Month: December 2012

Keep the junk in the suburbs

sentiment expressed near my place due to 7-11 construction. a new generation of arrivals in nyc is indeed trying to bring their suburban ways to the city, instead of escaping from them like previous generations, and some neighborhoods like murray hill have already completely surrendered to bros, while the east village is under attack by WOO girls and stretch limos.

Tyranny of stuff

almost everyone you meet has a clutter problem. sometimes people make half-hearted attempts to get rid of junk, usually by asking themselves the wrong question will I need this again, since the answer is always maybe. better questions to ask: if I need one of these again, will it be terrible to go get a new one then? or is this worth the rent I’m paying to store it?. happy life simplification!

FAA nonsense

Turns out the FAA, just like the TSA, is in the fear-mongering business, with just as much evidence behind their rules, ie none

The agency has no proof that electronic devices can harm a plane’s avionics, but it still perpetuates such claims, spreading irrational fear among millions of fliers.

2013-03-29: Ground regulations

Some FAA rules don’t make sense to us either. Like the fact that when we’re at 11900m going 640 km an hour, in a plane that could hit turbulence at any minute, (flight attendants) can walk around and serve hot coffee and Chateaubriand. But when we’re on the ground on a flat piece of asphalt going 16 km an hour, they’ve got to be buckled in like they’re at NASCAR.

2014-12-15: These new drones are amazing, but sadly not in the US because the FAA is confused.

Those cool nighttime drone cam shots from your local news networks? Illegal. Those YouTube hobbyist flyovers of Apple, Inc.’s (AAPL) headquarters? Illegal. Amazon.com, Inc.’s (AMZN) wild Prime Air delivery drones? Illegal. Google Inc.’s (GOOG) internet drones? Facebook Inc.’s (FB) WiFi-providing fliers? Likely illegal. Hobbyist drones, like the Da-Jiang (“Great Territory”) Innovations (DJI) Science and Technology Co., Ltd. Phantom? Likely illegal too, unless you have experience aboard a real airplane.

2015-09-02: and it is going to be a Zoo

security risks mean everyone from your city’s taxi commission to the federal Department of Transportation, will want to get involved in AV regulation. With costs likely to fall between 50% to 90%, a consumer could increase VMT by anywhere from 2X to more than 5X.

2016-09-04: Pilot grift

Drones only become truly disruptive when they don’t have pilots at all. Yet, the FAA is regulating them in a way that forces drones to have pilots.

Let me put this in terms of work. Drones without pilots make the following things possible (none of which are possible with pilots at the controls):

Tireless. Accomplish tasks 24x7x365.
Scalable. Billions of drones can be used at the same time.
Costless. The cost per minute for drone services would drop to almost nothing.
If these capabilities are unleashed, it’s possible to do for drones what the Web/Internet did for networking.

2023-05-01: Flying is still far too regulated

Contrary to the narrative that today’s airline industry is a deregulatory success story, commercial air travel remains one of the most highly regulated industries in the country. Effectively what changed after 1978 was that the federal government no longer told airlines where they’re allowed to fly, and how much they can charge. That’s no small deal. However, nearly every other element of the experience continues to be dictated—and even directly managed—by the government.

We can have a future where travel is an easier, cheaper and more pleasant experience—where we’re delayed less often and where commercial airlines genuinely compete with a host of different products so we can buy the one that suits us best instead of one size fits all. But to have this kind of abundance, we need a more open and competitive system that focuses on passengers and their needs rather than existing airlines and other special interests.

Mall Death

excellent. strip malls are some of the worst man-made features on the planet and the more bulldozing, the better.

we’re seeing clear signs that the e-commerce revolution is seriously impacting commercial real estate. Online retailers are relentlessly gaining share in many retail categories, and offline players are fighting for progressively smaller pieces of the retail pie. A number of physical retailers have already succumbed to online competition including Circuit City, Borders, CompUSA, Tower Records and Blockbuster, and many others are showing signs of serious economic distress.

World microbiome

The Earth Microbiome Project analyzes microbial communities across the globe. We propose to characterize Earth by environmental parameter space into different biomes and then explore these using samples. We will analyze 200k samples to produce a global Gene Atlas describing protein space, environmental metabolic models for each biome, 500k reconstructed microbial genomes, a global metabolic model, and a data-analysis portal for visualization of all information.

For example, we may have soil samples from a pH range of 4-6.5 and 7.3-11.2 at a range of different temperatures, nutrient loads, and soil types. To understand the full range of soil microbiota on earth we would need to explore samples whose pH is below 4, above 11.2 and between 6.5 and 7.3, and all at a range of different temperatures, nutrient loads and soil types.

End of surprises

In the 60s and 70s anyone could get to anyplace for very little money and when they arrived, it was still not touched by globalization. There were no maps, no guidebooks, no cafes, ATMs, no forums, even no hotels. It was all surprises.

just wait another 5 years when everyone has smartphones, and no one will ever get lost again, or require the services of a local instead of staring into their device for information.

Great Filter Day

Assume that since none of the ~10^20 planets we see has yet given rise to a visible expanding civilization, each planet has a less than one in 10^20 chance of doing so. If so, what fraction of this 10^20 filter do you estimate still lies ahead of us? If that fraction were only 1/365, then we face at least a 12% chance of disaster. Which should be enough to scare you. To make sure we take the time to periodically remember this key somber fact, I propose that today, the day before winter solstice, the darkest day of the year, be Filter Day.