883 karma · joined June 12, 2010
To determine the actual revenue increase from those six extra seats, we would have to know how frequently flights have less than 6 empty seats.
Unfortunately, this causes many patients to abandon treatment before the the therapeutic value is apparent. This is one of the biggest obstacles in treating depression.
Of course, there are always exceptions. However, most of the time you will find that those who complain about SSRIs inducing anxiety did not actually wait long enough for the effects to become apparent.
Also, your suggestion that Prozac is one of the more mild SSRIs is completely backwards. Prozac is one of the earliest SSRIs and has a rather broad spectrum of receptor affinities. Newer SSRIs are more selective and have better side-effect profiles. Escitalopram is the gold standard here.
Previously, researches have found that fluoxetine (Prozac) actually suppresses neuronal growth in vitro:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20377614
Fluoxetine treatment is often associated with an increase in BDNF (Brain-derived neurotrophic factor), a protein which encourages the development of new synapses in the brain areas responsible for higher-order thinking and other functions. At first glance this sounds great, as the Scientific American authors concluded. However, other researches, such as those in the study I linked above, hypothesize that this increase in BDNF and neuronal growth may actually be due to neuronal insult from fluoxetine. In other words, the increase in plasticity and new cell growth might be a healing response from the brain following damage caused by fluoxetine.
Furthermore, fluoxetine is an older SSRI with effects and receptor affinities that extend beyond the serotonin system. When using fluoxetine for research, caution must be taken to separate the effects on the serotonin system from the effects of other functions of fluoxetine. Without further study, we can't know if these effects apply to all SSRIs, or just fluoxetine.
I should also note: All of this is great for future R&D of next-generation anti-depressants, but it should not be used by anyone when determining a treatment path. Despite the study I linked above, to my knowledge we haven't seen any deleterious effects on memory or cognition due to SSRI treatment in the general population. The bottom line is that we don't know why or how SSRIs work (despite what the drug company marketing department wants you to believe), but they are effective for many people. And combined with therapy, the rate of remission improves even more.
Furthermore, he has obviously bet heavily on a near-term market crash. He's now financially and emotionally invested in a market crash, so of course he will be confident that it's going to happen. And if his doomsday video circulates the internet and makes a dent, however tiny, in investor sentiment then he has also effectively pushed the market (in a very tiny way) toward his goal.
Take a look at one of his recent tweets: "I've been waiting for this stock market crash for 3 years. #finance #economy"
The world economy is in trouble, no doubt, but let's remain reasonable and rational here. Spend enough time around financial types, and you can always find a doomsayer like this man in any sort of economy.
After all, this is what it looks like on my iPhone: http://i.imgur.com/KNqzy.png
And searching 'TechCrunch' for 'Mobilova' returns zero results, despite Mobilova's claim that they were featured on TechCrunch.
Interesting to see that they've revived it as an iOS tablet-only product. It does make sense that the tablet crowd would have higher disposable income than the general internet population. Given the emerging popularity of eBooks on tablet-style devices, catalogs are the logical next step.
I entered my own twitter handle to see what (if anything) would come up. Instead, I was greeted with a message that my handle was not yet in their database, but it would now be added to their list because I entered it. Great.
IR filters can only attenuate incoming IR so much while still allowing nearby red wavelengths through. And any filter will have a non-flat response through the visible wavelengths, slightly distorting the color response of your photos.
A properly coded IR signal from the transmitting 'disabler' device could still be picked up by the iPhone even if it was severely attenuated. At ~30fps, you can quickly get 100+ samples to cross-correlate with to search for the encoded 'disable' signal.
My gut feeling is that Apple patented this technology because it was low-hanging fruit. They saw they could roll it into a legitimate patent and prevent others from claiming it down the road. Still, I think it's worthwhile to send a quick letter to the powers that be to let them know we all disprove. If it does get implemented, the popularity of jailbreaking will move up another notch.
Be absolutely sure that your e-mails have real content in them (i.e. this is progress we've made, we just closed X deal, etc.) that can be easily digested. The goal shouldn't be to make contact and then explain yourself. The goal is to generate interest, which will lead to the contact.
Also, if this technique catches on and hordes of desperate entrepreneurs everywhere start spamming every VC and investor they can find, it's all over. The HN crowd, of all people, should know just how easy it is to create a filter to immediately trash messages from a specific address. This is why it's important to have excellent content in your very first e-mail.
Obviously, 0.575% of in-app sales for a handful of high-profile apps isn't going to make Lodsys wealthy. What they really want is for Apple to buy their patent for millions of dollars to make this bad publicity go away.
Even more worrisome are the reports now that MacroSolve is extorting app developers in the same way for using forms in their applications.
In-app purchase and using forms in your application are absolutely trivial to someone skilled in the art. Unfortunately, the costs of proving this in a court are likely to be massive, especially now that Apple et. al. have essentially validated this patent by licensing it themselves. Very disappointing across the board.
Murder, criminal sexual conduct, manslaughter, criminal vehicular homicide, assault, robbery (simple or aggravated), kidnapping, neglect or endangerment of a child, solicitation of juveniles, prostitution, arson, and burglary.
And, if these senators (and their media industry supporters) are successful, unauthorized streaming of 10 or more copyrighted works in a 180-day period.
You can't really argue that unauthorized streaming doesn't impact the entertainment industry negatively, but it should be obvious to everyone that the impact is not significant enough to make it a felony.
Meanwhile, Apple would have to support ARM-based MacBooks and Intel-based workstations until ARM became fast enough to replace workstation-level processors. While software makers caught up to the new architecture, MacBooks would lose much of their 'desktop replacement' status unless they truly could emulate x86 and x64 code with impressive speed.
I really doubt that Apple would split the architectures of their laptop and desktop lines.
For example, right now (as I write this) exchanging $1000 USD for some Bitcoins is all it takes to push the exchange rate up $0.10 from $3.77 to $3.87.
What a lot of Bitcoin newcomers don't realize is that Bitcoin depends on 'mining' to generate new bitcoins. Computers run cryptographic hashes to find the 'winning' has which is less than the current difficulty target number. The computer that finds this hash is awarded 50 BTC. The difficulty target is automatically adjusted upward to keep new bitcoin generation at a constant pace.
Some quick research shows a handful of big players in the mining market who have invested heavily in high-end GPUs for dedicated bitcoin mining, some with over 50 GPUs running 24/7 for months now. These guys are bound to have huge quantities of bitcoin they are eager to unload when the price is right. Meanwhile, news coverage is driving exploding popularity, which appears to be pulling the exchange rate sky high. On paper, many of these guys have become overnight millionaires just by running a bunch of computers 24/7.
Of course, as these players cash out the exchange rate will fall. These guys are too smart to sell all at once and flood the market, but with volatility like this I'm willing to bet a lot are eager to pull their bitcoin out of the game before the bubble pops.
Meanwhile, hardware enthusiasts all over the internet are rushing to buy GPUs to dedicate to mining. They don't seem to realize that the bitcoin system automatically adjusts to keep the bitcoin generation rate constant at 50 BTC per 10 minutes. As the mining market becomes flooded with new 'miners' the difficulty will climb rapidly, until it becomes unprofitable to run a GPU if you have to pay for electricity.
Finally, bitcoin is highly illiquid. My research was brief, but I couldn't find an easy way to exchange small amounts of BTC for USD that didn't look terribly sketchy or involve a lot of fees. Stores aren't eager to accept bitcoin because the exchange rate at the moment can easily swing 10% between when the user presses 'check out' and the transaction is processed.
The bitcoin system is a very interesting concept, and it was clearly implemented by some very intelligent people. But as it currently stands it's just a playground for speculators and market manipulators. Expect some carnage in the coming months.
The enforced office hours would keep the team close to each other and on the same page. The flex time would allow employees to work wherever and whenever they deem most efficient for themselves. Set goals on Wednesday, recap on Monday.
Results (not office/face time) should always be the final metric in judging employee performance.
Why would any pirate even consider using this player when everyone already has ad-free options available? Also, anyone who uses this player or plug-in is handing the record companies a list of their music files and how often they listen to them. Even worse, this is all done under the pretense that the end-user hasn't actually purchased the music files.
Either this is business plan is missing some important element, or I'm missing something.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2430090
Basically, a University of Washington researcher associated with WikiLeaks is detained for several hours without reason every time he goes through a US airport. He goes by 'ioerror' here and on Twitter, among other places.
This is enormously suspicious across the board. It should be ignored as an annoyance and nothing else until a court finds otherwise.
One of the judges immediately jumps in and says that Congress could have made an exception, but didn't. Harrow points out that perhaps it didn't because the result would naturally be absurd: the idea that someone sitting at home, listening to music, would suddenly be liable for billions of dollars, doesn't make any sense.
Even worse, the RIAA has not (to my knowledge) provided any evidence that Tenenbaum actually distributed the works, only that he made them available by participating in a BitTorrent swarm.
Mohamed Hassan [MSIA, CISSP, CISA and graduate of the Master of Science in Information Assurance (MSIA) program from Norwich University in 2009 as the original article prominently states], on the other hand, is probably not so lucky. Any Google search on his name from now on will probably reveal this whole debacle. Furthermore, I wouldn't be surprised if he just opened himself up to legal action by Samsung.
Then again, unethical companies tend to be run by unethical people. I wouldn't be surprised if nefarious accounting practices or greedy executives ultimately drained the company of all its money.
Raw data file:
https://spreadsheets2.google.com/ccc?authkey=COCjw-kG&hl...
Visualization (in German):
Once you get used to your applications opening almost instantly, it's tough to go back to a mechanical HDD.
The court's decision said it best:
It follows that email requires strong protection under the
Fourth Amendment; otherwise the Fourth Amendment would
prove an ineffective guardian of private communication,
an essential purpose it has long been recognized to serveHe has two books: One sells you on the dream of world travel with minimal work, interspersed with stories about how awesome he is and how you, too, can be just as awesome if you follow his instructions. Nevermind the fact that he clearly states he wrote the book because he became successful by working long hours and working very hard to make his company successful.
His second (upcoming) book is all about how to 'beat the system' when it comes to eating and fitness. He talks about losing body fat while eating anything he wants using little-known secrets, among other things.
Finally, his blog (and this post in particular) tell a lot of feel-good stories that feel just within reach. He's a master at weaving a narrative that makes you feel like you want his lifestyle, and that it's within reach if you just follow his simple advice.
So what do these all have in common? He's a master at selling people on an idea, even when all of the facts don't quite line up. His works all make lofty promises, but they all seem just crazy enough to still be within reach. He even puts reverse-psychology disclaimers throughout his works to trip up your own sense of disbelief. Meanwhile, he has become wealthy and successful not by following his own advice, but by selling his advice to others.
The takeaway: Learn from his techniques and products, not from his advice. And there's a lot to learn if you step back and look at it.
1) Make/sell a good product or service at a reasonable price
Or
2) Be really, really good at convincing/tricking people into paying for your product/service
If you do both 1 and 2 well, you're going to do well. Just one, and you'll be okay. If you're just mediocre at both, then good luck. Competition is fierce in the basic product/service sectors on the Internet now that the barrier of entry for anyone setting up an Internet business is so low.