 Uni, 1/3 Prof, 1/3 PhDs. They even handed stocks to a Post-doc with a 6 figure sum.

In an company you may get nothing or very very little.

Wiki: "In United States, however, an employee may have to sign over the rights to an invention without any special compensation. Germany has a law on employees' inventions providing strict rules concerning the transfer of rights to an invention to the employer. It also prescribes mandatory compensation of employees for inventions they make."

What is worse, that in some countries this also covers invention, unrelated to your field of employment. Wage-slave I guess.

I use the I don't care about cookies Plug-in. My browser forgets all the cookies when closed. Besides several privacy plug-ins, I the the temporary container plug-in.

Problem solved.

ROTFL. Yes. And I went there TWICE. And a f... drunken Viking broke my tent each time.

Second time, there was a guy leaving, left his tent behind. I run after him and asked him if I can have his tent, since mine was broken. He said sure. But even better he told me. There is a second, unused tent in the tent. This is what I call a professional. A guy with a backup plan.

Too big in capacity. My favorite backpack hat around 24l. I guess I could travel with this pack for 10 years. This gives you an Idea. (no tent of cause)

There was a EU based, tiny equipment manufacturer that actually produced backpacks for very tall people. I had some contacts in travel related business that could have brought it back on track. I asked if the owner is willing to let me buy into the business (I was interested in other niche products in his business) but he preferred to close it down.

The one that suites your needs.

There is no best tent. There are only your requirements and how much you want to spent. I have done well with throw away tents. Be on a festival during my trip, trash the tent, keep traveling without unnecessary equipment.

There is no best car, hence there is no best backpack.

As a rule of thumb: It is easy to buy a backpack that is too big. It is nearly impossible to buy one that is too small. The experience of a traveler is in an anti-proportional relationship with the size of his or her backpack.

This being said, the best back pack I ever had was from Burton. I and I am still heart-broken that it got stolen. It is not produced anymore.

Interesting. But I often travel, only have the need for a tent for a few days and buy a "throw-away"-tent. And trust me, drunken vikings (speak Iceland) are pretty good in breaking your tent.

Because I lost all my saving there and was dealing with

1. The Police

2. The Financial Supervision of Estonia and Madis Reimand (Head of Estonian Financial Intelligence Unit)

Having worked for military and police enforcement in the US before, I can say with confidence: I you want to do a financial scam, do it in Estonia. Nobody will care. Seriously. (and dont worry, Madis knows who I am)

Great.

1. Where can I get the movies?

Many chinese movies are incredibly boring. This one is an exception and I did not see it on the list

2. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7180392/

What is the difference to https://www.viki.com/ ?

wait until you dream...

Romania is a very interesting place. An Bucharest, "The Paris of the East" must not be afraid compared to Prague or Budapest.

Estonia, is a third world country. Total breakdown of any governmental admiistration, corrupt etc. (dont ask how I know)

I have not read it. The black swan was interesting. But in the end I may have liked books from Mandelbrot more. I have met professional traders that did not know (and became very angry) when told that far out of the money options are underpriced because it is not a random walk but a fat tail distribution.

I have not read Thinking Fast and Slow ether but really disliked "The tipping point" by Malcolm Gladwell.

Most impressive book: Thus spoke Zarathustra.

Oh wow. Cell. Please also see previous dicussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23956715

I vaguely remember an Indian Paper (or an author with an Indian name) that made the same claims and it got destroyed on HN. But my memory may fail me.

Crystal growth?

"Similarities in morphology are not proof of life. It is possible that all the specimens presented here are abiotic. We cannot completely rule out minerals, weathering, and unknown geological forces that are unique to Mars and unknown and alien to Earth. However, growth, movement, alterations in location and shape, constitute behavior, and coupled with life-like morphology, strongly support the hypothesis there is life on Mars."

They really should put more focus on the first sentence. Extraordinary claims need extraordinary data, which they don't have. They should have phrased it otherwise around. While abiotic phenomenons are more likely, we can not rule out a biological background. Further investigation should be undertaken.

People have also claimed, hunters may have been smarter on average. BTW, DNA sequencing does not tell you much. You would need an extremely big sample for comparisons, and even this would exclude methylation patterns and other things.