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stephengoodwin

163 karma · joined October 10, 2011

Entrepreneur and engineer

www.stephengoodwin.net

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stephengoodwin··on Roku says it may lose YouTube TV app after Google made anti-competitive demands
Welp, I specifically bought a Roku device a few months ago just to use YouTube.

I ran into major issues using Fire TV's YouTube app. The app would fail to get past the initial loading screen and hang forever. It would typically require 2-3 device restarts to work again, and even then it would only work temporarily. I tried completely resetting my Fire TV, relogging in, etc but never managed to get it to work properly). YouTube is the only app I've had issues with on Fire TV.

Google also discontinued YouTube's great web browser experience, which was almost identical to the app, that you could load in Fire TV's web browser.

stephengoodwin··on Robinhood raises $323M at a $7.6B valuation
Correction: Should be Long Call for the first scenario: defined risk protection (for shorting), not Long Put.
stephengoodwin··on Robinhood raises $323M at a $7.6B valuation
Not that I'm aware of. The only alternative would be to permit shorting if the user has a Long Put for defined risk protection.

You could always to a synthetic short through buying a Long Put, but time (and often volatility) decay become a factor (for shorter term trades).

stephengoodwin··on Plastic Bags to Be Banned in New York
Seattle permits retailers to charge 5 cents per large paper bag.
stephengoodwin··on Cleaning sprays have an impact on lung health comparable to cigarettes
When you say that you clean with a steamer, do you mean something like a garment steamer?
stephengoodwin··on Announcing Ethereum and Litecoin vaults
I tried to sign up for Coinbase back in July and kept running into problems during the id verification step (at some point, they thought I was under 18). I tried to work through their customer support, but only received automated messages.

Eventually, I gave up and went somewhere else.

stephengoodwin··on Everyday ‘Placebo Buttons’ Create Semblance of Control
If you're looking for something new to listen to, 99% Invisible is also a fantastic podcast.
stephengoodwin··on The rectangularness of countries
There's the exclave Point Roberts, Washington (http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0408/feature7/), which falls ever so slightly south of the 49th parallel.
stephengoodwin··on The rectangularness of countries
The YouTube channel WonderWhy has a video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtLxZiiuaXs) on complex international borders wrt enclaves and exclaves.
stephengoodwin··on Google deletes artist’s blog, a decade of his work
I love Takeout. Given how much of our lives is invested into digital platform, I wish every Internet company had something similar to Takeout for user data.
stephengoodwin··on Robocalls have triumphed over the Do Not Call list
This is why I started giving businesses and retailers my Google Voice number, instead of my personal number.
stephengoodwin··on Alphabet Becomes the Most Valuable Public Company in the World
Apple also started paying quarterly dividends in 2012[1]. Whereas, Google does not pay out dividends[2]. Apple's annualized dividend yield is 2.2% (for comparison, Microsoft's is 2.6%[3]).

[1] http://www.streetinsider.com/dividend_history.php?q=AAPL

[2] http://www.streetinsider.com/dividend_history.php?q=GOOG

[3] http://www.streetinsider.com/dividend_history.php?q=MSFT

stephengoodwin··on Microsoft pulls in $1.35B in revenue for Surface line
> being subject to a wall of glowing bitten apples staring at you

Remarkable imagery.

stephengoodwin··on United Airlines' Quest to Be Less Awful
About 1/2 of the flights I've taken in the past 5 years have been on United or Continental. 11 flights on United and 4 flights on Continental[1] (I keep track of my airline travel in a spreadsheet). 2 of my United flights were international. My most recent United flights was in late 2014.

I can only speak for myself, but I've never had a bad experience with United or Continental. A few small delays here or there. One 3 hour delay caused by really bad weather, but no cancellation: I still made it to my destination before 1am.

For context, I've always flown economy, by myself or in a small group, and usually departing from Austin or Houston.

[1] In this instance, 1 flight = 1 leg.

stephengoodwin··on Trails – Modern MVC Web Framework for Node.js
The last time I checked in on Sails.js about 9 months ago, Mike McNeil, Cody Stoltman, and Scott Gress had just gotten back from YC for Treeline (http://treeline.io).[1]

[1] https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/the-treeline-company

stephengoodwin··on Trails – Modern MVC Web Framework for Node.js
FYI, the trailsjs.io official site listed on Github is just a Namecheap landing page.
stephengoodwin··on How to fix America's financial relationship to healthcare
If you don't mind me asking, how much did you pay for the "coverage"?

Did it offer any kind of discount for minor or major dental work (e.g., cavity removal, wisdom tooth removal)? Or was this covered by your health insurance?

stephengoodwin··on Amazon Prime Photos
Is this new? I've been using this for over a month now.
stephengoodwin··on When coding style survives compilation: De-anonymizing programmers from binaries
Call it a best practice for inexperienced artists and writers. If I, for instance, were to take up painting as a hobby, I would try to find some artistic formula or method to follow before branching out into a more unique style.

I would consider this more important for writing than art, since reading novels involves much more of a time commitment from your audiences to appreciate, whereas art gives more flexibility in deciding how long your audience wants to spend with it.

However, there's a difference between bad art and writing and bad programming. Bad art and writing lacks appreciation. Bad programming is full of errors, hard to maintain, and runs slow, giving an overall poor user experience.

stephengoodwin··on Google Login will be mandatory for Firebase accounts
Context: Firebase was bought by Google in 2014[1]

[1] http://techcrunch.com/2014/10/21/google-acquires-firebase-to...

stephengoodwin··on Netflix socks detect when you've dozed off and pause your TV show
I would have loved to see that chart for the Red Wedding.
stephengoodwin··on AirBar: Brings touch to PCs – works with gloves/paintbrush
Side comment: Excellent use of the .bar domain extension.
stephengoodwin··on The Tacoma Narrows Bridge Collapse and How We Got It Wrong
> This was a major concern at the time, but wasn't publicized.

Side question: Is there a good place to learn about major structural engineering fixes that were kept secret until the work was completed?

stephengoodwin··on Seymour Cray and the Development of Supercomputers
I always found it somewhat humorous that Cray invested so much effort into the look of it's supercomputers, considering very few people would actually see the inside of a super computing center.
stephengoodwin··on The Mysterious Aging of Astronauts
On the reverse side, I've always wondered if being in a weightless environment makes your muscles feel great[0], since they aren't working against gravity. Over the years, gravity can create lots of problems for posture, which is why swimming (which lessen the effects of gravity) feels great.

[0] I'm using "Feel" in a relative context, since muscle weakness/wasting will not feel good once you're back in a non-weightless environment.

stephengoodwin··on My car was damaged with FlightCar and they don't care – here's the 3-month story
My biggest concern with lending my car out to strangers is many insurance policies don't give the replacement value of the car if it's totaled. Typically to purchase an equal vehicle (based on year, mileage, condition), you would need to spend up to 10-20% more.

Although, I've seen a few car insurance polices offer "gap coverage" at a nice premium to make up for the difference.

stephengoodwin··on US State Dept Issues Worldwide Travel Alert
Has the State Department issued a Worldwide alert like this before?
stephengoodwin··on How to lose $5B
As a consumer who ships packages every now and then, I'm impressed with how usable USPS's web site is compared to UPS or Fedex.
stephengoodwin··on Twitter Expected to Begin Layoffs and Stop Headquarters Expansion
Considering Twitter is still the first go-to social platform for reactions to news, I doubt it.

Nonetheless, I've had trouble convincing my parents why they should use Twitter.

stephengoodwin··on Amazon Will Ban Sale of Apple, Google Video-Streaming Devices
I've always wondered if that was a regional variance. Since I live in Texas, I assume the prices of our grocery store staples are cheaper than they would be in, say, downtown New York City.

But if I lived in a more urban, city environment, where easy parking isn't a given and picking up groceries in a car is more a hassle, then the time savings of having Amazon deliver for close to the same price that I would pay in store is much more worth it.

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