DanI-S's comments

DanI-S | 10 years ago | on: Tiny Farms Raises Seed Round as Cricket Farming Heats Up

I guess I'd summarize the feed conversion part as follows:

- Crickets are slightly better than poultry at converting poultry feed into protein.

- Crickets are great at converting processed grocery store waste into protein; poultry can't do this at all.

- Both species are awful at converting low quality food waste (a mix of chicken poop and straw) into protein.

- The efficient feed conversion of modern poultry comes only after years of research, development and breeding; the efficient feed conversion of insects comes "out of the box" and will only improve over time.

DanI-S | 10 years ago | on: Tiny Farms Raises Seed Round as Cricket Farming Heats Up

I'm one of the founders of Tiny Farms. I think you're probably recalling an article published in PLOS ONE last year that suggested the sustainability of crickets might not meet the hype.

We were obviously very interested in the study! It turns out that the paper missed some crucial factors that make insects a sustainable, efficient protein source.

I guest-wrote this post with some details; do take a look if you're interested.

http://blog.exoprotein.com/crickets-vs-chicken/

DanI-S | 10 years ago | on: The data science that explains why mass surveillance is bad

> "Proper machine learning systems would probably distinguish between someone doing something with a red flag only occasionally and a fanatic who does something based on a strong belief"

The point of the article was that even "proper" machine learning systems will generate either false positives or false negatives, either of which are damaging enough that they compromise the effectiveness of the approach.

DanI-S | 12 years ago | on: Startup Weekend Damascus

Hey there - I'm a software engineer and web developer based in California. I write web apps and infrastructure for a living, and I teach basic web programming concepts at a local hacker space.

It's really inspiring to see this happening. I'd be more than happy to donate my time over the weekend of Feb 22nd-23rd, as a remote engineer, for any/all of the teams taking part in this event. Drop me an email at [email protected] if you think I could be useful!

DanI-S | 12 years ago | on: Ask HN: What is the problem you try to solve?

Insects are already eaten regularly by ~60% of the world's population. It's not so much inventing a new industry as improving the tooling of one of the oldest.

That said, there'll always be a demand for a variety of protein sources. We've had access to complete plant protein for thousands of years, but we consume more meat than ever. Vegetable protein will likely always be the cheapest, and that has been the case since the dawn of agriculture.

DanI-S | 12 years ago | on: EU Parliament adopts resolution to set standards for cloud interoperability

I've been hoping for years that the EU will eventually mandate that a service must be obliged to delete on request - irretrievably, not by merely flagging it as "deleted" - any data held about a given individual.

To me, this is a natural part of the concept of privacy. I can have momentary privacy: the assurance that nobody is currently watching through my window, listening to my phone calls, or reading my emails as I send them. But there's no assurance of future privacy if we don't have the right to destroy our old data, wherever it may be held.

When people provide an entity with information, they're doing so under the framework provided by current legislation regarding privacy and freedom of information. If these rules are subject to change - through new anti-terror legislation, for example - their information may become accessible in ways that they did not expect when it was originally provided.

I don't think it's possible to maintain any real sense of privacy while this remains the case. How can your data be considered private when it can be opened up for inspection at a later date, under a different regime? There's currently no way to participate in a connected economy without giving away your future right to privacy.

Edit: and the reason I've been hoping the EU will do this is that, realistically, nobody else will.

DanI-S | 12 years ago | on: Bitcoin’s roller-coaster ride gets wilder as Wall Street, China climb on

I'm fairly optimistic about the future of Bitcoin, and I own a few myself. However, I don't think this was a responsible post to make.

> When the price suddenly dives, you may want to consider buying. It's always paid off so far. It seems like a solid investment strategy

This isn't really an "investment strategy", it's just speculation - betting on the short term future and hoping it pays off. It's a fun way to gamble your money, but it's a lot riskier than the OP suggests. A "solid investment strategy" is putting a fraction of your paycheck into an index fund each month, not trying to predict the price of Bitcoin.

If you've really done your homework and you think the price of Bitcoin will go up in the long term, by all means buy a couple. Don't worry about waiting for the price to spike down; in fact, maybe stagger your purchase over a period of time to smooth out any variation (this is called 'dollar cost averaging'). Don't try to speculate on short term fluctuation; you will probably get burned.

> Consider this: If you have $10k lying around [...] your $10k will become $14,262 after fees

Or, the price could drop to $500 and you'll lose a few thousand. Can you afford to lose a few thousand dollars, even for a few months while the price recovers? Would you be better off investing it in something less risky? Do you know that you won't need that money in 6 months to pay for emergency surgery, or to fund 3 months' runway for your new startup idea?

You should try to think of investment return as compensation for taking on risk. If there's a large return in a short time, there's probably a big risk, too. Some people can afford to take big risks, but most of us can't.

DanI-S | 12 years ago | on: Penny Arcade’s Insultingly Horrible Job

> This is everything wrong with tech-startup culture

In my experience, this isn't really tech-startup culture, it's entertainment industry culture. If you know anyone who has ever worked in film, music or videogames, it's a fairly typical thing.

DanI-S | 12 years ago | on: Why Japanese Web Design Is So Different

> "Walking around Tokyo, I often get the feeling of being stuck in a 1980′s vision of the future"

I'm British, living in the US, and I've always felt this way about America. I recently heard from an American friend that he felt exactly the same when visiting Britain.

Not sure what to make of it, but it's interesting!

DanI-S | 12 years ago | on: Wysiwtfftwomg

I suspect many people create their content in Word because they have learned the hard way that sometimes, when you click "Submit", the page goes blank and you lose all your work.

DanI-S | 12 years ago | on: The Two Cultures

In retrospect, I shouldn't be so surprised that people here have chosen to read it as proclaiming Science as being superior. That doesn't stop it from being disappointing, and even a little disturbing. Many people here will become leaders of tomorrow; I hope they are able to pick up some intellectual maturity along the way.

DanI-S | 12 years ago | on: The Two Cultures

I posted the article. I don't feel that it makes sense to say that one side of the dichotomy is superior to the other. The main point is that the dichotomy is false.

DanI-S | 12 years ago | on: Swiss to vote on 2,500 franc basic income for every adult

He also attempts to justify the social implications of his position by saying that we can still have high levels of risk-taking and innovation but without suffering an oligarchy by severing the connection between wealth and power.

This is a nice idea, but in reality the power that comes with wealth is an even greater motivator than the improved quality of life that comes with cash. He suggests that his motivation for becoming wealthy was increased security; well, what position is more secure than one of great power? There's no reason that removing the link between wealth and power would reduce motivation less than flattening top level income.

DanI-S | 12 years ago | on: Could Formula E ever rival Formula 1?

F1 is as much about the drama and the personalities as it is about the cars and the technology. If they can attract some big name drivers, there'll be an immediate audience.
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