Viewing profile — 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…

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 breaku…

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 conv…

Asking why there isn't enough housing is like asking why water is wet. The answer is state/local government regulation. There's an old saying "your margin is my opportunity" and I …

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,…

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 pressu…

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 glob…

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…

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 m…

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 hi…

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…

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 inc…

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 r…

This isn't widely talked about, but one of the ways that folks in China can get their money out of China is by buying foreign real estate. So if you're worried about protecting you…

Anyone that tells me they don't have the money for something, I always say "open the books." People are terrible at managing their money. I can't tell you how many high income earn…

Testify!

Try "Coming of Age in the Milky Way"

First, thanks for the awesome tip about 990 forms. Had no idea. It's interesting in that these numbers differ from the conversations I've had with academics who tell a different st…

Tuition is a drop in the bucket of the funding model for a research university. The majority of university funding comes from research grants and that's why the piece they take off…

It's not about tuition. It's about funding of the university. Typically a university will take 50-90% (Yes, up to 90%) of a research grant to fund the university (keeping the light…

Across the US, about 20% of the spots to get a computer science degree are occupied by foreign nationals. The research at these universities is funded by US research grants. If the…

The number probably came from looking at what brick and mortar stores do. Typically stores "mark up" products by 40% from their distributors. And if you think about it, that's effe…