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tmh79

2,422 karma · joined March 22, 2016

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tmh79··on We Still Need Howard Zinn
>>> "But there is no place for it today, where better scholarship exists and the Internet provides ready access to a plethora of view points"

Thats now how history works at all man. Pretty much all writing on history goes into the metaphorical dust bin maybe 20-40 years after it is created but the "dust bin" isn't a dead place that no one should ever explore, its the world of historiography, and understanding how people understood their point in time at different points in time. No one should read a history book like its the bible handed down from on high, they should read it knowing the authors biases, the contemporary views on the authors work from other experts in the field, and an understanding of their own knowledge level and context. The reality is that a huge amount of K-12 American history education is propaganda and for someone with a K-12 American history background this book is a very compelling read that provides a useful counter narrative to what they have been taught, the main function of which is not to blindly trust the words in the book, but to understand the practice of history not as a recitation of facts but an analysis of past events with a specific point of view, and how different points of view from authors with different motivations can give different views of the past. IMO, this really brought the field of history to life for me.

tmh79··on Uber CEO says its service will probably shut down temporarily in California
Uber would set hours because they would only hire people to work at times when there is demand. You would not be able to "clock in" at will, because there might not be any rides for you to take, and thus no reason for you to get paid.
tmh79··on Regional Air Mobility: Why we don’t plan to operate flights under 20km
I dunno man, im getting kind of jaded as I get older. "True moonshot" to me seems more like cheap clean water for everyone, or a real way to sequester carbon, not a way for rich folks to get to their country cottages faster.
tmh79··on Germany's military missing over 60k rounds of ammunition
I mean, this is specifically accurate but a useless metrics.

Its literally bullets/kill.

Modern urban warfare tactics include a whole lot of shooting where the intent is not to kill the enemy, but to make the enemy hide and reduce their ability to shoot at you.

The army also uses lot of ammo to train and stay competent.

Its similar to how most military pilots clock hundreds of hours flying for every hour of combat they experience.

Bullets/kill is like an extreme version of "game winning scores"/"all shots ever taken in a game or training"

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suppressive_fire#:~:text=In%20...]

tmh79··on How the 2021 Ford F-150's onboard generator works
Some 100+ comments on here and no mention of the horrible impact having more of these giant trucks around is going to have on the climate. This is technically interesting, but experience shows us that most of these trucks will be purchased by suburban dwelling office workers who commute 90+ minutes/work in this thing, and use the plug in feature 2x/year tops. We really need to stop seeing enormous trucks as socially acceptable and need to start seeing them as sociopathic.
tmh79··on How the 2021 Ford F-150's onboard generator works
There are lots of self employed people that own nice trucks, but the primary sales target of the F150 is a wealthy office worker who lives in the suburbs. By far their biggest customer base is people who like the aesthetics of the truck but do not need a truck, and do not use the features of the truck beyond its size.
tmh79··on Rents are dropping across the US
demand has changed quite a bit, lots of people are leaving cities, and fewer people, especially new grads from undergrad and profession school like business/med, are moving in.
tmh79··on Declining worker power vs. rising monopoly power: explaining recent macro trends
how is this contradictory?

Firms that are monopolistic are less competitive, larger, and slower growing. Reducing monopolistic tendencies increases capital growth, competition, and reduces average firm size. This is well understood economics.

Monopolies arent' some hypercompetitive ultra capitalist battlespace, they're fat and happy, and the most impactful teams they employ are lobbyists and policy folks in DC. Look at like, comcast and what they did with the FCC.

tmh79··on Uber cuts 3000 more jobs, closes 45 offices
Vast majority of these offices are small hubs in tier 3 cities occupied by regional tems, or tier 1 cities with multiple offices.
tmh79··on Building Uber’s Go Monorepo with Bazel
"Uber is absolutely not on the scale of those companies, and most of the time they should probably be using off-the-shelf solutions when they become available."

I agree, but I'd also add that the state of the world in 2016 when most of these infra projects were launched is very different from the state of the world in 2020. Back then, uber was not easily able to run on a bunch of OSS/cloud native solutions, but now for sure its not just possible but likely the best/most responsible way to do it [source: worked there for 4+ years]

tmh79··on Eerie emptiness of ERs worries doctors: where are the heart attacks and strokes?
IMO, there is a lot of hocus pocus going on in the "medical error is the 3rd leading cause of death" statistic, and the case they chose to highlight is extremely atypical. The vast majority of health care spending and the vast majority of medical resources are spent on old people in their last 18 months of life. Most deaths due to medical error are very old people undergoing risky and invasive surgeries they demand to have and are unlikely to have a great outcome in, not children. How much of the blame should be placed on the doctor when the patient is 80+ years old, has comorbidities, has been counseled on the risks, and wants to proceed with treatment? Bypass surgery is quite effective on someone younger than 60 who is also put on a diet and exercise regimen, and doesn't have diabetes. Bypass surgery is not effective for someone over 60 who is obese and has diabetes and will not change their diet habits.
tmh79··on Uber CEO Says Layoff Decision to Be Announced Within Two Weeks
earlier leak said 20% of employees across all departments
tmh79··on The San Francisco Bay Area shelter-in-place order is being extended through May
Solidarity must enter the equation because if you don't take care of those who are vulnerable, the economy will tank worse than it already has. People dying is expensive, and this many people dying is a lot more expensive than the cost of keeping things officially shut down.
tmh79··on Magic Leap reportedly slashes jobs and steps away from consumer plans
They weren't selling a fantasy, they were selling real tech. Their block has been "consumerizing" it.

My understanding (from sources who have experienced the demo) is that their first demo was BONKERS. They projected light right onto the users eyes, so instead of having a AR heads up display, you had a light beam projecting images into your eye so they could add elements into your field of vision and make it look like they were naturally there. The issue is that they couldn't get that demo into any sort of a state where it could be commercialized. The rig was the size of a large room, the person hooked in was basically required to be stable for the duration of the experience. The eye-tracking for projecting was difficult and worked alright but not 100%. The funding they received was based on the demo of tech. After they realized they wouldn't be able to commercialize it, they transitioned to a more classic AR setup. The magic leap tech will work, but it will be 10-20 years until we are able to use it.

tmh79··on SoftBank expects $24B in losses from Vision Fund, WeWork and OneWeb
Its in court, but softbank hasn't paid the corporate structures that controlled wework the money noted in their deal. Its pretty crazy that no one really talks about how weird the weWork corporate structure is: https://twitter.com/tomgara/status/1161762187590995974

All of the "deals with wework" are really deals with different parts of this weird structure.

tmh79··on California, Oregon and Washington announce western states pact
There are also lots of reports of confiscations of PPE:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/06/us/politics/coronavirus-f...

https://www.firehouse.com/safety-health/ppe/news/21133559/fe...

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/fema-denies-involvement...

I hate to be a conspiracy theorist, but this smells real bad to me. The reports of confiscations are coming from democratic states, not republican states. And it seems like republican lobbyists are getting into the game of distributing PPE:

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/bob-livingston-group-mike...

What it seems to me is happening is a coordinated yet amateurish attempt to restrict the PPE flow to/within democratic states, while allowing the free flow of PPE in republican states. This allows some lobbyists to make money off of it, as well as sticking a finger in the eye of dem leaders (and dying people/healthcare workers in dem states).

tmh79··on California, Oregon and Washington announce western states pact
in the current moment, the "confederacy of southern states" is the federal government. I do not expect to see them different from a federal response due to their loyalty to trump.
tmh79··on Airbnb Paying More Than 10% Interest on $1B Financing Announced Monday
yea, its def a risk play.

Lets say they can make it 12 months with cash on hand, what does the funding env look like in 12 months?

There is def someone with a big spreadsheet who has modeled this out and decided this was the best path forward.

tmh79··on Airbnb Paying More Than 10% Interest on $1B Financing Announced Monday
If the demand crash is transitive, then it would cost a lot to rebuild all of those things. They've definitely done the math. The reality is this is a very expensive crises for them.
tmh79··on Airbnb Paying More Than 10% Interest on $1B Financing Announced Monday
I mean:

apple is essentially a proxy with zero skin in the game. They don't manufacture the phones, screens, chips etc...

airlines are proxies, most planes are leased not owned...

Hotels are proxies, most hotel properties are franchises not owned by corporate...

tmh79··on Airbnb Paying More Than 10% Interest on $1B Financing Announced Monday
They are expecting their revenue to basically go to near zero for the next year.
tmh79··on Amazon, Instacart delivery workers strike for coronavirus protection and pay
The issue at doordash is the following:

(1) Drivers are paid in 2 factors, a tip provided by the user, and a per delivery fee provided by doordash thats variable, and generally in the industry is between 10 and 20% of the basket cost

(2) doordash additionaly guaranteed a total "minimum compensation" per delivery up front that was like ~20% of the cost of the basket

(3) Doordash would use the tips users paid to offset the amount they would pay drivers in order to meet the "minimum comp guarantee", so if you ordered 100 dollars in food, and tip 20 dollars, and the minimum compensation on the order was 20 dollars,doordash would pay the driver nothing, and your whole tip would sub for driver pay. If instead you tipped 0 dollars on your 100 dollar basket, doordash would pay the driver 20 dollars out of its own funds to meet the minimum comp. Likewise if you tipped 10 dollars, doordash woud pay 10 dollars.

tmh79··on Covid-19: the harms of exaggerated information and non‐evidence‐based measures
hospitalization rates are being shared. IIRC, they are generally around 20% of confirmed cases, but the testing rate is low here so hard to know the true numbers
tmh79··on Time to Ban Wet Markets
the issue isn't seafood (living or dead) its live mammals and birds. Tsujiki doesn't sell any mammals/birds and the vast majority of what is sold there is long dead, so its fine. The issue is when you have lots of bats/pigs/birds/etc in close proximity.
tmh79··on Canada to bar entry to non-residents (except US)
yes, I totally understand that. While they are separate countries, their economies and supply chains are extremely closely tied together and closing the border to US people would cause an extreme econ shock in both countries. Retaliation from the US would probably be stupid, out of scale, and make the situation much worse. My whole point is I don't think Canada would risk it.
tmh79··on Canada to bar entry to non-residents (except US)
I mean, they definitely could in a legal sense, but then the reaction from the US would likely be extreme and putative, it would likely cause a huge shock to the Canadian economy, and it would risk a sharp decline in the legitimacy of the canadian government.
tmh79··on Canada to bar entry to non-residents (except US)
Interesting question: Do you think the Canadian government has the power to deny entry of US citizens into Canada? I don't think they'd be able to do it.

[edit] I think any Candian government who actually did it would see an economic shock and loss of legitimacy so large that none of them would risk it.

tmh79··on Anthony Levandowski ordered to pay $179M to Google
his contract to sell w uber had a significant earn out, the 680m was based on hitting different tech milestones. He hit none of them before he was fired.
tmh79··on California’s housing crisis: how a bureaucrat pushed to build
Comments above are correct, I'd also add that NYC and SF are "inducing demand" not by building housing, but by building office space at a rate 8x-12x that they are building residential dwelling units. Over the past ~10 years, for every home the SF bay has added it has added office space for 8 jobs. Adding housing doesn't create more demand for housiing, adding more offices creates more demand for housinig.
tmh79··on California’s housing crisis: how a bureaucrat pushed to build
the issue is the reference frame. We are building a lot relative to 2009 to 2013, but that time period was a historic aboslute low point in new housing starts, the "boom" that were in now has less new housing production that the majorith of previous "busts" since WWII
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