Viewing profile — damoncali

An oversimplification: Interest rates are going up over the long run in an effort to keep inflation from getting out of hand (very generally, asset prices go down when interest rat…

Pretty sure nobody would enjoy a 5g return to earth...

Pretty much. For me, I think bootstrap comes out ahead even the projects that wanted to tweak everything. It gets a little messy, but not as messy as building from scratch. Project…

Square only offers an advance based upon your cash flow history. There is still risk, but they recoup their loan at a pretty good pace which makes the implied interest rate very hi…

Democrats and Republicans are more similar than different. They both represent the financial elite to the detriment of those with less power. Sure, they may trade off from year to …

You don't need to be so literal. When you look at honeycomb, for example, the manufacturers provide strength data in much the same way you'd see it for a solid metal. When you mode…

Just by looking at it, I doubt there is enough shear strength to make it a useful sandwich panel web. Then again, I've been wrong before. But metallic/composite honeycomb is pretty…

Pretty cool. Returned some gibberish, and some solid sparks for topics. I wonder if you could tweak it to rank the relevance somehow. Maybe have users train it by clicking/removing…

I left because of all the down time. It was crushing. They didn't even try to make busy work - they just pretended everything was fine.

I don't know who James Hansen is. The above is how I think NASA should operate, not how it actually does. I think NASA gets easily distracted by science, when it should be an engin…

How long have you been there? I've been gone for over a decade, so I'm curious if you can confirm a suspicion I've had recently - that NASA has a bit of Silicon Valley envy and are…

I would take it a step further. I used to work at NASA, and I never even thought about a patent. Not sure if we could have even gotten them, but the idea couldn't have been further…

I might take for granted that I have an MBA, and worked quite a bit in other fields before I started freelancing. Might be entirely different for a younger person just starting out…

I've been at this a while ;) But I think even new freelancers need to just trust their gut. If it sounds flakey, it generally is.

I hadn't really thought about it, but yes, I generally know right away. I sometimes need a little time to assess the project's scope or technical detail, but personality wise, I kn…

Agreed. I meant that when you operate outside of the law, there is no legal recourse, and therefore you might have to resort to violence.

Criminal businesses must by necessity adopt some of the work of governments because they are outside the scope of what the actual government does provide. You can't take your rival…

Two things: 1. When I talk to someone about a new project, I do it in person or on the phone, not email. This is important. 2. The first call is always to see if the work would be …

You're assuming one will be built before the patent expires.

I think the point the parent is getting at is that nothing about business guarantees constant, compounding growth. It's not just mathematics, it's population growth, productivity, …

The approach was more novel when he first started beating this drum well over a decade ago. You have to compare it to 1999-era corporate powerpoint practices. We've come a long way…

It's all relative. Compared to Dresden, small guided missiles are positively humane. Heck, the hammer that was dropped on Fallujah makes a drone look meek. War is by design very ug…

Inconel has been around for decades. It's just a nickel alloy. Nothing terribly special about that.

You can replace nothing with this, though, which is what most people have access to. I don't think anyone expects these to spit out Kubrick films. But I bet it records better than …