666_howitzer

How do we really know whether double blind randomized controlled trials actually work? Is there any RCT done on evaluating the efficacy of RCT?

If you have strong prior belief about outcome of your action, if it doesn't go as you planned. You have a way better signal to update your internal model.

That is kinda true, since the peers who would be rating your weekly progress update wouldn't necessarily be your target audience.

So, you'd have to optimize your products pitch to be appealing to your peers, that means spicing up your landing page, adding cool graphics etc. I even went as far as having an option of easily creating a test account to play with the product without needing to sign up and sadly no one used it. For the first 2 weeks, I was getting more downvotes than upvotes. After which, I focused more on sharing metrics (sign ups etc) rather than solely focusing on reporting the work I have done. This did have a material impact in the peer rating process. Once I made it to Top 50, my project was selected by one of their experts, quite fast.

I think this problem has more to do with the pipeline than their selection process.

I got into the program, like a week ago. Still learning the ropes, I'm having a great time with them so far. Their internal slack group is really fun and their team is also quite responsive when it comes to resolving your queries.

On a deeper level, I really appreciate the strategic approach they have chosen when it comes to supporting and nurturing the entrepreneurs that they have backed, where the default approach is not writing a check to make the problems go away. But, actually listening to the myriad problems that crop up over the course of your startups journey and actually making a concerted effort to solve said problems.

Related: https://nadiaeghbal.com/microgrants#designing-for-impact

> the lever is demanding transparency on exactly what these companies are doing.

I think a even more powerful lever would be having laws that allow consumers easily export their data from one platform to another or make internet companies adopt a common standard for increasing interoperability of users data.

I'm sorry to tell you don't really understand how derivatives work, even price fixing for that matter.

Prices of derivatives such as forward contracts and options are freely floating and are widely traded. "price-fixing" is defined as a coordinated effort to corner the market, a good example would be when siegel tried to corner onion futures, which lead to creation of "onion futures act". Historically, only few have succeeded in cornering the market.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onion_Futures_Act

Bitcoin supports reversible transaction, if you don't trust the vendor, it's not that hard to use a trusted escrow service.

I agree bitcoin does have its flaws, economically bitcoin behaves like a commodity, which might hinder consumer adoption. There are ways to get around that, you could potentially issue a anonymous currency of sorts backed by bitcoin, with a fixed exchange change rate. So, the prices could remain relatively stable. May be that could drive consumer adoption.

TBH, I don't know what bitcoin is going to look like in the next 10 years. It's like the internet all over again. Just like the internet, bitcoin value doesn't necessarily come from the underlying utility as a transaction platform or in case of the internet TCP/IP, but from its distributed , permissionless and decentralized nature of governance. We know for a fact, that's what drives innovation.

I'm using parse push notification service, is it still working?