chris_va

36 ms·

391.
by chris_va 9y ago
Or, with the trade winds, about 15 days on anything that can sail/drift downwind. There were similar, well established routes ("just follow the wind") on the Indian Ocean side of Africa done with very small (2-3 people) boats
392.
by chris_va 9y ago
This reminds me of my favorite unit of measurement: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micromort If there is a 10% chance of collapse every 2475 years, that is ~1.1/10million per day chance, or 0.11 micromorts. That as
393.
by chris_va 9y ago
People always get really upset with drug pricing, which makes for great headlines but not for rational decision making. In 2030, would we as a society rather have a generic, cheap, openly available HepC cure or not? That is the question you
394.
by chris_va 9y ago
PSA: $800/y minimum tax for a CA LLC.
395.
by chris_va 9y ago
Anecdotally, my experience lines up with this article. I was getting depressed with the constant negativity, so cut out daily news, social media, etc. I have to admit, it's pretty wonderful. And somewhat ironic, given that I used to be
396.
by chris_va 9y ago
ADS-B is not a great solution, the latency/accuracy is such that you might know a drone is in the area, but seeing it and avoiding would be difficult. It's a lot easier to spot a small plane than it is to spot a drone. As a pilot,
397.
by chris_va 9y ago
It can be this bad, but it's not very common. Usually it happens in a job with fixed hours. Are you opening up the store in the morning? You'd better be there on time.
398.
by chris_va 9y ago
What makes you think that the current process isn't good? That regulatory experts, say like the FDA/USDA/EPA haven't given it any rigorous thought? Hybridization of plants swaps thousands of genes at random, in an uncont
399.
by chris_va 9y ago
My read is that this will be great for commercial applications (e.g. welding, lighting), but a weapon that doesn't work in a smokey/foggy environment is going to be fairly easy to circumvent. Environments where something is being
400.
by chris_va 9y ago
150kW laser, chaff is 98% reflective mylar, that is like sticking a bunch of plastic in the microwave. Eventually it'll melt, but not fast enough to justify using a laser over a conventional weapon. Honestly, just using a smoke source
401.
by chris_va 9y ago
Reflective chaff costs a lot less than $150M... this seems like it's going down the Soviet Hind/Stinger Missile path of stupid cost trade-offs.
402.
by chris_va 9y ago
Personally I think this article glosses over all of the important details and is fairly useless. This sort of casual assumption is infuriating: "Part of the reason why university graduates earn more is because they are brighter and har
403.
by chris_va 9y ago
Link to the exercises: https://developers.google.com/machine-learning/crash-course/...
404.
by chris_va 9y ago
This perhaps says a lot more about the state of the Hawaii power grid than the benefits of the Powerwall. Due to economies of scale, unless your grid infrastructure is really poor, grid attached energy storage is going to be cheaper than di
405.
by chris_va 9y ago
Nitpicking here... making a 10,000 year clock is fairly easy: Take a thermoelectric RPG and attach it to a quartz crystal. The goal of the project is to build one that can be understood by a primitive society, which has questionable applica
406.
by chris_va 9y ago
Point taken, but I meant evasion. What looks like mis-use of a non-profit entity, combined with funneling money into a black hole trust through "trademark licensing" has the appearance of evasion, at least to me.
407.
by chris_va 9y ago
Not German, though IKEA has a particularly complex corporate structure: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IKEA#Corporate_structure ... which apparently funnels into trusts in Caribbean countries that are not required to di
408.
by chris_va 9y ago
"Anyway, this is just a quick, amateur look at the data." ... Yes, yes it is. Statistics can tell you pretty much any answer you want to hear, if you are not careful.
409.
by chris_va 9y ago
It's buried at the end, but the article agrees with you: """ But for his nonprofit, which wants to build affordable homes at scale, “factory-built from scratch with lumber and steel would make a lot more sense from a cos
410.
by chris_va 9y ago
(disclaimer: I work in a Climate and Energy R&D group) I just want to jump in here because these numbers are all strange. The author mixes units all over the place (e.g. MW vs MWh). The article confuses nameplate capacity and marginal c
411.
by chris_va 9y ago
That route is doubly tough: 1) SAAS in the pharma world is mostly a waste of time. Culturally, they don't want to pay for anything except drugs. There is also a culture of sunk cost, where they do not want to prune drugs from their pip
412.
by chris_va 9y ago
Most of the actual R&D is done by smaller companies, and then the large companies (e.g. Pfizer) buy up the compounds in Phase ~2. They do have some of their own development, but it isn't the majority for most players. They'll
413.
by chris_va 9y ago
As someone who has worked on AI for drug discovery, I would say that the title is correct, but not for the reasons stated. There is also some annoying speculation in this document that is completely incorrect, and unsupported, so I caution
414.
by chris_va 9y ago
Heh, it gets better: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/jun/22/new-technology... ... for some definition of better.
415.
by chris_va 9y ago
To be fair, those companies are just copying Russian/NASA designs, so maybe the money is semi-useful.
416.
by chris_va 9y ago
> they have a very low crime rate. That isn't entirely accurate. Their published statistics on crime are very low.
417.
by chris_va 9y ago
I don't think so, since there are a bunch of clothing companies in there, and 90% of them get most of their fabric overseas.
418.
by chris_va 9y ago
So it kills about 675 people per year :/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_accidents#Fatalities
419.
by chris_va 9y ago
This is basically just a summary of the Wikipedia page: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grid_energy_storage ... And really misses the important aspects, notably round trip efficiency, cost per kWh, and cost per KW capa
420.
by chris_va 9y ago
To be fair, the cost of jet fuel has increased by more than 50% too, and won't be the dominant cost if they are only shipping 70 jets.

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