padobson

So if you don't have a tested company/product that seems poised to grow quickly if only it could get additional capital, you should probably be questioning the wisdom of taking capital in the first place.

If you do have such a company/product, then you should be in a position to be selective, because not getting the capital shouldn't kill you, it will only slow you down. The risk here is that a competitor may catch up to you, which is somewhat less threatening than immediate existential risk.

The selectivity gained by having a tested product will allow you to choose a VC along other dimensions besides the valuation and investment - e.g. network, recruitment, etc.

To me, these seem like they could be highly valuable if chosen strategically. Perhaps you can get huge discounts from a supplier, or maybe there is a politician or bureaucrat in the network that can help you get certain exemptions from cumbersome regulations. Or maybe the VC is a former founder that has solved a similar problem to the one you're facing. Any of these could give you an edge.

I understand that being able to bootstrap to such proven position might seem like a luxury status that few early stage startups can attain, but I would counter saying that probably there are a lot of early stage startups that aren't mature enough to seek funding yet who ultimately end up with an unhelpful VC, and the data in the article seems to suggest that's true.

This wouldn't happen with a $5 pitchfork and a stone threshing floor

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_and_water_hemispheres

Do we know how this is going to play out, though? Has matrimony between same sex couples ever been widely available in any civilization? Rome, Greece, China and Egypt all had various different approaches to open homosexual relationships overtime, but it's hard to find any significant civilization that broadly equated same sex unions and heterosexual marriage. I'll allow that my research on this is incomplete.

I think anyone who thinks they know for certain how this kind of social change will play out on the scale of decades or centuries is mistaken. It's possible that everything turns out great and we enter a golden era of tolerance and flourishing human relationships, but at the same time there's usually something worth fearing in the unknown, which is why we tend to.

https://www.greatlakesbrewing.com/edmund-fitzgerald

The "it" person sits around feeling uncomfortable and is inevitably asked to work on something they don't really know how to do and doesn't want to learn. They usually leave before the company ever gets to the point where the relationship is useful.

That's true, but what about "Keep doing 'It' but at our company for half the hours and double the salary"?

Then you could take the extra time and money and work on your +1 and +2.

One of Malcolm Gladwell's books made a convincing argument that reducing class size quickly runs into the issue of diminishing returns. A cursory Googling suggests there's plenty of research to back it up[0][1]

The effectiveness of in-person learning may have more to do with social interaction and peer motivation. A teacher with about 20 students who is able to create a general excitement for learning in the class seems to be the most effective. A classroom where the "spirit" of learning is alive is ideal for a lot of kids.

[0]https://edcentral.uk/reading-list/431-what-we-have-learned-a... [1]http://hanushek.stanford.edu/publications/evidence-class-siz...

I guess Fox News has figured it out. I'd be curious to see more examples of both success and failure.

I've gotten offers from a handful of startups, but turned them all down because they wouldn't meet the salary offers I was getting from other, more stable employers. They said the equity would make up the difference, but I didn't view that as base comp, I viewed it as risk maintenance in case the startup failed.

On a related note, I always find the loans where the borrower takes on personal liability are in a completely separate category of risk. Anytime you put yourself in a situation where you could possibly ruin your future prospects or mortgage your future labor to a financial institution is much different than your net worth (and your investors' principal) simply going to zero.

If it ends up not being profitable, the bank takes back the house (or Twitter, or more likely the TSLA stock Elon put up as collateral)

Eccentric aristocrats get trapped by the social norms of their classmates. There's even lore around this. For example, people who don't think Shakespeare actually wrote anything[0] also tend to believe it was written by some aristocrat who couldn't reveal they participated in something as vulgar as creative writing.

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Shakespeare_authorship...

My hypothesis is that lefties are more likely to appeal to authority and hit the "report" button when they see something they don't like, and right wingers are more likely to go vigilante and hit "reply" and attempt to persuade/shout the person into agreeing with them.

I've heard other people say this, but I've never heard Saagar say anything I thought was conservative. He's not paleocon or libertarian because he's comfortable with big domestic government programs. He's not neocon because he spends a lot of time attacking big banks and big tech and he has been very critical of foreign military interventions. I've never heard him take a position on socially conservative issues like abortion or gay marriage. So what am I missing?

If it's patent enforcement, wouldn't a bill that reforms the patent protection for insulin makers make a lot more sense than this bill?

The About Me says the author gave up the project after a year or so, but I'm still curious about updating my own epistemological toolbox. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Have you thought about how you'll integrate other big social platforms: YouTube, Instagram, TikTok? I know the picture/video format requires a big expansion of features, and it might be better worth your time to refine the Medium/Twitter connectors, but it's hard for any social-promotional strategy to ignore those platforms. Even just a mechanism to format a post before copy-pasting into the network's app might be a way to approach it.

Browsing the Sokol Github, it looks like it's compiling to web assembly. I'm not very familiar with web assembly, how does one normally debug it?

So this morning at 2:22:22am I did a tweet thread where I posted the 22nd verse of each chapter 22 and added a sentence or two of commentary.

Edit: Some of those chapters didn't have 22 verses, in which cases I used the 2nd verse.

Here it is, if you're into that sort of thing: https://twitter.com/PatrickDobson/status/1496022538580897793

2) Unfuck building codes.

I think it could be greatly simplified by holding the building owner/manager criminally liable for defects that lead to major injury or death, and civilly liable for smaller defects.

There's no reason for the government to have an opinion about what type of concrete you're using or how many feet of wire you're using. They should be policing outcomes, not hiring and sending inspectors all over. If a building collapses, the people who own it and the people who built it should go to jail.

And insurance companies can come after the owners for the smaller problems.

I was able to get through to tech support, but their mechanism for unlocking my account was horrible. I still owe them some trivial amount (<$100), but the tech support team said they had no way to bill me for it unless I could log back in.

So at least it's biting them both ways.

There are 8 billion people in this world, and the Playstation 2 is the highest selling console ever at 155 million[0].

In a world of 3 billion computer and internet users, 12,000 Steam games a year doesn't seem like that much too me.

The real problem is that all the sales are going to go to the top 1% of games.

But here's another truth that dispels the author's main point: I can make one or two games a year, but I can play dozens of them.

Game developers that see this problem should be encouraging people to develop games - and buy as many indie games as they can afford.

In a world where everyone is making art at 1x and buying art at 10x, then many many more people can make a living from their art.

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_game_cons...

The real effect has been to stabilize the economy. I guess people who like gold standards don't know their economic history. The 19th century, which is arguably a recognizable modern economy (in the West), was punctuated by panics and strong recessions that made the "Great Depression" look tame. (which itself makes the Great Recession look pretty tame.). Getting of the gold standard was key to fixing that.

I have literally never seen this argument before, and I've been reading economics books for 10 years.

I'm more curious than anything. Please tell me where I can find more.

I recently read the takes on the subprime lending financial crisis in Obama's memoir [0] and McCain's memoir [1], and I found they agreed on the facts completely, but had completely different political approaches to what needed to happen next.

Ignoring politics Twitter and cable news is also a big help.

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Promised_Land

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Restless_Wave_(book)

If eight hours a day of free time is the only thing separating you from your dream, then there must be SOME way to adjust the math of your life to get that for at least a period long enough to learn the instrument or train for a new job or both.

Reducing your monthly expenses by 1/12 means you could take a full month off and get a jump start on the training you want. You could also add overtime or a part time job and increase your income by 1/12 and then take two months off. Think of it like buying your freedom.