tomsaffell

So many well informed comments here I have to ask... and please forgive the spam... If you're interested in this area and might be be interested in working at YouTube then please email me using the address in my profile. I work in this area at YouTube.

> I wonder if there's a converse effect?

If the inaccuracies are due to the meter's assumption around the current waveform then there probably is a way to exploit that. I suspect (from the little I have read) that the meters in question are: 1) assuming a sinusoidal current wave form, 2) assuming that the peak observed current is the peak of that sinusoidal wave, 3) effectively integrating under the area of the curve (with respect to voltage) to estimate total power. If all that's true, then to 'cheat' you'd need a device for which the current waveform looks like a 'fat' sine wave - same peak height, but wider peaks and steeper gradient through zero. In the extreme case it would be a square wave, but that might have too much harmonics.

For example, you could create a heater (a simple resistive load) that alters its resistance at 60hz. When the voltage reaches its peak the heater would have its 'normal' resistance, and during the next 1/4 cycle it would ramp down its resistance, reaching a resistive low as the voltage passes through zero, and then ramp up its resistance for the following 1/4 cycle until it reaches its 'normal' resistance at the peak 'negative' voltage (1/2 a cycle from where we started), then repeat over.

I think that would trick a meter that only looked at peak current and assumed a sinusoidal waveform. But who knows what other things it might break...

Not in general. They are both around 60 lm/W. Of course there are exceptions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luminous_efficacy#Lighting_eff...

Yeah, terrible timing. A CNAME record conflicted with our new SSL cert - renewing the cert forced us off VIP on to SNI (per GAE's deprecation schedule for VIP) and the CNAME we had in place for VIP then prevented DNS from resolving properly - at least that's what I think happened ! (videopixie engineer :)

>repackage what actual news organizations publish with ideological slant.

Which is what The Economist does - it's been doing so since 1843. Current circulation is over one million, and it's widely respected, though not by all...

Good job you didn't have a third roommate who worked in printing...

Good to know! How do you handle Safari 8?

I did a similar analysis in 2008 to determine whether an n% drop in the index could be help inform an investment strategy: https://saffell.wordpress.com/2008/10/26/does-timing-the-mar...

Hope this doesn't sound nitpicky, but I'm curious about the implication that 'Yelp customer service' would be considered 'middle class'. Were you specifically meaning that, or was it just co-incidence? I'm curious because I find that the issue of 'the hollowing out of the middle class' hinges on the definition of 'middle class', so I'd like to know how this might help inform the definition. thanks.

Looking at the 'before' and 'after' designs, I'd say that the biggest difference is that in the old design the first question you ask (via a textbox) is one to which the user already knows the answer ('what icon do you want?'). Whereas in the new design the first question is 'please pick one of these three options (with which you are not already familiar)'. So the questions requires the user to think. See Dont Make Me Think :) IANAUXD, just my $0.03

Interesting and worrying. Could you give more details on the "low status" and the "small shelf life"? Especially as it relates to gender (if indeed it does - forgive my ignorance).

zero-based indexing giving you an 'off by one' problem?

I accidentally took a multi-tool (with several blades) through an airport security checkpoint 2 weeks after 9/11. It was found on my person, and confiscated. I was told I could collect it on arrival at the 'weird items' desk at London Heathrow baggage claim. When I arrived a Heathrow it was waiting for me in a padded envelope at the desk.

I was flying out of Beijing, you know... that country with terrible human rights... To be clear: there are multiple human rights issues in China, many of which are far worse than the US. Just not everything.

Yes, having pulled a permit myself I can attest that it's 10% drawing, 90% badgering and debating the exact meaning of the code, in all its glorious ambiguity.

>I'm pretty surprised by how far this thing has gone!!

Haha - so do we now have two examples of emergent complexity?

FYI, it's not that the complexity / length of the code caused me to fail per se - I've actually used that section of the code to design a kitchen - it's not user friendly, but it does ultimately work in that I could use it to find and follow all the rules applicable to my design. But I did fail to find a reference to the '18 inch rule' that you stated, but that's because that would require me to read the entire code, for which I don't have time (you need the entire thing because it has a nasty habit of having the rules spread out over multiple sections, probably in the interest of abstraction / generalization. ADA may well be an example of that)

One other thought: since the SF rules are written directly in relation to the CA rules, it's not like they are two competing standards. One if just a layer on top of the other. Of course, that could still create a contradiction, but in the one case where I saw that, the DBI found a way around it.

Seconded. Without a source to verify these claims, it seems that a huge amount of this discussion is based on hearsay.

I can tell you that the SF Electrical code (which I presume he is referring to) is available here:

http://library.amlegal.com/nxt/gateway.dll/California/sfbuil...

It's written as a series of amendments to the CA Electrical code, which is here:

http://www.nfpa.org/codes-and-standards/document-information...

See Section 210.52 for kitchen requirements. AFAICT, there is no requirement that outlets be 18" apart - more like 48".

Good luck finding the code sections that he's referring to though - there's a lot of text in there, and it's not easy to search..

>and then the employee issues options back to the startup

In effect, yes. When the employee purchases the stock, they sign a contract to sell their stock back to the company (with the number of shares to be sold left blank). Their vesting schedule establishes how the number of shares that the company is allowed to repurchase decreases with time, normally with a 'cliff', which removes the need for a probation period.

Does it bother anyone else that the three customer reviews on the product page all give five stars, and all three reviewers received the product for free in exchange for an 'unbiased' review? (And that fact is only visible if you click each 'see more' link at the end of the truncated review). I just have a hard time believing this practice doesn't create bias, even if unintentional.

I'm finding I have to work harder to parse meaning out of Amazon reviews than I did a few years ago. I don't see how this benefits Amazon, but I also don't see them doing much to fix it.

Sorry I didnt come back in time to elaborate (as offered). The other comments said what I would say and more.

One thought on you getting down voted: Your comment started with 'Please.', which could be interpreted to mean, 'yes, please do elaborate', or it could be interpreted as confrontational / disbelieving, as is sometimes the case when people just say 'Please!'. Just a thought.

me too. i can just see it!

I can't speak for anyone else's circumstances, but I can't imagine ever opting for my two year old son to be away from his mother for three months. Happy to elaborate, if people are interested.

The counter-coat-hanger-ziptie method is great, and I use it. But for the sake of safety, I recommend a thin ziptie - something that would break under the weight of an adult. It's still plenty strong enough to prevent the door being un-coupled by a coat hanger, but weak enough that an adult (inside the garage) could make an emergency exit.

Whether another human deserves to die (in a cruel and extrajudicial manner no less) is a judgement I hope never to have to make. To that end, I suspect I'd find "the protections normally granted to soldiers" to be entirely appropriate.

That said, to stand in either man's shoes these seventy years later is an act of imagination beyond me. So in that sense, I accept my inability to judge either's actions.