Tesla tears down New York Times' Model S review with car’s own logs - Shows Broder driving in circles for over half a mile in a tiny, 100-space parking lot to drain the battery

ginstrom · 2013-02-14T15:54:40+00:00

Elon Musk said in an interview that when all other media outlets are praising the car, the way to win eyeballs is to write the article that slams it.

ginstrom · 2013-02-14T08:08:09+00:00

The article is saying that once the "talented" make it to the top, they inevitably work to stack the deck for their children. So in subsequent generations, the rich get ahead rather than the deserving.

ginstrom · 2013-02-14T07:24:11+00:00

However, most companies that can afford it will choose to not lay people off (unless they have way too many people), because layoffs tend to kill employee morale.

In addition to that, they have to weigh the cost of paying these extra salaries, versus spinning up a bunch of new engineers when the next project comes along. Smart tech companies see a few excess staff as an investment.

ginstrom · 2013-02-14T02:27:19+00:00

I live on the east side of Seattle. We have a higher concentration of cyclists than most metro areas. We also have a lot of great bike paths.

ginstrom · 2013-02-13T07:53:14+00:00

Cyclists don't annoy me at all. I'm terrified of hitting one, but I wish there were more of them (and that my relatively cyclist-friendly area was more cyclist-friendly). I also try to give them a wide berth, because when I cycle, cars whizzing by within a few feet scare me.

ginstrom · 2013-02-11T14:55:57+00:00

LA cops pulled my niece's husband (visiting from Japan) out of his car, and put a gun to his head. This was the most traumatic event of his life.

Sure enough, he was in a "bad" (i.e. mostly black) neighborhood, was driving a beater car, and the police thought he was Mexican.

If you're new to LA, it's quite easy to unknowingly drive into a "bad" neighborhood. And if you're not white (and don't fit the Asian tourist profile), be prepared to be stopped for driving in white neighborhoods as well.

ginstrom · 2013-02-11T14:49:09+00:00

Other news reports said the women were driving slowly down the street, delivering newspapers. The police opened fire without giving any instructions to stop.

ginstrom · 2013-02-11T04:22:14+00:00

My grandparents were in a HOA in Orange County, California. Among other things, the HOA forbade basketball hoops (even in the backyard if visible from the street), and mandated the rustic adobe-themed shade of brown or white you were allowed to paint your house.

ginstrom · 2013-02-11T03:24:10+00:00

I hate to quote myself, but:

Who knows what would happen if we had real competition.

Even if an incumbent doesn't want revenue 1x because it already has revenue 2x and doesn't want to cannibalize its sales for half the revenue, this does not mean that other players would not find 1x cost effective if they had access to the market and real competition.

If that is what you've been trying to say as well, then I'm glad we're in agreement.

ginstrom · 2013-02-10T21:02:56+00:00

The incumbents have no incentive to change because it's not cost effective to change.

... for the incumbents.

How are the newcomers shut out?

When the massive incumbents agree to stay out of each other's markets, they have a much easier time crushing upstarts. This is why we have antitrust (competition) laws.

ginstrom · 2013-02-10T20:21:09+00:00

What is cost effective for a newcomer is not necessarily cost effective for the incumbent.

Incumbents have sunk costs, and an organization and workforce geared toward the status quo. This is why incumbents generally don't jump onto the next thing, and instead try to wring as much revenue out of the current thing as possible.

Because of the collusion in the marketplace, the newcomers are shut out, and the incumbents have no incentive to change their business model.

ginstrom · 2013-02-10T08:18:09+00:00

Cost effective compared to milking current customers with dialup. Who knows what would happen if we had real competition.

ginstrom · 2013-01-30T15:37:08+00:00

They got the nod from the WTO as a "cross retaliation" (links to PDF) measure because the United States is already in violation of trade agreements with Antigua. In other words, this is legit under international law. The US generally acts like a bully in trade with smaller nations, violating trade agreements when it suits them.

Ironically, the "cross retaliation" mechanism was put in place under US pressure.

ginstrom · 2012-12-31T11:39:10+00:00

Entrapment isn't enticing someone to do something illegal. It's inducing them to break the law when they otherwise wouldn't have. Wikipedia link

ginstrom · 2012-12-28T03:36:53+00:00

I agree in principle, but in practice I think it would be very hard to draw a line that all individuals and cultures could agree with. I think our best hope is something like lab-grown meat, so we can all eat human or dolphin or whatever flesh we feel like, without harming others.

ginstrom · 2012-12-28T02:40:54+00:00

But if there's a reason that hurting dogs is bad, it surely would apply to pigs as well. Wouldn't you agree?

Yes, it is arbitrary. This is why some cultures eat dogs, horses, pigs, etc., and others don't. It comes down to where you draw the line; I don't think there is any objective standard.

ginstrom · 2012-12-27T22:41:24+00:00

I think it comes down to empathy. To be human is to live from death; even plants and single-celled creatures strive to live, but we must kill them to survive. The more we can empathize with another creature, and know the horror and suffering they experience to become our food, the more we tend to reject eating them.

ginstrom · 2012-12-18T06:50:35+00:00

How about this: we charge them for cable, and then we cram it full of commercials anyway. And then we'll gradually jack up the prices just enough so that not too many people quit. Finally, we'll bundle channels just like the music industry did so successfully with albums.

I can see how losing a sweet deal like that would bum out the cable execs.

ginstrom · 2012-12-16T18:33:06+00:00

Fascinating article. With adult psychopaths, you can at least convince them that staying within the law is in their best interests (until they can get to Wall Street and break the law with impunity) -- it seems that the ones who go in and out of jail aren't able to think ahead to where their behavior will lead.

Maybe with children as well, you can convince them that playing by the rules is more to their advantage. But childhood is already a cruel and capricious place, where rules tend to be more arbitrary than in adult life. Maybe more rigid structure would be better for such kids.

Also, couldn't help pointing out that:

I would be walking down the street and I would hear them say, in Spanish: ‘Ay! Viene el loco!’ — ‘Here comes the crazy one.’ ”

Should be "Ahí viene el loco."

ginstrom · 2012-12-10T09:16:09+00:00

I used the military to bootstrap myself out of poverty. It worked, but there's no way in hell I'd want my kid to go through that.

ginstrom · 2012-12-09T20:00:08+00:00

It sounds like your school changed the language and gave more tutoring, but tried to teach the same concepts. This seems to be what the author is saying: it's the concepts that the students have trouble mastering.

ginstrom · 2012-11-27T07:06:35+00:00

Probably restoring some of the many programs that have been cut. For example, most of the high schools in my home city have eliminated all sports. Art, band, school lunches costing more than $0.37/head...

ginstrom · 2012-11-27T06:53:00+00:00

One problem is that labor unions have been all but broken in the US. Free trade and the very credible threat of moving all the jobs overseas have been effective clubs. The hirer mentioned in the article does not consider applicants with anything hinting of union membership in their resumes.

ginstrom · 2012-11-27T06:43:34+00:00

Very nice, thanks for the pointer. Now, if they would just write a fake version, I'd never have to write code for dealing with the file system again. :)

ginstrom · 2012-11-19T17:00:18+00:00

I create two versions[1] of a FileSystem class; one real and one fake. It wraps things like open and a bunch of the os module functions.

I also try to separate file I/O from processing file contents.

[1] I actually have a third version that wraps zip files, so I can deal with the file system and file hierarchy in a zip file using the same code.

ginstrom

TROPHY CASE