brianmcconnell's comments

It's pretty disappointing to see someone of Thiel's stature do this. Distasteful choice and motives aside, it's good to remember that the tech industry has a long history of forwarding poorly thought out political initiatives while underestimating politics as its own craft with separate and largely non-transferable skills. (Tim Draper's plan to split California into six states, two rich, four poor as dirt, being a relatively recent example of something that didn't work out so well).

If Thiel had really wanted to disrupt presidential elections, he could have thrown some money and social media connections behind Evan McMullin as a way of throwing a malotov cocktail into the race. It's his money, but if it were me I would not want to be associated with someone as vulgar as Trump.

Actually, what _you_ should do is have first hand experience of dealing with a good friend in the midst of a severe drug addiction crisis (who can't phone mommy and daddy for help with rehab). It was impossible to get him committed for any length of time, even after he set fire to someone's house. He would have been way better off if he had been on lock down for 3 to 6 months, but instead had to completely destroy himself, lose everything, get thrown in jail, etc. He's just lucky he didn't end up in our shadow mental health system also known as state prison, which happens to an awful lot of people whose only crime is to be mentally ill and poor.

I moved to SF in the early 90s. I think you can pin the large homeless population on several things. One is the climate. If you had to pick a place to be homeless, this would be one of the best places. Another is it is relatively safe compared to other cities. But most importantly you can blame Ronald Reagan for dismantling the states mental health infrastructure. Institutionalizing people has its downsides, but its more humane than letting people overdose on a sidewalk. It also doesn't help that other municipalities have a habit of dumping their social services burdens on San Francisco (one way buses from Nevada, etc). I don't see anything changing until we have a national or at least regional mental health system that can actually deal with the scale of the problem.

Oh yes, sort of like the Internet was an obvious instant hit! IIRC the Internet/web/etc slow cooked in a Crockpot for several decades before it became commercially viable. Somebody please correct me if I am missing something.

While the VC backed services drop like flies, neighborhood businesses continue as if nothing happened. I've lived in the same neighborhood in San Francisco for 20 years. The local dry cleaner is still doing just fine, though a bit older and grayer.

I think the lesson here is that the Uber for X model was predicated on people being so unhappy with the incumbents that they would switch. Pre-Uber taxi services were criminally awful enterprises that deserved to get a beating. Local neighborhood businesses might be a bit low tech, but they know what they are doing (so there isn't much to disrupt).

Looks like it could be similar to the Wow signal, a brief strong transient that was never re-observed. Hopefully this time, the Allen Telescope Array can keep an eye on it long term.

An issue in SETI is the duty cycle problem. If a transmitter is cycling between targets (an isotropic beacon would require insane amounts of power), the receiver needs to be looking at the transmitter at the right time.

I agree that artificial gravity, plus radiation protection, are must haves for long duration deep space flights.

With inflatable structures, artificial G is possible to do with much less mass than you think. Using Bigelow Aerospace's BA330 as a proxy (60kg/cubic meter of habitable space), you would need between 5,000 to 20,000kg to build a 100m long passageway between 1 to 2m across on the interior. Inflatable structures are made from materials that handle tensile loads well (the hoop stress from pressurization in particular).

As an added bonus, the inflatable passageway, besides functioning as a tether, creates usable habitable space, so if one is clever, it is not strictly speaking deadweight mass.

Alex Tolley and I looked at this in detail while working on papers related to our "spacecoach" design pattern, you can find a good intro at https://medium.com/@brianmsf/traveling-to-mars-just-add-wate...

Cue Donald Trump In 3...2...1

If you are plagued by robo calls, especially from Julie your local google specialist, I highly recommend the Jolly Roger Telephone Company as a countermeasure.

Gawker didn't out Peter Thiel. Peter Thiel outed Peter Thiel. It was the worst kept secret in San Francisco, and he had a public Friendster profile that made it pretty clear he was GAY GAY GAY.

Then why isn't he suing his "friend" who made the sex tape without his consent? That's the original sin then. I am answering my own question here (Gawker has more money than his friend!)

Two important points here.

#1 Gawker did not out Peter Thiel. Peter Thiel outed Peter Thiel. Back when Friendster was a thing he had a public profile which featured him shirtless on a boat which clearly advertised his interest in handsome men. So on the scale from Closet Queen to Totes Obvious, he was more on the side of totes obvi. It was also the worst kept secret in San Francisco, particularly if you had any latin friends. So Owen Thomas was right in concluding that Thiel was already out when he ran his "Peter Thiel is totally gay" piece because it wasn't news to anybody.

#2 if Hulk Hogan is claiming injury and embarrassment from a sex tape, why did he make a sex tape? Yes, Gawker is muck raking trash (I just read it for the comments!), but they trade in such material. Unless I am missing something, Gawker didn't trick him into making a sex tape. Common sense would tell you that if you don't want your sex tape on the Internets, don't make a sex tape in the first place.

On a somewhat related note, a few years ago I was flying to a mobile phone conference in Barcelona. I thought it would be fun to bring my Port-O-Rotary cell phone along (available from Sparkfun Electronics).

I enjoyed hours of fun and merriment going through security with it. Frankfurt in particular was a real bitch, as they called in the bomb squad to dismantle and inspect the phone. After they finally cleared me, one of the guards asked me "What is the purpose of this?" I responded "Because it's fun".

At least security in Newark had a sense of humor about it. They took photos of it for a book of all the weird shit that's gone through security there (I really hope they publish that someday).

Safety sells. Let's say it's 2025. You can buy a Tesla Model Z, or GM's latest sedan for about 30 grand. In addition to the E-MPG rating, there's also a new sticker for deaths and injuries per mile driven. The Tesla auto-drive enabled car has a death rate one tenth that of the GM car. Which one is your spouse going to insist that you buy?

I personally like to drive, especially on road trips, but I like the idea of a car that has much better reaction time that can correct if I do something stupid, or it sees something I can't (via vehicle to vehicle reporting).

Speaking of which, there will be many many opportunities to reduce impact severity. Example: a vehicle pulls out in front of you unexpectedly. If the car can react instantly where you'd take a fraction of a second, it can shed enough speed to reduce the severity of impact significantly (if not avoid it altogether). Reducing speed by 25%, will reduce the impact energy by almost half, so even small improvements will result in big differences in injuries and fatalities.

Two doors from my house is a deluxe 3 unit condo building that has been uninhabited for years. Not once have I seen any evidence of anyone living there. The units went for little under $2 million apiece. It makes me wonder what will happen if/when China has a financial crisis and people start trying to liquidate their offshore piggy banks.

It's a real dilemma, as the company is doing well enough that the 409a value is not trivial, but its not clear that they will have a liquidity event in the near term. So on one hand I don't want to get screwed on a fictional profit on taxes, but on the other I don't want to forfeit the options as I earned them, and as far as I am concerned, that was part of my compensation for taking below market salary.

It bothers me that the terms are unnecessarily anti-employee. 90 days simply isn't enough time, especially when critical details related to the cap table and liquidation preferences are obfuscated. If they are not prepared to buy shares back at 409a value, they should allow an extended exercise window.

I am currently dealing with this issue, though on a smaller scale.

The moral of the story is to forward exercise options if you can. Basically what this means is you pay to exercise on your start date. If you quit or get pink slipped before the standard one year cliff, the company does a buyback. Otherwise, the shares vest as per your vesting schedule. You can potentially avoid a lot of the AMT nastiness this way, and start the clock on long-term gains treatment on day one.

That said, companies really should scrap the 90 day exercise window. Uber et al want to avoid employees selling shares on side markets. If they just allow them to hold onto their options for years, most will sit on them rather than feel rushed to sell. I know they want to retain talent, but they should be doing that via rewards versus punitive measures.

In any case, its worth it to spend a couple hundred bucks on a tax expert to figure out in advance how to handle options so you don't get burned by taxes on fictional gains.

I think where a lot of technical people get fleeced in compensation discussions is they let themselves get into a 1:1 personal discussion where they feel compelled to agree on the spot. Most business deals are worked out at a distance once the in person meetings are out of the way.

Treat this the same way you might go over a lease for office space. Let them make the initial offer (they have much better data about market rate and what they are willing to pay, you don't and may box yourself into a lowball position). Then take some time to figure out if it works, and take the comp discussion offline.

Keep the negotiation about compensation in writing. There are a million ways for an experienced negotiator to manipulate you in a live conversation. Break things down (salary, PTO, equity, 401k match, telework, other hard benefits), and figure out where they'll budge. And remember, it's not about being greedy, you'll be locking in your pay for 1-2 years, and you're doing your job of negotiating a good deal for you and your family. If someone doesn't respect that, that's a big red flag right there.

You goddamned kids! Get off my lawn!!!

Pilot here. I agree with other posts about energy density being an important factor here. I don't expect to see all-solar aircraft anytime soon. The best way to get aviation to become carbon neutral will be via biofuels, which several airlines are already experimenting with.

That said, I can see a couple of areas where solar will contribute.

While it will be very difficult to generate all of the power needed for an airliner via solar, there's no reason not to cover the aircraft in high efficiency (triple junction) solar cells. A large airliner will have a usable sky facing surface area of 1,000 square meters or so (rough estimate). Enough to generate a few hundred kilowatts of power. If the aircraft has hybrid gas/electric engines, that power can reduce the fuel burn a bit (even a small reduction is a big deal).

I can also see where a serial hybrid design could be workable (e.g. lots of fuel cells generating electric power that in turn drives electric fans). This would be attractive, especially in smaller planes, due to the potential to reduce the risk of mechanical failure.