pkennedy

The way I think of it is by going back to how PG once described HN as YC's university campus. Like a college campus, people come through, some stay, some leave. Each new class has to learn some of the same lessons... hence some history, and some classes/topics, repeats with predictable periodicity.

Doesn't mean it doesn't bug the old hands to see the same thing come through again and again. :) And links to old discussions occasionally dig up useful old learning.

I guess I need to dig deeper with that case, but 20 symptomatic cases is probably linked to many others exposed and needing monitoring and prophylactic care[1]. So maybe not big, but not tiny either.

[1] for example, this case that happened in my old town had 3 symptomatic, but 175 or so others needing treatment: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5341a3.htm

And I totally get the skepticism of authorities thing. I only developed what trust in medical authorities I have after doing prepress work on a lot of medical textbooks and getting more familiar with the literature. Frankly most of us don't have a chance of keeping up with the state of the field when even professionals can barely keep up.

That makes sense. All of the above run strong in the rather new-agey community I grew up in.

One of the current big US measles outbreaks is church-related: http://www.npr.org/2013/09/01/217746942/texas-megachurch-at-...

My anecdotal experience among anti-vaccination people I've known is that they're only weakly correlated with religion or politics--leaning slightly left but still all over the map.

Florida, actually.

I guess I should update my profile. It's kind of neglected.

Yeah, small world, eh? There's at least two others around, but they seem to be heads down building stuff right now.

Hey, another MSAE graduate! (I graduated in 1997, and went to MUM after that.)

I've found TM pretty useful in my life, too. I still do it regularly. Nice way to step away from everything and re-center.

Not for orbital flight, but NASA did use one as a testbed for rocket engines, such as those for the NASP.

Indeed. The control of shock waves inside the inlet (also via that moving cone) is a very interesting part of the engine, too.

It's entirely time and money. They only have so many devs, most of whom have day jobs, and pretty limited funding to support them, so the UI (and many other polish-and-details things) had to take a back seat to more important core functionality.

re: number 4: the difference in reaction to coders vs. entrepreneurs looking for coders at local Ruby events has been amazing. I got much better reactions as a beginning but committed Ruby coder than the guys that were there looking for a technical cofounder to do that part of the work for them. Showing a willingness and real interest in the technology really helps establish a rapport, in ways that I wouldn't have even guessed at before I started learning to code six months ago.

I now think it's totally worth the experience to make the effort to learn, regardless of whether you plan to be a 'biz guy' or 'code guy' in the long run.

Also, re: point 3: no kidding. learned that the hard way in my previous life as a writer/photographer. I'm still trying to figure out how to get better at giving that kind of feedback.

Reason 3 is why I am constantly advising friends not to take "promote your business on Facebook!" classes, especially when there are other, more direct avenues available to them. I've come to the conclusion that social and marketing are an awkward mix, and most people route around attempts to inject the latter into the former.

On the other hand, social media is a great way for your customers to tell their friends if they've had an exceptional experience with you. So I believe making it easy for your customers to talk about you is far more valuable than building on Facebook itself.

A recent edition I read a couple months ago mentioned it in a sidebar, as a personal anecdote. But it was mainly about her realization that the scientific methods of her colleagues were rather less sound than they at first appeared.

edit: in light of this: http://www.susanblackmore.co.uk/journalism/NS2000.html I'd have to agree that the coverage of the matter in the book was rather insufficient.