mschy

I've not used the system in the Prius, but I've used a competing system and it's not at all surprising.

People aren't likely to accept automated driving (even if it's statistically safer than the average driver) but they will pretty readily accept driving aids that watch the car in front of you, and watch if you're in your lane, and what not. I expect those "aids" to continue to advance and expand with them being "aids" for a long time, until liability problems are solved.

And FWIW, I've had no issue when driving rental cars that don't have the radar/laser based cruise control. The experience of regular cruise control and radar/laser cruise control is sufficiently different that there's really no way to mix them up.

The first time I talked to a reporter, the reporter swapped my descriptions of opportunities and threats, so I looked like I had absolutely no understanding of the market at all. After that, I started taking "quotes" with a much larger grain of salt.

Even if I said the chairs were getting replaced every three years, it'd be a pittance. The comfort would need to get me an average of $1 of additional productivity, per employee, per day, to pay for themselves.

If they save a few people back problems, they're more likely to get me, far, FAR more than that.

(Posted while sitting on a Steelcase Leap)

There are lots of explanations that come to my mind before I'd assume he's clueless.

I'd suggest looking at successful sites that serve your target market, and looking at what colors they use. I'm guessing you'll find lots of black/blue/grey/white sites, with orange and green calls to action.

That said, my preferred solution is openvpn.

It's incredibly strange that you view not twittering, spending time on stackoverflow, or blogging as not doing anything.

By that standard, absolutely all of the best people I've worked with in the past decade are useless, and some of the worst people I've worked with pass your test with flying colors.

I'm not generalizing to the idea that bloggers and stackoverflow users are all useless. I'm taking the far more sane position that blogging, twittering and stockoverflowing are uncorrelated to work ethic and talent.

My understanding is that my winrates are still very good, but the rise of massive-multi-tablers and HUDs really ruined the game for me as even if you're turning a profit, it's just not as fun as it once was.

God bless real-life poker.

I funded my first startup by playing nights and weekends. These days, it's solely an avocation, but one I rather enjoy.

I doubt I'm the only person on HN who has large amounts of computing resources to spare. I suppose we'll see what's required to help.

http://www.ishiyamasenko.co.jp/ I've put fine white text over a collection of photos. In some cases, those photos offer virtually no contrast at all. Good luck using it when the the nav is white on cream or white on white! And since it's flash, you can't even highlight it to get some contrast.

http://www.swfc-shanghai.com/ Loading... you clicked on something? Loading.... In fact our site is so slow that we've added a popup that asks you if you want a simpler version (for people who are in a hurry). unfortunately, the simpler version uses a really tiny, light font that's incredibly hard to read. Wondering why it can take (literally) 46.02 seconds to render the media center page? it's because we download 14 zip files full of graphics before we show you the content. (seriously. they do.)

http://moonlinx.jp/special_issue/003/ Loading... no, you can't do anything until it's done loading... Also, once in an article, we use a self-hiding nav-bar, that defies standard conventions.

http://go-jimbou.info/ 3.9 megabytes, and about 2 seconds of delay until you get to the actual front page. But at least once it loads, it's a clearly organized site that doesn't require thought to navigate.

----

I'll stop there, but much of this web design is antithetical to the businesses at hand, or just poorly designed when looked at as anything other than 'art', and realistically speaking, they're supposed to be functional pieces.

Signed, an unappreciative american heathen.

It's a carbon offset program for websites.

For what it's worth, my company is carbon-neutral, and primarily uses "green" power sources (wind, and nuclear). I do it for two reasons:

1) Promotion. For my business, it's very cheap marketing, and a generator of publicity. For next to nothing, I get a few links, and can differentiate myself from competitors on a dimension that is cared about by some.

2) Because until it's proven that CO2 emissions aren't an issue, I prefer to work on the assumption that they are a problem. After all, if I'm wrong, all I've done is inadvertently invest in energy independence which also strikes me as a good thing :-)

Particularly when layered with legal and cultural risks.

It wouldn't be surprising if the dealerships have fancier diagnostics available via $40k machines, but they're in no way crippled from standard service.

I doubt I'm alone in that.

For the vast majority of the time that those products were sold, the mechanism for profit was to keep a piece of the highest risk (and highest return, in theory) piece for the bank.

This is not a mechanism that works, at all, if one believes the products are rubbish.

That said, you make a good point that it's entirely possible to sell a product that you don't like for yourself, without doing it in bad faith. If you came to me and said "i want to put all my money into commercial REITs", I'd find a way to make the transaction happen. But I wouldn't put my money in with yours.

The fact that they held on to the highest risk portion of them as their intended means of profiting from the sale is pretty solid evidence.

I participated in this activity in that I created software systems to enable the creation, valuation, analysis and management of the securities. As such, I'm sure I'm biased, but perhaps I also have some additional information and perspective.

At the points in time when the securities were being sold, they were not known-bad. It's possible a few were sold afterwards, but they stopped being created pretty much the moment it was realized that they weren't going to perform. After all, the profit on them came primarily from holding a piece of the equity tranche (rather than from the sale itself), and the value of that tranche plummeted to zero and those bits were renamed 'toxic assets' in the press.

As this new information came to light, two activities occurred. One was the wind-down of a lot of the structured products. Another was that traders looked for ways to use the information for a profit, such as buying swaps to profit from it.

While I support 'what did they know, and when did they know it' style research to find bad actors (of which I'm sure there are some), it's my sincere belief that the vast majority of the deals were made in good faith.

I don't think the insurance/fraud analogies are accurate, nor particularly useful in garnering lessons learned.

Central bank independence is negatively correlated to inflation as well as variance of inflation. As such, a situation such as the United States has (with a fairly independent central bank) tends to be quite good both at reducing inflation, and at keeping the rate of inflation predictable

Further, central bank independence is also negatively correlated to average deficit as a proportion of GDP. Thus indicating that historically, the more power politicians have to overspend, the more likely they are to do it.

While I don't think the Federal Reserve system is perfect, I do think it's a vastly better system than one that essentially cedes control of the currency to whatever group happens to be governing at the moment.

The only "benefit" of inflation to employers is that it makes it easier to implement wage cuts without facing resistance. That said, if you took away inflation as a way to hide wage cuts, nominal wage cuts would be the new normal in a lot of fields.

Most people have wealth held in real estate, stocks, bonds, cars, businesses, retirement accounts, etc... and a comparative few bucks of cash.

So even if you take the view that it's compound annual interest to the central bank, you're only paying it on the amount of money that you float as cash and non-investment accounts. And in return you get a managed, reasonably predictable currency.

If you buy assets, they'll generally keep pace with inflation (with some fluctuation, depending on which assets you've bought.)

If you engage in productive investment of some sort, you'll generally beat inflation and acquire wealth, which is certainly a desired effect.

If you try to sit on your money, investing in nothing, doing nothing, it will dwindle away. And most people in society are pretty happy with that, because it really means "if you're rich, that's fine... but if you want to stay rich you need to continue contributing to society, if only by loaning others your money for a return."

At 60mph, you'll cover the whole of that distance in approximately 1.25 seconds.

Assuming even a few tenths of a second to notice that I'm stopping, and a few more tenths to realize that I'm stopping FAST, and those "large distances" start to look quite reasonable. Particularly if your car can't brake like a sports car, or if your mind sometimes drifts.

I get a lot more done, and have a lot less stress.

It's also an opportunity to meet people who are sufficiently interested in business, and their careers, to expose themselves to these fundamentals.

As happens with all degrees, some people really seize the opportunity to sharpen their skills for the future, and others simply try to pass the classes. Further, some people are incredibly bright and able to apply the knowledge usefully, whereas others do so clumsily or not at all.

I wouldn't kick somebody out of my office for not having an MBA, nor would I hire them simply because they had one. But that said, I think those disparaging it do so to the detriment of those who listen to them. It's a useful toolkit.

I used to be one of those who disparaged MBAs. Now I have one, and have often been thankful for the breadth of knowledge I was forced to acquire, as well as for the innumerable case studies I read, that really changed the way I consume business news, and the way I think about business strategy.

Dismal.

Right now is a bad time to graduate with an MBA. Or a degree in Engineering, Architecture, Physics, or pretty much anything else.