Daniel3's comments

Daniel3 | 6 years ago | on: Launch HN: SannTek (YC S19) – Breathalyzer for Cannabis

If your product is at all worthwhile, it will constantly be tossed back and forth between lawyers, trying to uphold or disprove its validity. ("Well here's an independent study done on how arresting officers with shaky hands get inconsistent results when administering the SannTek Cannibus test" et al et al ad nauseum) While yes, this is a problem in any society that applies capitalism principles to the practice of law.... I don't think there's necessarily a better system, sadly. Don't feel responsible to fix it all yourself. Anyway, pursue the technology as well as possible, by all means work in as many checks and balances as possible for correct use, and constant calibration, BUT ALSO talk and document openly during your design phase and testing the ideology you develop to govern false positives versus false negatives. This is an extremely engaging technology ethics discussion. If you drive the error to be false negatives, at a rate of 5%, will you not be able to sell it, because your customer is most interested in an effective tool? What is the societal benefit of getting this device to be accepted and used by the police? If you can achieve FN=4% is it worth it, or is the societal benefit actually much higher, possibly at FN =20%. Can you just run the test 5 times in a row, or with 2 stand alone devices to reach the dependability rate you desire? If you drive the error to be false positives, at a rate of 1%, can you sleep at night with the lives your product will effect, or do you need a fall back like your device determining with 100% accuracy that cannibus is present in someone's system (just not a definitive, exact amount), PLUS a statement from an arresting officer stating erratic or dangerous driving or behavior in conjunction with your device's input. I'm very excited about what you're doing. I didn't know (still not yet convinced) that the science is solvent, but I've been asking about this device for years.

Daniel3 | 6 years ago | on: Launch HN: SannTek (YC S19) – Breathalyzer for Cannabis

"It’s obvious that the police will want a device that produces more convictions, no point in disputing that." Uh, why couldn't we talk about it as adults? OP's answer below is excellent. Police want a device that will make their job most effective and profitable, with the lowest margin not only for legal repercussions, but also the lowest possibility of people like you deciding that all police officers are pure evil who just want as many convictions as possible. Doesn't everybody want their job to be like that? BLM has made some good progress (and more is needed yet) scaring some pure evil people who happen to be police officers into wanting what's good and right. Probably not prudent to worry about a new technology that might be oversensitive, especially when the first time this thing is used in a conviction by a person with a rich dad, they'll spend as much as possible throwing doubt on the research supporting it, or how the officer was trained to use it, or etc etc etc, in order to build plausible deniability in court and get the case thrown out.

Daniel3 | 7 years ago | on: MIT cuts ties with Chinese tech firms Huawei, ZTE

Really? Blatantly ignoring patent laws, IP, international waters, the sovereignty of other countries, as well as their well documented strong arm capitalism-for-the-sake-of imperialism, like their infrastructure projects in Sri Lanka and other places for the purpose of bankruptcy is just seeking the common good? Its very funny to me how you praise them for championing "open source" philosophy with other people's IP etc... adn then at the end of your statement wonder allowed about them not sharing any of their own. Uh, thats not "open source" thats imperialism by any and all means. Disclaimer: Im not trying to paint this onto China as an entirety or as a culture. There are government forces at work, as well as private entities supporting and abetting this behavior for the purpose of Chinese Imperialism. There are good people and good institutions in China, unfortunately they are not the winds of progress there currently

Daniel3 | 7 years ago | on: Sex differences in functional connectivity during fetal brain development

Reason becomes dangerous when you have an agenda to push because. It mandates that there is a source and authority of that reason. Corrupt religion is a very interesting (and true example, because while vocally, a source of reason is acknowledged (God), the control freakishness of corrupt religion, or anything else, makes plain that they have no unwavering trust in anything besides themselves and power. Non-corrupt religion does not display these failings.

Daniel3 | 8 years ago | on: Ask HN: Why are big companies so much less efficient?

Communication overhead is MORE relevant than it ever has been. Sure, large open-source groups can collaborate on a project, but each person needs to know the operating principles and what element of solution is being held paramount. Regardless of inputs, mathematics can "only optimize 1 variable". Large groups can offer a larger pool of situational knowledge, which is valuable, but if individual A knows a certain element MUST be included, they now have to convince a great number of people that they're actually right. "There are a thousand ways to skin a cat", but if you put 1000 engineers in a forum and ask them to skin a cat, each will chose and champion 1 of the thousand ways (exaggerated for effect) and if left alone will complete it. The artistry is in developing a system to discern a solution that is above average, within the agreed upon timeline. A 4 person team might only brainstorm the 4-10 most obvious solutions, but the discernment process is orders of magnitude simpler.

Daniel3 | 8 years ago | on: Ask HN: Those making over $300k/year, how did you achieve it?

Imagining a world where all the candidates from everywhere could move to SF, etc for their ideal job, do you think wages would rise or fall? Hint: They'd fall. A free market economy is left no other choice than to treat the job "environment" as a "job market", complete with the dynamics of supply and demand.

Daniel3 | 8 years ago | on: Ask HN: Those making over $300k/year, how did you achieve it?

It's a very small component actually. "Value contributed over nominal employee" might be a better way to think about it. Compensation is set almost exclusively on "What must we pay you to keep you from leaving and doing the same thing for the company that is the same distance from where you chose to live. If there ISN'T another company, its vastly less. If the thing you do is something that everyone can do, it's vastly less.

Daniel3 | 8 years ago | on: “God is a Verb” by R. Buckminster Fuller (1968)

AH! I immediately googled "My God is never so small as to hide in the cracks of reality" because it sounds so much like something Bonhoeffer would say. Well done. Also, excellent point, I might disagree with your disbelieving in a supernatural God, especially in terms of design and origin, but yes, physics is an incredible canvas. "For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse." Romans 1:20
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