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johnloeber

1,841 karma · joined November 2, 2014

www.johnloeber.com

twitter.com/johnloeber

github.com/datamine

I'm an applied mathematician with wide-ranging interests.

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johnloeber··on Dutch DPA fines Uber €290M because of transfers of drivers’ data to the US
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johnloeber··on Dutch DPA fines Uber €290M because of transfers of drivers’ data to the US
Where does it say that I lived in the US my whole life? You're getting ahead of yourself.

From another blog post:

> I grew up in Europe (mostly Germany, Denmark, Switzerland). I had never even set foot outside the continent until I was 18, when I moved to the United States. I have lived here for 12 years now, with most of that in San Francisco.

johnloeber··on Why many studies wrongly claim it's healthy to drink a little alcohol
I'm amazed that this is still an ongoing discussion. All of these "studies" have been distracting with muddied data from a very simple, unambiguous scientific fact: alcohol is a poison. By its immediate biological effects, it literally is a poison. And you shouldn't drink poison.

Decades of studies rationalizing that "actually, people who drink two glasses of wine a day live longer" and their ilk, have only ever distracted from this simple truth, obviously so hard to contradict by first principles.

johnloeber··on Is Steve Ballmer the Most Underrated CEO of the 21st Century?
I've had the same thought for a long time. I think this is spot-on. Ballmer is underrated in that he put Microsoft into a profoundly well-resourced position that a better product leader was then able to make productive use of.
johnloeber··on Researchers: Weak Security Defaults Enabled Squarespace Domains Hijacks
I've been very happy with Dynadot. I don't like that domain hosting is just one of many products for Cloudflare and others (as we've seen come up for Google!) and have had bad experiences with Namecheap et al.
johnloeber··on Klára Dán von Neumann
Any idea how it was quoted without being published?
johnloeber··on Waymo the Leapfrog
The natural monopoly emerges from the economy of scale: eventually you are offering a product at a price that nobody else can profitably undercut, because they do not have the same infrastructure that you do. And obtaining that infrastructure is too expensive for anyone to fund.
johnloeber··on Waymo the Leapfrog
Hi, author here. This is a good point that's worth addressing.

Technology is not the reason it's a winner-take-most market. It's helpful, but in the long term, many players will have comparable technology.

Utilization is the reason why it's a winner-take-most market. If you have the most popular app with the best drive liquidity, that's a self-reinforcing feedback loop. In turn, it means that your economics are better because your cars are going to be utilized at a higher % of the time. This in turn means that you can charge lower prices, and so forth. (A similar dynamic has been the case for Uber, for example.)

johnloeber··on Waymo the Leapfrog
Author here - Good catch, thanks for pointing this out
johnloeber··on Waymo the Leapfrog
Author here - not an ad, I don't even know anyone at Waymo and don't hold any associated financial incentives.
johnloeber··on Waymo the Leapfrog
"In places with working public transit" is a huge caveat here. The vast majority of the US does not have what I would consider "working public transit". And those places aren't going to get it any time soon.

Unfortunately, sitting in a Waymo is experientially not at all the same as riding the BART or NYC subway.

johnloeber··on Waymo the Leapfrog
Hello! Author here. Quick responses:

1) With superior scale, the utilization of each Waymo approaches 100%. "Empty rides" going to a new pickup spot become more and more rare because they immediately get a ride close-by.

2) I think you underestimate the case for shared rides. Any Waymo with >= 2 passengers is reducing congestion, not adding. When you consider small bus-shuttles, e.g. 6 or 12 or 18 seats, it gets even more impactful.

3) The point with suburbs is that they become more accessible when the price point comes down. If you have a 45-minute commute to drive yourself, an Uber might cost you $60, which would be prohibitive. If a seat in a carpooled Waymo costs only $5 or $10, the incentives and customer behavior change significantly.

johnloeber··on How to test without mocking
Create one DB for the whole test suite, and then re-instantiate tables/schemas on every unit test.
johnloeber··on No one buys books
Worrying about the environmental impact of books is misguided. You use far more paper products in the course of your everyday life: paper bags, cardboard packaging, paper towels, etc. etc. Even for an avid reader, the impact is negligible.
johnloeber··on The Reconstruction of Ulysses S Grant (2017)
Not to distract from your point, but you mean topography, not topology.
johnloeber··on How to found a company in Germany: 14 "easy" steps and lots of pain
You really expect to open a bank account anywhere in 2024 without KYC?
johnloeber··on How to found a company in Germany: 14 "easy" steps and lots of pain
Not anymore. Online banks like Mercury will do it entirely remotely without any residency requirements, IIRC.
johnloeber··on She slept with a violin on her pillow
I don't think there's anything wrong in making a traditional label that conforms to all other labels (i.e. looks aged).

That's a design choice, and design choices that appeal to tradition are everywhere, even in software.

johnloeber··on School absences have ‘exploded’ almost everywhere
This is a severely regressive policy, and -- by the way -- already the case. The vast majority of per-student resources are spent on the bottom 20% by performance.
johnloeber··on Cactus – A Modern Diablo II Version Switcher, Character Isolator, & Mod Manager
As a former D2 player, I don't think so.
johnloeber··on Institutions try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution
It's actually more than twice as high haha

$57K, https://www.hoover.org/research/despite-spending-11-billion-...

johnloeber··on Ask HN: How to do transactional SMS as a bootstrapped or startup company?
How many messages are you expecting to send? 300 - 500 USD/mo suggests hundreds of thousands of messages. Are you expecting thousands of users? If so, any chance that some of your users will pay for your service?
johnloeber··on Progress on No-GIL CPython
Yep! The only thing that remains is to focus on that code being properly functional; i.e. avoiding side-effects. Side-effects and parallelism don't mix well. Wonder if this will give rise to more functional languages.
johnloeber··on Downtown San Francisco Luxury Apartment Tower Loses Half Its Value
Correct. NEMA was always kind of ill-conceived.
johnloeber··on WeWork Skips $95M in Interest Payments
Accurate. I had a similar reaction and ended up writing a detailed blog post about it: https://loeber.substack.com/p/12-what-i-wanted-from-wework

WeWork was executing a strange vision of how "creative" work should be done while ignoring the ordinary needs of office workers. Open-plan couches instead of soundproofed phone booths.

johnloeber··on Tire dust makes up the majority of ocean microplastics
Where was this island? Would love to go!
johnloeber··on Three Arrows Capital co-founder Zhu arrested in Singapore airport
SBF down, Do Kwon down, Su Zhu down, many many more to go... I've been amazed at how slow the law seems to be in apprehending the most egregious scammers from that era.
johnloeber··on Lead Toxicity from Ayurvedic Medicines
It is actually not legal to sell anything in a capsule and call it a supplement in the USA. The FDA's guidance still applies.

There are lots and lots of unscrupulous online supplement merchants who are breaking the law.

johnloeber··on Browse websites by fonts
> "Most people do not care at all."

I think that might be directly contradicted by your first sentence. People do care. Design matters, and typeface selection is a big part of that.

johnloeber··on How to drill your own water well
It's called Dowsing and there's no evidence that it works. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dowsing
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