pneill

The story of scurvy is way more complicated that this article would have you believe. Lind partially shot himself in the foot by attempting to a make lemon juice more portable (and easier to store on a ship). He did that by boiling down the lemon juice to form a "rob." But he never tested his rob and had he done that, he would have realized that the boiling of lemon juice destroyed that vitamin C inside (this is in addition to the issue of copper pots, etc). So folks at sea, used the rob, and it didn't work. And then there is how Captain Cook muddle the issue, but because he had a big reputation and that carried way.

The history here is complex and very unsatisfying due to gaps in the historical record, but it' darn interesting.

What I don't understand is why science museums aren't more geared toward adults. For me, it's hard to tell the difference between a children's museum and a science museum.

I'm having trouble understanding how a breakup addresses the allegations in the case? Wasn't this all about Google paying Apple for search exclusivity on iPhones? How does a breakup address that?

Of course it's a good business. Just not at the price points people can afford.

Watch the video I liked to above. It's about a person that owns a laundromat in SF who wants to convert the building to affordable house. He basically wants to do the right thing, but the regulations make it impossible. It was EYE OPENING for me.

I see these posts and just shrug. Tech companies have lifecycles. There is that early startup energy where "we're all in this together." Then, if they're lucky, success and growth, but the startup mentality remains. But as the company grows, it can't maintain the startup culture. It's simply not possible. And then companies mature and you have bureaucracy and leaks and empire building and layoffs, etc. It's inevitable.

What surprises me about Google is not that its changing, but that it's taken so long to change.

Interesting! Thanks for the link, but that just explains how to get the hydrogen for the process.

What about the energy to run the HB reaction? It's super high temp and high pressure. Is there a zero carbon way to make that?

I love that Toyota is forward thinking, but where does the ammonia come from? The most common way to make it is via the Haber-Bosch process, which, as I recall, consumes 1% of global energy product as of today. I wonder what that number would look like if we manufactured fuel that way?

Disney is under some pretty serious financial pressures, but it's not for sale. The most profitable part of the company is the parks, and they will never sell those. But what might be for sale is some of the IP - eg. Lucas Film, Marvel, or Pixar. But what I'd expect to see first is some sort of license where Apple TV+ gets Disney Plus content shortly after it's released on Disney (or maybe they get rights to distribute after a series has completed on Disney Plus.) That would help Apple get a real handle on the revenue opportunity there and if it works, then make a play for overall IP ownership (assuming that Disney gets desperate enough)

I'm a reformed news junkie. At one point, in addition to consuming local, national, and cable TV news daily, I also read three newspapers a day (I was young and hand more time on my hands back then) and listened to NPR. But my confidence in the news was shattered long ago. It started with the OJ Simpson trial. Back then I was between jobs and had time on my hands so I could watch the actual trial, which was televised on CourtTV. Day after day, the prosecution would lay out their case and then the defense would destroy it. OJ really got his money's worth with that defense team. At night I would then watch the news coverage, which only told the prosecution story. I kept say, "did we watch the same trial?" Long before the glove didn't fit, I was 100% confidence he would be acquitted. But the world was shocked when jury came back with the not guilty verdict because they only knew one side of the story.

After that I started to consume news with a more critical eye. Another story I remember was on NPR and the narrative they wanted to tell was that streaming music services were screwing the independent musicians. The example they gave was how a radio station might play an artist song and get some sum of money per play, but a much, much lower payment on a streaming service - of course they completely forgot to mention that a radio station is a broadcast where a single play could be heard by millions, but a single play on a streaming service was only heard by a single person.

At a certain point, after you catch a few of these stories, you start to wonder what other stories aren't true that you're not catching. And you lose all faith in the institution (it's super depressing) The question I like to ask folks who excuse the news is this - if a close friend of yours lied about something important to you and you caught them, how many times would you have to catch them lying to you before if you'd stop trusting them all up? It's not many 1 maybe 2 times. The news has done this to us all over and over.

What's the solution? Like it or not, we really need journalism in this country. I tell folks that the collapse of the news industry is one of the greatest problems in this country that nobody is trying to fix.

The only solution I've been able to dream up is this. Create a tax on digital advertising and cloud computing (these are arguably one of the biggest causes of the decline in journalism). Then use that money to create 3 quasi governmental news organizations (like the post office or amtrak). Make it pay journalists like software engineers, with the expectation that they waive their voting rights for life. (note that Bob Woodward once said he doesn't vote to mitigate bias). Then set up an system where each news agency is incentivized to monitor the other news agencies for accuracy. If they think they're misrepresenting the facts, they can present that to collection of ombudsman* to judge. If it's deemed that they misrepresented the facts, they lose budget. Do it enough, and they're out of business and and the money is used to form a new news agency.

*Note ombudsman, once a mainstream in the news, seem to have all but vanished.

Anyway, that's my story and my idea. What's yours?

The core issue is that there isn't a free market at work here and there are conflicting motivations that are preventing progress toward that model. One the one hand, people want higher education to be affordable and cost effective (which requires a free market) but on the other hand they want higher education available to all even if that means taking on an ROI negative course of study.

For example, if we allowed student loans to be a bankruptable form of debt, then over time, certain schools and majors would be unable to get loans, which then could have a series of economic responses such as universities increase tuition for ROI positive majors to support ROI negative majors or some departments might close or we might see consolidation of universities specializing in certain types of education.

It pains me to say this, especially since I saw Star Wars in the theater over 10 times when it first came out, but you have a point.

When I was a kid, I saw Star Wars over 10 times in the theater, and I LOVED it. For the time, it was revolutionary science fiction film. But I remember after the first time I saw it with my dad and I excitedly asked him "what did you think?" He said it was over rated. I remember being crushed by that comment, but now.. I dunno. The plot is pretty weak and predictable.

But I think that's why a lot of fans are so disappointed by the new Disney star wars material. Rogue One seemed like such an elevation of Star Wars - Star Wars for grown ups. And the hope, at least of me, was that Disney+ would run with that. But after Boba Fett, I just walked. It was atrocious.

There are lots, but here is one examples:

In "Falcon and the Winter Soldier" there is a random scene where the police hassle Falcon. (this was shortly after tragic George Floyd incident). It wasn't part of the story, had nothing to do with the plot. Why was that there? The first thing they teach you in dramatic writing is cut fluff. That was fluff that just got people worked up.

"She Hulk" also was filled with political narratives.

And again, I'm not taking a political stand here. I'm just saying when I sit down to watch a Marvel show, I want to escape and have fun. I don't want to be reminded of controversial political issues - unless it's essential to the plot. Otherwise, if I wanted to watch a show about politics, I'd just turn on the news for free instead of paying for Disney+.

Side note: I heard second hand from someone who works at Disney that Tune out Times (ToTs)- when a user stops watching a show, spike at these things. The data is telling them they're aggravating their audience, but they just keep on trucking... God knows why. They're a business, not a political activist group.

To some extend that's true, but it was always in service of the story. What's happening at Disney is just the opposite - they're randomly inserting ideological stuff which has no relation to the story or they're contorting stories in support of an ideological narrative.

And I don't care what your politics are, but when you insert politics into a story, your gonna alienate a major part of your audience OR you're going to the ruin the product experience of consuming TV. When people sit down to watch TV, they just want to relax and escape. Inserting politics, pulls people out of that and gets their blood pressure up. Who needs that?

We don't need a "very special episode of.." every week.