dougabug

24 ms·

181.
by dougabug 12y ago
The Uber drivers are paying for the cost of the car, gas, maintenance, parking/garage, most of the insurance, etc. plus supplying the labor, while Uber takes probably around 80% of the profit. Getting rid of the driver means that Uber
182.
by dougabug 12y ago
Maybe this sort of effort could be supported by some kind of hybrid MOOC/crowd sourcing framework. A big part is perhaps a cultural shift. In the US, tipping servers is voluntary, and yet most people are fairly consistent about tipping
183.
by dougabug 12y ago
I don't know that there is a "right" level for the bar. There might be a game theoretic way of looking at the problem which explains how we wind up with the levels that we do. In relative terms, the bar for, say, the NBA is m
184.
by dougabug 12y ago
I don't know if it's exactly a zero-sum game, but the rate at which talent is created doesn't seem to be amazingly high given that there are over 7 billion people on Earth. Certainly the talent pool seems to be a small fracti
185.
by dougabug 12y ago
Change "job" to "role." Roles define us, whether official or volunteer. They might be unpaid caretaker roles, relationships, mother, father, sibling, husband. The mind adapts readily to roles, perhaps explaining why we s
186.
by dougabug 12y ago
I'd never heard of Adria Richards before, or I'd forgotten it as an absurd non-newsworthy event. On reading about the incident, I thought "What a humorless, vindictive [Beelzebub]" I was kinda glad that she got fired. Bu
187.
by dougabug 12y ago
There are countless many unmet needs and wants in the economy; and countless solutions which badly fit the problems that people actually have. Steve Jobs strong armed the carriers into offering unlimited data for $30/month. With Steve
188.
by dougabug 12y ago
Ultimately cost is always at least part of the problem. You want to compare a niche, point solution to a general solution (always connected, first option for mobile everything). People are wondering why iPad sales have seemingly topped out,
189.
by dougabug 12y ago
Is the state going away sometime soon? Or it's going to stop intervening? Good luck with your $1 a day, "enslave the people" software tax. World of Warcraft generates ballpark the numbers you are throwing out there, although
190.
by dougabug 12y ago
Clearly, Verizon and AT&T (I've had both) are the problem. For various reasons, alternative carriers are not yet competitive at scale. I have zero interest in a metered, shared data plan. Throttled to 3GB monthly for me is not unme
191.
by dougabug 12y ago
Blame the short-sighted greed of Verizon and AT&T, for jacking up the price of wireless data beyond reason after Steve Jobs died. My iPhone is essential while my iPad is "nice to have" because my iPhone is always connected and
192.
by dougabug 12y ago
You still have to pay taxes, at least property and payroll taxes, and comply with laws; and the government can still print money, tax people and corporations, employ people, give/lend money to institutions at low rates, and pass laws a
193.
by dougabug 12y ago
"Gig Economy"? First it was "Sharing Economy," an equally bogus attempt to control perception by inventing language to make piece work and unsteady labor seem hip and innovative and even socially conscious. I think the &
194.
by dougabug 12y ago
Exactly my thoughts. Performance of both incremental improvements seems similar, would be interesting to see what the combined effect would be. It's pretty clear that they're reaching the limitations of the data set, though.
195.
by dougabug 12y ago
Google bought Thrun's self driving car startup, well after he led the team which won the DARPA Grand Challenge with Stanley; and subsequently acquired additional startups with autonomous vehicle technology. Apple purchased chip design
196.
by dougabug 12y ago
The Mac was not an imitation Alto. Xerox tried and failed subsequently to commercialize the Alto. The iPod was not an imitation Diamond Rio; the iPod could fit in your pocket and hold most people's entire music collection, rather than
197.
by dougabug 12y ago
They weren't in their wheelhouse when they went into phones, either.
198.
by dougabug 12y ago
Wasn't Android also an acquisition?
199.
by dougabug 12y ago
No good deed goes unpunished... This just makes it that much more likely that institutions will hesitate before offering free access to materials online.
200.
by dougabug 12y ago
Goldman liked credit default swaps, too.
201.
by dougabug 12y ago
How so? This is about Google's relative competitiveness. You seem to blithely dismiss Apple's success with iOS relative to Android, claiming that high end Android phones sell in comparable quantities. This is patently contradicted
202.
by dougabug 12y ago
The flaw in this thesis is that Uber charges 25% of the fare, plus fees, while the driver takes on the cost of the vehicle (depreciation, maintenance, finance), gas, parking, and pretty much everything else. If you get rid of the drivers, t
203.
by dougabug 12y ago
Apple's profits from the iPhone alone in the last quarter exceeded the total profits of Google and Microsoft combined.
204.
by dougabug 12y ago
My self driving car will drop me off right at my destination, park itself, drive itself, refuel itself (at the lowest cost), pick up my dry cleaning while I'm busy, and pick me up again, so no lost opportunity cost there. I have a gara
205.
by dougabug 12y ago
Globally private car ownership is soaring, especially in countries such as China where public modes of transportation have long been dominant. Self driving cars will be great, I can't wait to own one, but I disagree that renting someth
206.
by dougabug 12y ago
Do you spend most of your life sleeping on public beds, lounging on public sofas, and public furniture? Eat most of your meals in restaurants? Rent your clothes? I'll spend some time in a hotel if I have to (i.e. far from home, no frie
207.
by dougabug 12y ago
Who owns the cars? Who is liable for problems which arise? If I'm anywhere near home, I'm using my own self-driving car, not something used by tens of thousands of unknown people. If I'm somewhere else, I'd like to use a
208.
by dougabug 12y ago
I'm not sure why G+ should succeed. It's one of those, "Who ordered that?" propositions. I don't understand, does Google want to be all things to all people? I would rather that they brought self driving cars to com
209.
by dougabug 12y ago
Actually, a Lie Group is a group which is simultaneously a manifold, such that the group multiplication corresponds to diffeomorphisms of the manifold onto itself. The Lie Algebra corresponding to that Lie Group is the tangent space of the
210.
by dougabug 12y ago
Having youtubers hawk goods seems not so different from advertising/endorsements/affiliate links. I think something that might be more useful for people would be low friction engagement of consultation/services/speaking&

More ›