Ductapemaster

Could you explain a bit more? Are you making a better ROI? I currently have a Betterment account and would consider switching if there's a good reason.

I really understand your side of things, and the engineer in me wants the same for everything. However, an imperfect solution that can easily be sold and understood has a far more likely chance of succeeding and producing change. It's the classic balance between marketing and engineering. What can be sold vs what can be produced. Sometimes we have to compromise, and I think as the technical audience we are, we always search for the non-ideal parts of a regulation like this and say "well it could be better if...!". It's a totally valid thought process, and an important one, but it has to be tempered by what is actually possible in the political system.

While there are similar practices that Google and Facebook have (eg. tracking your activities outside of their website), this is much more problematic and sinister for a couple reasons:

Access: Many people in this country do not have a choice as to which ISP they use. They are locked in due to anti-competitive practices, rural homes, or some other reason. You can make the choice much more easily not to use a certain website that tracks your behavior.

Cost also comes into play here, as you pay your ISP to deliver service. Google and Facebook are free, because they subsidize their services by selling and collecting data. Your ISP charges you a large amount of money already, and are increasing their own margins through this practice. It would be different if they did something akin to what Amazon did with their Kindles, where you provide the same service with and without tracking, and charge appropriately. The way things are now, you don't have a choice.

Lack of notification: Your data is being collected and sold through an implicit agreement with your ISP, likely entombed in a bunch of fine print that no one ever reads, nor anyone but a lawyer could decode. While this is the case with Google and Facebook, it's pretty much common knowledge that they do this. The carriers and ISPs implemented their tracking under-the-radar, and provided no way for anyone to opt-out.

I'm sure there's a lot more arguments out there, but that's what I have on top of my head right now.

While what you say is factually true, I think the thing you are missing is the psychological effect of putting up such signs and having these policies. It gets people in the mindset that this is serious and we can't ignore it. It's very easy to get caught up in the mob mentality when it comes to personal water usage which leads to, I think, feelings of helplessness and an ignorance when it comes to the larger problems like agricultural water usage.

If you aren't encountering these sorts of things on a daily basis, you lose sight of the greater issues. However when the entire community is affected, it changes how people act and feel. People are much more likely to stand up and say something when they are personally affected (either by choice or by situation). Even if only a small percentage of people started caring more about conserving water because of these laws, I think it's a good thing.

> the actual running of a company beyond that point is a lot simpler

I respectfully disagree. I think that the problem of maintaining a project in the field, providing support, taking feedback and making improvements, and managing a pipeline of new developments alongside sustaining efforts is just as difficult of a problem as getting to an MVP. Both sides take vastly different skillsets, and require people with very different backgrounds to compromise and shift in leadership.

That said, I completely agree with your point that the skills of getting an MVP out the door is significant and worthwhile. I know I am on that side of things myself - I enjoy the initial development, brainstorming, hard work, and hard choices that come along with that piece of a project. I jus think that the other side of the coin deserves equal representation.

You nailed it: https://www.usbkill.com/usb-killer/13-usb-killer-v3.html

> If I naively extrapolate, within decades we'll have period where we have profound cultural shifts every year or so, then every week.

I think in reality there is some sort of lower bound here in what we consider "reality" today (the physical world, with its governments, etc). We already are seeing the internet as a place where revolutions happen on very short timescales, even overnight. This will only increase as VR takes hold of our minds and existence.

To be honest, I'm a little afraid of that. There is something to be said for change in the physical world and how profound big changes are, and I hope one does not transplant the other and that they evolve together. We still need infrastructure, places to live, and government to make the online/VR revolutions a possibility.

PoE was created exactly for this purpose! The converters aren't tiny by any means, but they can get pretty darn small if the device doesn't consume much power. Plus, its routable using existing wiring in a house, uses AC to transmit and avoid resistive losses, and is backwards compatible with existing Ethernet tech. Plus if you need internet connectivity, you only need one wire and you can cut your power consumption by ditching WiFi.

Out of curiosity, what was your experience with Yohimbine? Why was it so bad?

While I agree that it sucks the arduono headers aren't spaced nicely for standard prototyping, I think this issue has been largely solved by the more recent versions like the Arduino Mini. I actually much prefer that form factor to the larger original one, as it fits in smaller cases, has less "fluff" (silkscreen, FTDI, etc) that costs more and isn't always used in development, and fits in a small space on a standard Porto board!

Plus there are many versions out there within the arduino ecosystem, including larger pin count ones, faster processors, and even ones that use non-Atmel chips like the Teensy.

There was a problem, and It's been solved.

Yeah it was never turned on due to economic reasons. They are currently retrofitting it with updated pumps, membranes, pipes, etc, and increasing its capacity. They've definitely hit some interesting roadblocks along the way.

While it may be true that the OP is "doing well" salary wise, your comment detracts from the point he is making. just because someone makes a lot of money doesn't mean that their problems are any less valid.

Thanks for sharing your story and your experience so others can learn from it. Please don't stop commenting!

UCSB '12 here as well. I got a BSEE and I found the contrast between grades in lower division and upper division classes to be quite stark. In the lower division classes you could get away with anything - for example people cheated on their online physics and math homework so everyone did well. The classes were too large so the TAs grade everything, and it's much easier to convince a TA to give you more credit for something than it is a professor. The class size makes professors resort to things like iClickers for participation points and the online homework I just mentioned. It degrades the quality of education while also creating a system with more loopholes that smart people can exploit, since everyone is optimizing for grades in the end.

In upper division, the classes got considerably smaller and considerably harder. Grades meant more, and the system was not easily played. When you have a class of 20 you can't screw around anymore. You can't hide behind your TA. You get what you put in.

That's not to say I didn't have funky grade experiences in upper div too - I had one class series that actually had a serious grade deflation problem. The average on our second quarter final was 18.5%. In the end, if you tried hard and did well in the lab, your grade was basically a participation score. Now, I learned an enormous amount in that class because it was so hard. It was demoralizing at times because everyone though they were going to fail (I vividly remember contemplating my future during that final, wondering if I would ever pass that class). So in that case, grades didn't really matter.

Personally I think the solution comes with class size. Grades become inflated because as more people are managed by a professor and their TAs, the less careful they have to be while handing them out. There's too many exceptions and they can't spend all their time tracking down who is being truthful when they say their dog ate their homework or their roommates keep them up all night because they're drunk. It's much the same problem as large corporations have with employee performance scores - as the body you are judging grows, your criteria become much more generalized and the judges much more disconnected from those being judged.

I don't have access to the spec for 1.4, but from what I can understand it's still a single cable that will do 4K 120hz HDR. Obviously it'll have to be a supported 1.4 capable cable, but that's the same as CAT 5 vs CAT 6

Dual link DVI is significantly old-hat compared to the newer DisplayPort and HDMI standards. A single dual link DVI cable can carry either half a 4K frame (1920x2160) at 8 bits per color, 60hz, OR a single 1080p frame at 10 bits per color, 60hz. To get a 4K 60hz display running you need to use two dual link DVI cables, which is insanely bulky. Plus you at best get 8 bit color out of it, and no audio.

The latest HDMI standard can do 4096x2160 60Hz in deep color (12 bits per color).

DisplayPort 1.4 has a higher maximum bandwidth than HDMI 2.0 (31.4 Gbps vs 18Gbps). This allows it to do 120Hz, deep color/HDR or carry multiple 4K streams (multiple monitors or 3D) on one cable. It's by far the most advanced standard out there for consumer video transmission.

Source: I'm an engineer working with video systems, and Wikipedia

Although I have not read that book, for linear algebea I would highly recommend Gilbert Strang's book. It's one of the few textbooks for which I would pay full price, even today. Also, his lectures are available on youtube from MIT, and he's quite good.

It really is a fantastic story. I can't recommend it enough.

Strang's textbook is fantastic. One of the rare cases in college where I actually enjoyed reading a textbook. His lectures are available for free on YouTube as well, and I can't recommend them enough!