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How I Gave Up Alternating Current

robrhinehart.com

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Re: How I Gave Up Alternating Current

#121

Post by icebraining »

dragontamer wrote: post #116
icebraining wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is it with cooking that makes people under-appreciate the value of a good professional? It sounds like those clients who think programming is just pressing a few buttons.

I appreciate a good chef as much as the next guy. The problem is that good chefs cost good money. Its simply not sustainable to eat from a gourmet chef every day, or even every week. Typically, people are going to go to a fast-food joint and that ain't too healthy or sustainable either. The Soylent guy is claiming that his kitchen is "too costly", and yet eats out all the time. The contradiction is obvious.

I wasn't disagreeing with the lower cost, I was disagreeing with the claim that a home made dinner would probably taste better than something made by a chef. Clearly the author isn't talking about going to fast-food joints when he talks about "fine restaurants".

And nowhere does he say that he eats out every day, or even every week. What the Soylent guy eats every day is, presumably, Soylent. Which he claims is cheaper than home cooking (I won't argue either way) and that therefore he has more money to eat out when he wants to.

Re: How I Gave Up Alternating Current

#122

Post by jmduke »

tedks wrote: post #93
jbondeson wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's sad that I had to get to bullet point 9 before I could tell if this was satire...

Um, this isn't satirical. If you're not meditating, I really encourage you to take it up -- you feel really refreshed and rededicated afterwards in a way that makes development much more of a focused, mindful process and enables you to hack your metrics for more of a lean, competitive edge. It's much like static typing.

You're either trolling or have quite rapidly changed your position on meditation from two weeks ago:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9903525

>- to meditate

....oh. I guess it's just a new age/woowoo thing. Time to move on I guess. That's really disappointing.

---

Really hope you remove meditation; hokey religions have no place in the modern nudge-engineered world.

Re: How I Gave Up Alternating Current

#124

Post by newman314 »

I'm flabbergasted at the cognitive dissonance displayed in this article.

This is everything that is wrong with the echo chamber that is the Silicon Valley. The hubris etc.

The sad thing is Rob in all likelihood believes whole-heartedly in what he has written and all dissenting opinions as people that just "don't get it".

Re: How I Gave Up Alternating Current

#125

Post by pinaceae »

this and the Ustream debacle points to a16z being in the snakeoil business, backing weirdos with massive money. and if this is true for these clear cut cases of BS, what does it mean for their overall method of investing?

Re: How I Gave Up Alternating Current

#127

Post by zzalpha »

icebraining wrote: post #94
HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can spend the money I saved from groceries and take out to buy a friend lunch or dinner Or you could learn to cook and make a friend a probably better tasting lunch or dinner at substantially lower cost.

What is it with cooking that makes people under-appreciate the value of a good professional? It sounds like those clients who think programming is just pressing a few buttons.

That's actually a remarkably apt analogy, though not for the reasons you think.

As with cooking there's long been a concerted effort to teach everyone basic coding skills. Does that mean everyone will become paid software developers? No. But not everyone becomes a professional chef, either, and yet those basic skills come in pretty darn handy...

Re: How I Gave Up Alternating Current

#128

Post by mynameisvlad »

sp332 wrote: post #36
alextgordon wrote: post #20

Reminds me of Shabbat lamps. Since observant Jews are forbidden from using electricity ("starting fires") on Saturdays, what they do is turn on the lamp on Friday and just keep it on the entire time. That way they're not using any electricity.

It isn't about using or saving electricity. It's about not doing work. I'm a Protestant Christian and I know that.

That's not true at all. The translation is "Ye shall kindle no fire throughout your habitations upon the sabbath day." Literally, you cannot light fires (which many have extended to electricity use). Nothing about work involved at all.

Re: How I Gave Up Alternating Current

#129

Post by mxxx »

Jeema101 wrote: post #66
fezz wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed on the shifting the consumption down the line. However, the primary energy advantage of Uber-like car services is that it reduces the high cost of energy to produce a car by reducing the pool of cars through optimizing their use (meaning, instead of a majority of cars sitting around doing nothing, using a pool of cars working most of the time would mean fewer cars needed overall). If all cars end up being full…

I don't know that it's even clear that using Uber-like services reduces carbon footprint. I mean wouldn't a car wear out a lot faster if 20 people were using it as opposed to 1? Sure, some components in a car are mileage independent, but generally not the most critical ones like the engine and transmission...

Yeah the idea that taking a taxi is a way to reduce your energy consumption footprint is absurd. Get on a bike or catch public transport you nimrod.

Re: How I Gave Up Alternating Current

#130

Post by [deleted] »

shawabawa3 wrote: post #61
ovulator wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I got to the washing part (I skipped over the Soylent part because I assumed it was just a paid advertisement), I expected him to talk about using a washing board or something. No, I just buy new clothes. So instead of using a little energy for a spin cycle, I have factories in China spew coal, then have shipping freights (some of the worst environmental offenders) bring it half way across the world for me so I…

> then presumably add it to the land fill. He said he donates it, so presumably some charity ends up footing the bill for his laundry

[deleted]
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