marvin

74 ms·

751.
by marvin 6y ago
The aviation startups that are in the development phase today, e.g. Boom and Lilium, seem to my casual observation to be planning on operating the service themselves. And thereby forcing change directly, instead of trying to convince the in
752.
by marvin 6y ago
This would be an excellent top level comment. I'm really sad to see that it was drowned in a sea of comments lamenting Assange's personal qualities.
753.
by marvin 6y ago
Assange threads are truly something else. A few years ago, most of the commentary was about how he didn't clean up his cat's poop at the Ecuadorian embassy and therefore, by implication, he deserved whatever he got. Either the dis
754.
by marvin 6y ago
Was it in 2003? I believe that's what GP alleges.
755.
by marvin 6y ago
The fact that this attitude is an easier political sell than the more complex but more fair alternative, is exactly the reason why the rules were changed so you had to already be rich to e.g. be allowed to invest in Facebook before they wen
756.
by marvin 6y ago
Huh? What does the spouse have to do with things?
757.
by marvin 6y ago
To be fair, getting listed on the stock exchange before being a billion dollar behemoth should be legal/possible in the first place.
758.
by marvin 6y ago
That’s saying something about the future of electric air transport, though. Pipistrel is able to smash lots of records using designs that don’t even properly capitalize on the advantages and possibilities of electric propulsion. It’s both r
759.
by marvin 6y ago
Nice. That’s interesting to know. 150 years is as close to permanent as I’d expect of most things that are expected to do something.
760.
by marvin 6y ago
Also, I get the impression there’s an inherent lifetime to these things. If it works for 50 years, you’d consider yourself happy with the result. It’s like changing your roof; it lasts long enough that you can consider it maintenance-free a
761.
by marvin 6y ago
In very wet climates, such as those in parts of Scandinavia, the tradition is to dig a thin trench all along the concrete basement walls/foundations and put a sheet of reinforced plastic along the outside of the wall. Then fill in outs
762.
by marvin 6y ago
>We still see the echos of it to this day as PC based gaming is confined to the closed platform of Microsoft DirectX as they managed to squeeze out and nearly kill off OpenGL. To this day no alternative has threatened this monopoly as Li
763.
by marvin 6y ago
Nothing is ever a done deal. I'd wager money that Tesla will never drop below a market cap of $50 billion again, which is plus/minus 50% an OK definition of "succeeding" for the sake of my argument -- when seen against t
764.
by marvin 6y ago
I wasn't explicit about this, but I fully agree that Nikola is most likely smoke and mirrors. I was making a point about loud/activist short selling in general.
765.
by marvin 6y ago
Problem is, it's almost impossible to know unless you're there. Companies that are dependent on financing might not get financing if loud short sellers are able to change the narrative, and then fail to achieve goals that would be
766.
by marvin 6y ago
There are some cues you could use to get very close, particularly the rhythm of the music. I've heard that a decent drummer can hit a note within 15 milliseconds of the mathematically correct point on average, and that makes it plausib
767.
by marvin 6y ago
Their market cap is currently 20X what Tesla's was when they IPOed, though. The biggest growth phase (in terms of percentages, likelihoods, risk) is behind them. What JPM is trying to do here, is really just extending the point where r
768.
by marvin 6y ago
You're making an underappreciated point: Activist short sellers can be capable of torpedoing a company that would have been successful in their absence, if the company's development depends on financing and goodwill. It does prese
769.
by marvin 6y ago
You'll risk jail. And never having an honest job again. And having to hang out with the sort of people who enjoy the company of con artists. And lying through your teeth all day. And actively spending your creative energies making the
770.
by marvin 6y ago
And yet most scientists would claim that there was no plausible, practical way to achieve a controlled fission reaction, with many flat-out stating it was impossible, at the same time that the first fusion reactor was ticking away in Chic
771.
by marvin 6y ago
You're pointing at exactly what allows a skilled conman to succeed: To a casual, or even non-expert observer, the difference between a genius and a skilled impersonation of a genius will appear very small. You might not be able to make
772.
by marvin 6y ago
Musk states that his company's intention is to advance computer vision to the point where it can safely drive a car, and then offer this technology with the sensors deployed in their current vehicle fleet. Milton stated that using a ve
773.
by marvin 6y ago
I work in banking in Europe, one of the internet-only ones. We have super rigid governance routines regarding cloud storage. You can’t store a single byte on any cloud service, even incidentally, without a thorough review ensuring that no c
774.
by marvin 6y ago
As mentioned in sibling thread, unless GP is 80 years old and has had their head in the sand for the last 30 of them, the word in question is likely "svart" (black) rather than "neger" (negro).
775.
by marvin 6y ago
The word in question is not "neger", it's "svart". Translating to "negro" and "black", respectively. The former has been considered old-fashioned or pejorative for a couple of decades, the latter
776.
by marvin 6y ago
That seems like an unreasonable statement when meeting a culture that's not your own. Let's say you're offended by the word "blank" because of cultural transgressions that have happened throughout the last 100 years
777.
by marvin 6y ago
Ditto I'm aware of a famous composer (leading productions involving tens of musicians on stage at once) who doesn't know how to read sheet music.
778.
by marvin 6y ago
Bingo. The world is more polarized now, and PG’s classic essays would get the same treatment if published today. Those who don’t have a knee-jerk reaction to the politics they seem to imply, aren’t as loud as those who have to disagree.
779.
by marvin 6y ago
In one sense it’s sort of a moot point, as companies that hire this type of executive will in the long term be driven out of business by those who don’t. But I don’t think you can properly incentivize people to avoid this class of mistake (
780.
by marvin 6y ago
This seems like a common climate denial tactic. I’m seeing it in my home country as well. Lots of truly bad-faith skeptic contributions to climate change forums on Facebook, made by people who obviously don’t care about science or evidence.

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