base698

My main concern is the number two aspect of people lowering the hard deck. I remember listening to you discuss all the ways skydivers try to kill themselves after a new invention. I just don't remember there being a rash of people dying from low cutaways back 12 years ago. It seems the incidents the skyhook should help in are increasing. I can't imagine the skyhook has saved more people than the three ring.

That's just my rule and why I never jumped on it when it came out. I knew I should have been more explicit :)

The skyhook is a pretty recent invention. I always have the attitude that if someone hasn't been out five years you're a test jumper. That said it has been out for a long time and seems to be in wide use. I see two cons to using one. 1) Any extra equipment has the possibility of being misrigged and there have been fatalities resulting from this. 2) The psychology of having a faster opening reserve could lead someone to try to fix a main longer than usual since they have a fast opening skyhook. There is an obvious trade off in any new piece of safety equipment. I'm just wondering if this is a solution with unintended consequences we are seeing with all the low cutaways.

http://20committee.com/2014/05/17/ideology-is-making-america-stupid/

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/081299342X?pc_redir=1397582649&robot_redir=1 They also don't go to jail:

Just the reload :) I'll change it so there is a pause or at least reset at some point.

It gets pretty similar results to the old one from a decade ago despite not having real physics yet. http://base698.github.io/freefall-drift/ Source and readme are located here: https://github.com/base698/freefall-drift Will put some more love into it if anyone is interested. Cheers. Here's the original: http://www.omniskore.com/freefall_drift2.html

http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2013/09/taleb_on_skin_i.html https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Uc4DI-BF28 Ie. When wall street takes huge risks and win they profit and win they lose get bailed out. This is a case where they don't have skin in the game--only upside. There should be reward for risk taking, but when that risk goes south then ill effects should be transferred to the one taking the risk.

Out of curiosity, if a company builds a multi-billion dollar infrastructure but doesn't turn a profit, is that still a problem? Amazon was one of those companies that wasn't profitable for a decade but all the while grew into a powerhouse that's a behemoth in retail by reinvesting the capital. It kind of sucks that Tesla has to play these political theatrics when Elon is trying to displace an existing entrenched industry. It's not like Boeing, Northrop or any other US based aviation manufacturer would exist without the same help. Tesla for some reason has to pretend profitability and worry about how the loans looked in addition to building a revolutionary car that won car of the year with haters on every corner.

My wife and I frequently take road trips in the neighborhood of 400 to 700 miles. I tend to stop at 210 miles on average with the low being 180 miles and high end 300. I like to stop at least 20 minutes otherwise my back hurts a lot. That said a Tesla would force us to stop earlier on average and take longer at the stop. Not paying for fuel or paying $3 to go 200 miles would allow me to get over that. If you buy the supercharger option it's free forever, which happens to be standard on the 85kwh model (largest range battery). The 85kwh model Tesla originally quoted as 300 mile range. Around town that's still the case. The EPA test throws in more highway driving bumping the rated range to 265 miles. Throw in 90 degree day and 90mph highway speed and you can lower the range to 200 miles. Why? It's only 10% of the cost of a medium range Model S. They'd still sell at a 10% higher price. No, it's cool because you can beat a Porsche on the highway off ramp, looks sexy, and doesn't need oil changes.

You're conflating the security of a random website hacked together by people that don't know what they're doing and the bitcoin protocol itself. It's like saying the US Dollar is not secure because a bank with an unlocked vault and no guards gets robbed. I disagree that it's anonymous at all, or that anonymity is the best it offers. You're browser and internet usage isn't anonymous even in incognito mode. Using a "fingerprint" of ip, browser version, OS version, and a bunch of other things they can reliably figure out who you are and most ad networks have that information and by proxy so does the NSA :) That information coupled with the IP address listed in the transaction gives it the most traceable and public currency with which you could come up. The largest thing it has going for it is the ability to move money across borders frictionless. Sending $100,000,000 to Dubai for a construction project is just as easy and low fee as sending $1 to Africa. Governments will always be able to tax cars, businesses, and property. I see it as enabling small business ideas quicker without the red tape. You can get away with hiring people or doing business where the government doesn't want you to as long as you're small. Decentralized taxi services, raw milk at farmers markets could all take bitcoin without worrying about their accounts being frozen or even if the bank will give them an account. When they are big enough to lobby city hall they can become legitimate. This is done through a Merkel tree and isn't the whole history in each block: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merkle_tree Every bitcoin client has the whole blockchain and can derive the information from it, which is perhaps what you meant? The Hash of a block is: SHA256(Random Number + Block Data + Previous Block SHA256). If any block changes in the chain then all the SHAs for blocks that come after would need to be recomputed. The computation is the proof of work.

I don't know why you'd restrict it period. Lots of research is showing saturated fat isn't bad like they thought and the excess sugar they replaced it with was worse. Fat also makes you feel full unlike sugar which has the opposite effect. http://eatingacademy.com/nutrition/is-sugar-toxic http://m.smh.com.au/lifestyle/diet-and-fitness/john-yudkin-the-man-who-tried-to-warn-us-about-sugar-20140212-32h03.html

Reading these comments: http://www.cnn.com/2014/02/09/us/utah-newlywed-killed-base-jumping/

Tiger Direct and Overstock now accept it. It makes some interesting UIs possible for online shopping. Namely the minimal amount of payment information like billing address required. Online only services like hosting don't even need that. Only a complete moron would use it for money laundering--double with the current NSA leaks. Before the halving of value, prices were in mBTC and customizable in both payment clients and the bitpay widgets. It's just as easy to send 0.00000001 as 1.

Lots of people, many more in fact, die of prescription drug over doses--most of which are opiates like heroin. No sympathy there either? I know too many dead skydivers and BASE jumpers not to equate it with overdoses. Most of us don't won't to die either but have some fucking compassion when a skydiver with 20 years goes in.

A computer is a bicycle for the mind. Trouble is some people don't actively apply that muscle.

The US is not going down hill--the middle class is, and those of us lucky enough to escape are doing quite well. The rich will leave when there are better schools and opportunities for their children and a better workforce to utilize. I don't see every smart kid moving else where. They immigrate here to NY and SF and start companies.

You're saying: If no police work can be done. Do pointless busy work wasting resources. You say I'm saying: If no police work. Give up. What I'm actually saying: If no police work, do your fucking job and try harder to get meaningful leads.

^ It's not equal to in some SQL versions. That's great unless you only have resources to follow up on 1%. It distracts and misleads from actual police work. That's the actual argument against this sort of thing--nothing to do with feelings.

CEO pay is one matter. But I think what he was originally alluding to is when a bank executive uses mom and pops deposit to make risky bets. When the bets go ok they make 10% and when the bets go sour they lose the whole bank and then have to get tax money from mom and pop to stay in business.

It's still a quarter of the cost of gas and less if you are paying for it yourself. They have a $30K version in the works. They can hit that price point even if batteries don't get cheaper. Buying the Model S is not about saving money. Buying an EV in a few years may be.

It costs under $4 to go 265 miles and free when you fill up at a Tesla station. It's much cheaper than gas per mile even if you compare it to a hybrid. My argument is when they fix inefficiencies in their manufacturing process and have a robust super charger infrastructure. This would enable a cost compatible car and free maintenance. Why would you buy a car at the same price point that has to throw away $30k over the life of the car on gas with oil changes and breakable parts that electric vehicles don't have?

Electric cars are cheaper to maintain with fewer moving parts. The high end ones are fun to drive--emissions impact is somewhere around 10th on the list for me and most of the others that bought a Tesla. I like the idea of using less oil from the mideast and instead use nuke or even coal locally. If early adopters of the Model S and X end up funding a $30K - $40K car that's got twice as much inside room, effectively free to maintain and drive on their supercharger infrastructure that's going to be a huge problem for the current car companies. They have a lot to do to make that happen, but they are attacking the problem on all fronts and have been fairly successful.

The probability of being a victim is likely lower than dying from a no pull. Even if it isn't and it is equal there is some chance of added risk of grumpy old men desiring to be a hero adding risk above that of being a victim.

Research is trending in the pro butter direction. The artificial stuff and sugar is the problem. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/10396755/Eat-butter-not-low-fat-spreads-says-heart-specialist.html Anyone too afraid to see a movie without a gun needs to have their Fox News privileges taken away. Everyday life is not that dangerous.