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ttobbaybbob

122 karma · joined May 17, 2017

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ttobbaybbob··on The truth behind the accuracy of weather forecasts
or if you want nicely wrapped pure NWS data you can get results like https://trytako.com/card/EK32MAxL85E5_KOZy6R3/?dark_mode=tru... via our API
ttobbaybbob··on Show HN: Tako, a Knowledge Search API
Thanks for trying it out!
ttobbaybbob··on Show HN: Tako, a Knowledge Search API
Overall, we improve any AI answer - we've been integrated into AI search experiences (the most common/obvious use case), content generation use cases (eg https://capitol.ai/), but we're excited to see what else people come up with!
ttobbaybbob··on Show HN: Tako, a Knowledge Search API
It does (and we're working on making it better)! Check out our docs here -> https://docs.trytako.com/documentation/integrations-and-exam...
ttobbaybbob··on Show HN: Tako, a Knowledge Search API
:saluting_face we debated whether to do or not to do it like this. We were scared of people scraping us (among other things) and decided to be bad
ttobbaybbob··on Former US SEC attorney: 'Get out of crypto platforms now'
bernie == bernard fwiw
ttobbaybbob··on The Murdoch Succession
the show Succession really did borrow a lot of details from the murdochs
ttobbaybbob··on SpaceX is targeting Monday, April 17 for the first flight of Starship
it's nice to be wholeheartedly rooting for a company and the technological progress it represents
ttobbaybbob··on SpaceX closing in on first Starship Super Heavy launch
if this works out does there become a bottleneck in the world's ability to produce space-ready, useful things (satelites, telescopes, etc).

Its incredibly costly and complex to build things like the james webb telescope and that would be a great problem to have, but are there any measures of the demand for rocket capacity at given price points?

ttobbaybbob··on Alibaba breaks itself up in six
a basket of options is more valuable than an option on a basket

https://medium.com/@kentbeck_7670/decisions-decisions-or-why...

ttobbaybbob··on Where have all the sacked tech workers gone?
fwiw im much more down for my filter to have false negatives than read a pointless article
ttobbaybbob··on Ivy League Prices Are Pushing $90k a Year
are there any plausible efforts out there (eg rough equivalent of an activist investor) attempting to convince universities to curb their addiction to hiring armies of administrative employees who (often) do nothing and (often) are paid several X what a phd candidate receives as a stipend

are there any meaningful ways to change the incentives to something other than raise as much money as possible to hire more administrative employees to raise as much money as possible?

(also if my premise is flawed and there are other things that contribute significantly to the burn of universities lmk)

ttobbaybbob··on Where have all the sacked tech workers gone?
thank you - this is why i only read articles linked to on hn if the comments make it sound like there's some substance
ttobbaybbob··on Some VC firms are urging founders to pull money from Silicon Valley Bank
No - if they got caught doing that it would hurt their reputation (and they'd have to do it with their personal money since VC funds aren't allowed to do such things). VC reputations are far more valuable than the money that could be made off this one trade. Additionally, if SVB was insolvent that would hurt any of their startups with cash at SVB - also detrimental to them

the sum of their incentives make it very improbable

ttobbaybbob··on Bank run on Silicon Valley Bank
they provide services/incentivies specifically catered to startups and their needs (eg free checking, aws credits, payment processing APIs/etc)

and not unlike aws/stripe/etc they want to be the bank for small companies that grow into huge companies. startups are a good segment to target (eg like vc) because they might also turn into a large company with much more cash and more banking needs

ttobbaybbob··on Bank run on Silicon Valley Bank
its not related, but its the same problem.

They took the deposits and bough "safe" bonds (eg treasuries). Which they're allowed to carry on their books at cost, even though their market price drops as interest rates rise.

But in both SVB and silvergates cases the drop in the market value of their assets coincided with an increase in withdrawals. They were forced to sell some of these bonds to fund withdrawals, requiring them to realize the market price. The accounting distorted the value of their assets to an extent, and the withdrawals laid that distortion bare

ttobbaybbob··on Bank run on Silicon Valley Bank
we're they specifically unsophisticated in the way they bought treasuries/other bonds? One could look at the zero risk weighting of treasuries and buy only those to satisfy capital requirements, but you'd think it would be obvious that you would end up with more exposure to interest rate risk than is prudent. Or is this truly such an improbable swing in interest rates coupled with demand for withdrawals that it is reasonable that they aren't expected to anticipate it ?
ttobbaybbob··on Big Tech is using layoffs to crush worker power
part of the point, too, is that now that there's the pressure of unemployment instead of the moving as opportunistic jump many may be willing to accept a commensurate (possibly lower) salary/tc than they had previously instead of demanding an increase
ttobbaybbob··on How to Build an Exchange (2017)
2023 version would have more than one mention of {compliance, regulat*, accounting}
ttobbaybbob··on OpenAI is in talks for tender offer that would value it at $29B
from the openai charter (https://openai.com/charter/): "Our primary fiduciary duty is to humanity."

i wonder how committed they currently are to ^ and what taking external investment would/will do to that commitment. Echoes of "dont be evil"

ttobbaybbob··on Mobile Store Owner Sentenced to 10 Years for Scheme to Illegally Unlock Phones
10 years and $28,473,535 seems excessive (as noted by others elizabeth holmes only got 11 for what seems a far larger, more potentially-destructive fraud).

what's the logic behind this sentencing? or is there no logic and its some sort of regulatory capture and t-mobile et al want to make an example ?

ttobbaybbob··on Estonia saved its citizens 820 years by moving public services online
so at 27k gdp per capita theyre saving ~$22m per year in lost productivity, probably growing each year. Seems like a pretty solid investment
ttobbaybbob··on FedEx: equip aircraft with countermeasure against heat-seeking missiles [pdf]
they dont mention any specifically, but say: "In recent years, in several incidents abroad, civilian aircraft were fired upon by man-portable air defense systems (MANPADS). This has led several companies to design and adapt systems like a laser-based missile-defense system for installation on civilian aircraft, to protect those aircraft against heat-seeking missiles"
ttobbaybbob··on FedEx: equip aircraft with countermeasure against heat-seeking missiles [pdf]
"Infrared laser energy can pose a hazard to persons on the aircraft"

"affect a flight crew’s ability to control the aircraft"

How would the infrared laser impact the aircraft originating the laser (i assume there's no way the laser would be pointed at the aircraft its mounted on)?

ttobbaybbob··on Facebook-owned sites were down
Perhaps we'll find out. As fun as internal sabotage would be, schadenfreude-wise, i think it much more likely this will turn out to be a time when Hanlon's Razor applies
ttobbaybbob··on Cloudflare R2 storage: Rapid and reliable object storage, minus the egress fees
Nice to see someone flipping the script and encroaching on AWS' territory rather than vice a versa

Taking the have-a-much-better-product route to siphoning use from AWS is particularly ambitious. I hope it works out. AWS has had it a little too easy for too long

ttobbaybbob··on Prometheus Fuels (YC W19) Closes Series B with $1.5B Valuation
They seem to be heavy on vision, marketing and zero-net-carbon partnerships with huge brands, light on technical detail (i wouldn't hate some links to papers or a PoC of their reactor or something), all of which feels a little Nikola-y.

Thin articles touching on the technology: https://prometheusfuels.com/on-the-road/meet-our-v3-faraday-... https://prometheusfuels.com/on-the-road/worlds-1st-machine-t...

Hopefully someone can chime in with an explanation of why the technology is viable now (and not in the past) or why Prometheus is equipped to execute on this vision.

ttobbaybbob··on TikTokers Are Trading Stocks by Copying What Members of Congress Do
and you think her replacement wouldnt take advantage of the free money? also, obviously, she's already far from the only one [0]

0: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-03-20/senato...

ttobbaybbob··on The Coronavirus Is Here Forever
It will be interesting to understand the long-term impact of covid on immunity. Given that covid came from GoF research have we developed defenses (albeit at an ultimately very-high price) that will protect us from future novel coronaviruses ?

other classes of virus? (ie how the plague resistance in those of european descent gives some level of protection against hiv [0])

Is this something we have a way to measure or will it be impossible to tell once everyone in the world has some amount of covid immunity?

0: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/03/050325234239.h... (first thing i could find)

ttobbaybbob··on Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity'
Climate engineering is obviously incredibly fraught for a variety of reasons (unintended consequences/etc) but at what point do we start to consider it ? start developing and evaluating technologies related to it ? it seems like it would be something we want in the toolbox since its a solution orthogonal to consumption of carbon
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