jakebaker

This service is magic (disclosure: started by a friend) -- Focusmate [1] -- it is basically productivity as a service. The service does video co-working sessions and it honestly works like magic. Incredibly helpful for procrastination -- it just instantly gets you in the zone.

[1] https://www.focusmate.com/

Why not consider running an auction in the early years to maximize private funding for operations?

Culture and intent matters a lot. If it’s an enforcement/punishment thing, it’s garbage. If it’s a shared and collaborative thing to get more out of life, it’s a great thing.

+1 for surprisingly effective. Such a good word for my experience of this.

It’s about making it a bit easier to get into the groove. If you’re determined not to work, you’ll find ways around it. P

Eh, it’s less about monitoring and more about shared effort and focus. Take what works, leave the rest. For a lot of us, this is a life saving and wonderful service.

It really isn’t like that when using it. Culture matters a lot and the community is just focused on actively working in a collaborative environment. It works wonders. I call it “flow state on demand.”

I’ve used this service a lot. I’d be very happy to share answers to any questions people have.

Just wanted to say -- Focusmate is amazing. I've used it a ton. I don't know how, but it helps me get into the zone almost immediately. The idea of working with a stranger on the screen seems weird when you first hear about it, but it's amazing how the impact is almost magical.

Most people would calculate this against the term of the loan. So if you have a 10 year loan vs a 20 year loan, that would change the price. The price is what you actually pay, which in many cases would just be the cost of the loan divided by the amount of energy produced.

I’ve mentioned it before but a near magical solution for my procrastination is an app developed by a friend called Focusmate [1]. You pair with a partner and then have a shared co-working session via a video chat. Something about the other person being “present” dramatically improves my ability to go immediately into a flow state.

[1] www.focusmate.com

I think that the productivity boost may be somewhat binary -- some people are AMAZINGLY more productive at home vs an office environment. For me, I've personally struggled with the home environment at times.

The shared team construct of an office setting helps me get over my common obstacle of procrastination. When I do work from home, I've used some forms of productivity and accountability tools to get over that barrier.

These have included services like Focusmate [1] which lets you schedule co-working video sessions with a partner. That has been incredibly helpful for me, getting me to move immediately to working on whatever the difficult task at hand is.

[1] https://www.focusmate.com

Focusmate has been an incredible boost to my productivity. So glad to see it getting mentioned here. It's uncanny how the connection to another person has enabled me to unlock immediate productivity. I strongly recommend it.

It's almost certainly a "job-year" [1] which is an economic construct representing the equivalent of one person being employed for one year. For example, a 6 month construction project with 2 guys still equals one job year.

Most PR-style announcements like this seems to simplify job-years to jobs.

There is also direct employment (# of people hired for the project itself, e.g. construction) vs indirect employment (# of people hired in supply chain) vs induced employment (# of people hired by associate economic impact, e.g. construction worker spends money earned on project in local community and supports retail) [2], all of which may be consolidated for a PR style announcement.

[1] http://prospect.org/article/what-heck-job-year [2] https://msu.edu/user/stynes/mirec/concepts.htm

Worth reading about whether or not Amazon makes money:

http://ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2014/9/4/why-amazon-has-n...

http://ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2013/8/8/amazons-profits

The counterpoint to this is the "Aston Martin" Ford [1a and 1b] which I think most people would agree looks much better than the Ford design it replaced [2]. It literally steals the design cues from a $100k+ sports car and adapts them to an economy car and it seems to work quite well as a design (admittedly a bit of design plagiarism).

[1a] http://autoguide.com.vsassets.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/20...

[1b] http://www.autotribute.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Aston-...

[2] http://st.motortrend.com/uploads/sites/10/2015/11/2012-ford-...

I work in the clean energy industry, including with PACE, and can help to answer some questions about PACE/Property Assessed Clean Energy Financing if anyone is interested in specifics.

You do have a scanner - you just don't realize it - your phone. Download any photo to pdf app and photograph the pages with your phone. Or just do photos and then share those.

Text of the bill:

https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/senate-bill/204...

Vice mentioned it in their article:

https://news.vice.com/article/this-bill-would-allow-a-lawsui...

It appears to be the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism act:

https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/senate-bill/204...

Conceptually, though in reality/over shorter time frames, it's potentially just as tied to political/human considerations vis a vis the person setting the compensation decision. Maybe easier to avoid this in start-ups, but I saw it happen with some frequency in the context of working for a large global bank. At a certain scale, feudalism or liege-lord-vassal models becomes as good of a mechanism for interpreting outcomes at a human level as anything else.

When you walk into their office and go back towards the area where Elon's cubicle is, the same photo of the terraforming transition is blown up on the wall: https://www.flickr.com/photos/44124348109@N01/9848295393

Their company mugs also have a heat sensitive image of Mars that terraforms itself: http://shop.spacex.com/accessories-81/occupy-mars-heat-sensi...

Elon is ::definitely:: already thinking about the colonization phase of the project and has taken steps to highlight it to the company and the public.