pneill

The story of scurvy is way more complicated that this article would have you believe. Lind partially shot himself in the foot by attempting to a make lemon juice more portable (and easier to store on a ship). He did that by boiling down the lemon juice to form a "rob." But he never tested his rob and had he done that, he would have realized that the boiling of lemon juice destroyed that vitamin C inside (this is in addition to the issue of copper pots, etc). So folks at sea, used the rob, and it didn't work. And then there is how Captain Cook muddle the issue, but because he had a big reputation and that carried way.

The history here is complex and very unsatisfying due to gaps in the historical record, but it' darn interesting.

What I don't understand is why science museums aren't more geared toward adults. For me, it's hard to tell the difference between a children's museum and a science museum.

I'm having trouble understanding how a breakup addresses the allegations in the case? Wasn't this all about Google paying Apple for search exclusivity on iPhones? How does a breakup address that?

Of course it's a good business. Just not at the price points people can afford.

Watch the video I liked to above. It's about a person that owns a laundromat in SF who wants to convert the building to affordable house. He basically wants to do the right thing, but the regulations make it impossible. It was EYE OPENING for me.

Asking why there isn't enough housing is like asking why water is wet. The answer is state/local government regulation.

There's an old saying "your margin is my opportunity" and I suspect that the current crop of homes that are built have decent margins, but in a deregulated market an entrepreneur could come in offer more affordable housing options with lower margins.

You can see this in vehicles. Nobody complains about the vehicle affordability problem because there are far fewer regulations in the transportation industry (don't get me wrong, there are regulations, but not a constraining as you see in the housing market). There's a vehicle at every price point. You got bikes, then ebikes, mopeds, scoters, motorcycles, sub compacts, compacts, full size, trucks, suvs, and all the way to crazy expensive sports cars.

You don't see that in house because affordable housing is not a good business. It's impossible to offer options at the lower end of the market because of zoning laws, environmental impact regulations, a difficult permitting process, nimby's, and affordable housing politicians that are really big proponents of affordable housing except "they have question about this particular housing project."

Here is a terrific video that everyone should watch that shows how insanely difficult it is to make affordable housing. A

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExgxwKnH8y4

Sometimes what you need is less government regulation, not more.

edited sentence "You don't see that in house it's not a good business." to You don't see that in house because affordable housing* is not a good business.

I see these posts and just shrug. Tech companies have lifecycles. There is that early startup energy where "we're all in this together." Then, if they're lucky, success and growth, but the startup mentality remains. But as the company grows, it can't maintain the startup culture. It's simply not possible. And then companies mature and you have bureaucracy and leaks and empire building and layoffs, etc. It's inevitable.

What surprises me about Google is not that its changing, but that it's taken so long to change.

Interesting! Thanks for the link, but that just explains how to get the hydrogen for the process.

What about the energy to run the HB reaction? It's super high temp and high pressure. Is there a zero carbon way to make that?

I love that Toyota is forward thinking, but where does the ammonia come from? The most common way to make it is via the Haber-Bosch process, which, as I recall, consumes 1% of global energy product as of today. I wonder what that number would look like if we manufactured fuel that way?

Disney is under some pretty serious financial pressures, but it's not for sale. The most profitable part of the company is the parks, and they will never sell those. But what might be for sale is some of the IP - eg. Lucas Film, Marvel, or Pixar. But what I'd expect to see first is some sort of license where Apple TV+ gets Disney Plus content shortly after it's released on Disney (or maybe they get rights to distribute after a series has completed on Disney Plus.) That would help Apple get a real handle on the revenue opportunity there and if it works, then make a play for overall IP ownership (assuming that Disney gets desperate enough)

I'm a reformed news junkie. At one point, in addition to consuming local, national, and cable TV news daily, I also read three newspapers a day (I was young and hand more time on my hands back then) and listened to NPR. But my confidence in the news was shattered long ago. It started with the OJ Simpson trial. Back then I was between jobs and had time on my hands so I could watch the actual trial, which was televised on CourtTV. Day after day, the prosecution would lay out their case and then the defense would destroy it. OJ really got his money's worth with that defense team. At night I would then watch the news coverage, which only told the prosecution story. I kept say, "did we watch the same trial?" Long before the glove didn't fit, I was 100% confidence he would be acquitted. But the world was shocked when jury came back with the not guilty verdict because they only knew one side of the story.

After that I started to consume news with a more critical eye. Another story I remember was on NPR and the narrative they wanted to tell was that streaming music services were screwing the independent musicians. The example they gave was how a radio station might play an artist song and get some sum of money per play, but a much, much lower payment on a streaming service - of course they completely forgot to mention that a radio station is a broadcast where a single play could be heard by millions, but a single play on a streaming service was only heard by a single person.

At a certain point, after you catch a few of these stories, you start to wonder what other stories aren't true that you're not catching. And you lose all faith in the institution (it's super depressing) The question I like to ask folks who excuse the news is this - if a close friend of yours lied about something important to you and you caught them, how many times would you have to catch them lying to you before if you'd stop trusting them all up? It's not many 1 maybe 2 times. The news has done this to us all over and over.

What's the solution? Like it or not, we really need journalism in this country. I tell folks that the collapse of the news industry is one of the greatest problems in this country that nobody is trying to fix.

The only solution I've been able to dream up is this. Create a tax on digital advertising and cloud computing (these are arguably one of the biggest causes of the decline in journalism). Then use that money to create 3 quasi governmental news organizations (like the post office or amtrak). Make it pay journalists like software engineers, with the expectation that they waive their voting rights for life. (note that Bob Woodward once said he doesn't vote to mitigate bias). Then set up an system where each news agency is incentivized to monitor the other news agencies for accuracy. If they think they're misrepresenting the facts, they can present that to collection of ombudsman* to judge. If it's deemed that they misrepresented the facts, they lose budget. Do it enough, and they're out of business and and the money is used to form a new news agency.

*Note ombudsman, once a mainstream in the news, seem to have all but vanished.

Anyway, that's my story and my idea. What's yours?

The core issue is that there isn't a free market at work here and there are conflicting motivations that are preventing progress toward that model. One the one hand, people want higher education to be affordable and cost effective (which requires a free market) but on the other hand they want higher education available to all even if that means taking on an ROI negative course of study.

For example, if we allowed student loans to be a bankruptable form of debt, then over time, certain schools and majors would be unable to get loans, which then could have a series of economic responses such as universities increase tuition for ROI positive majors to support ROI negative majors or some departments might close or we might see consolidation of universities specializing in certain types of education.

It pains me to say this, especially since I saw Star Wars in the theater over 10 times when it first came out, but you have a point.

When I was a kid, I saw Star Wars over 10 times in the theater, and I LOVED it. For the time, it was revolutionary science fiction film. But I remember after the first time I saw it with my dad and I excitedly asked him "what did you think?" He said it was over rated. I remember being crushed by that comment, but now.. I dunno. The plot is pretty weak and predictable.

But I think that's why a lot of fans are so disappointed by the new Disney star wars material. Rogue One seemed like such an elevation of Star Wars - Star Wars for grown ups. And the hope, at least of me, was that Disney+ would run with that. But after Boba Fett, I just walked. It was atrocious.

There are lots, but here is one examples:

In "Falcon and the Winter Soldier" there is a random scene where the police hassle Falcon. (this was shortly after tragic George Floyd incident). It wasn't part of the story, had nothing to do with the plot. Why was that there? The first thing they teach you in dramatic writing is cut fluff. That was fluff that just got people worked up.

"She Hulk" also was filled with political narratives.

And again, I'm not taking a political stand here. I'm just saying when I sit down to watch a Marvel show, I want to escape and have fun. I don't want to be reminded of controversial political issues - unless it's essential to the plot. Otherwise, if I wanted to watch a show about politics, I'd just turn on the news for free instead of paying for Disney+.

Side note: I heard second hand from someone who works at Disney that Tune out Times (ToTs)- when a user stops watching a show, spike at these things. The data is telling them they're aggravating their audience, but they just keep on trucking... God knows why. They're a business, not a political activist group.

To some extend that's true, but it was always in service of the story. What's happening at Disney is just the opposite - they're randomly inserting ideological stuff which has no relation to the story or they're contorting stories in support of an ideological narrative.

And I don't care what your politics are, but when you insert politics into a story, your gonna alienate a major part of your audience OR you're going to the ruin the product experience of consuming TV. When people sit down to watch TV, they just want to relax and escape. Inserting politics, pulls people out of that and gets their blood pressure up. Who needs that?

We don't need a "very special episode of.." every week.

This isn't widely talked about, but one of the ways that folks in China can get their money out of China is by buying foreign real estate. So if you're worried about protecting your assets from the CCP, this is a great way to do that.

But one of the side effects is that it drives up costs of real estate for citizens. It's hard for a regular person to win a bidding war with the Chinese millionaire/billionaire who is more concerned about protecting their assets than buying a home for a fair price.

Things got so bad in Vancouver, that they banned foreign buyers. See: https://www.immigration.ca/canada-foreign-buyer-ban-starting...

The net was buying moved from Vancouver to Seattle.

Anyone that tells me they don't have the money for something, I always say "open the books." People are terrible at managing their money. I can't tell you how many high income earners are living pay check to pay check.

And there's a solution for folks who are drowning in debt, declare bankruptcy. But this is where student loans are insidious - you cannot bankrupt them. That's the one big change that folks should make wrt to the student debt crisis. Make the loan eligible for bankruptcy (like any other loan) and then keep demographic statistics on who defaulted on their students loans and use that to reduce credit to high risk majors/universities/etc.

Testify!

Try "Coming of Age in the Milky Way"

First, thanks for the awesome tip about 990 forms. Had no idea. It's interesting in that these numbers differ from the conversations I've had with academics who tell a different story. But I had those conversations decades ago, so perhaps the inflation of higher education has had an impact here.

The number you cite is inflated because in includes both US and international students. Is the revenue from international students broken out anywhere?

But that doesn't change my point. If the number is >0, it's a problem. The US tax payer should not pay for foreign workers to take US jobs.

To be clear, I'm not opposed to international students. I'm just saying that when it comes to impacted majors like computer science, where not everyone who wants to study it can do to capacity constraints, the US government should incentive universities to offer the opportunities first to citizens and then to international students. Right now, for some universities, those slots are reserved for international students.

Tuition is a drop in the bucket of the funding model for a research university. The majority of university funding comes from research grants and that's why the piece they take off the top is so outrageously high.

Note that I don't question your point about the use of international student fees to subsidize domestic students. I'm just saying reducing the cost for students can be done many, many other ways.

The point I'm making is that the US tax paper should not pay for foreign students to take US jobs. And if we tightened up that we might not need so many H-1B visas.

It's not about tuition.

It's about funding of the university.

Typically a university will take 50-90% (Yes, up to 90%) of a research grant to fund the university (keeping the lights on, etc). And universities are the ones making the decision to fill available slots in CS departments with foreign nationals.

Across the US, about 20% of the spots to get a computer science degree are occupied by foreign nationals. The research at these universities is funded by US research grants. If there's a need to create more skilled tech workers, it might make sense to tie federal search funding to changing these numbers until the need for H-1B visas falls below a threshold value.

Right now, the US taxpayer is funding the education of skilled foreign workers to take jobs from US citizens. That's messed up.

For reference: https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF11347

The number probably came from looking at what brick and mortar stores do. Typically stores "mark up" products by 40% from their distributors. And if you think about it, that's effectively what Apple does, but in this case, the distributor (aka app developer) has to "mark-up" the price to cover the cost incurred by selling in the app store. In general this practice is pretty common in retail.

I'm not opposed to basic income, but before we do something like that I think we owe it to people to teach them how to actually use money. If you look at the US Bureau of Labor Statistics for people making less than 50K a year, you'll see stuff that blows you mind. https://www.bls.gov/cex/2019/CrossTabs/sizbyinc/xtwo.PDF

For example, a family of two making less $15K a year is spending $1,800 on restaurants. A family with that income should not know what the inside of a restaurant looks like.

Giving people money without the knowledge or skills on how to use that money effectively is throwing that money away. I wonder if other countries that have basic income programs do a better job education their people on how to use money?

I get it. You're saying if Apple takes less of a cut, then that savings will trickle down to me.

The stunt by Epic, aside, has that ever happened to you? Has your Netflix bill ever gone down because they secured a better discounting with their cloud service providers due to their growing volume?

That's never happened to me (but maybe my experience is unusual)

But for the sake of discussion, let's explore how this might play out.

If a developer switches to a different payment services or store, they'll have to make a decision - pocket all the cost savings (and hopefully pass it on) or take some percentage of that saving and channel into their new acquired support costs. They'll have to support refunds, false charges, etc, right?

The big developers will hopefully act responsibly and balance the savings with their new support costs.

But what about the small(er) ones? Will these 2-10 people developer shops be prepared for the support costs? What if the support costs are greater than the savings?

What's your take?

> If customers don't like a ceratain app store, or solution, then they don't have to use it. I am trying to force other people to do anything with their own phones. I just want Apple to stop doing this to my devices, when they, for example, sue people who offer repair services.

This is an interesting answer. It sounds like you're not an app developer, so why do you care if Apple takes 30% cut of the developers app? Or is it that you're concerned about apps you like not being available due to contract disputes? Could you elaborate?

They wouldn't brick your device as the native apps would always be available.

In my mind, I'm toying over how committed Apple is to the customer experience. Apple always talks about the user experience first and if they honestly believe that a free and open store is a bad experience (just for the sake of discussion accept this point), would they consider ending the app store (say for all new devices) because they'd rather give a "great" experience rather than being forced to give one they believe is substandard. Essentially protect their brand.

I don't see Google ever doing something like that. But Apple... I dunno.

Yeah, but how does Apple/Google determine if an app developer has the capability to do it and verify that they're consistently doing it? Or are we saying that only big companies with verified and known payment platforms can use their own payment system?

And then, how many bad experiences for these types of purchases (or articles about bad experiences) will customers tolerate before they stop trusting in-app or third party purchases? One? A hundred?

Not sure I follow you. Do you mean, they won't do it because it makes a lot of money or do you mean they straight up don't have the right because of the economic platform they've created benefits a lot of people.

Just to be clear, I'm just trying to understand if folks think the app store is a public commons or is it private property?

Lots of the comments on this issue imply that the store is a public commons. And I'm wondering if that's a common view.

Logically, you're 100% correct. But I don't think most folks will reason it that way. Do you think a senior citizen will follow that reasoning? And then how will they contact the provider? What is the provider doesn't respond (for the case of simple refund request)?