31–40 of 127 posts
> If you’ve never been exposed to the flu, it’s possible to make a vaccine that teaches your immune system to look for those structures and attack them. But once you’ve had the flu, your body obsesses over the strain that got you sick. That makes it really hard to get your immune system to look for the common structures. Very interesting, I did not know that.
> Unfortunately, America is no longer the global leader on nuclear energy that it was 50 years ago. To regain this position, it will need to commit new funding, update regulations, and show investors that it’s serious. > We had hoped to build a pilot project in China, but recent policy changes here in the U.S. have made that unlikely. Maybe running pilot projects in U.S. instead of China can solve the first issue he…
Mere sentences later he says that they would like to do a pilot in the US but regulatory constraints make it impossible.
So, presumably, he thinks that mustering the political will is intractable. Then, a few paragraphs later, he admits that his preferred fix of nuclear energy is also blocked by... political constraints. Why he thinks he'll make more progress touting nuclear energy, which is wildly unpopular, instead of "green jobs", which polls well, he doesn't say.
> [...] we are also going to be focusing more on improving the quality of life. I think this will be the thrust of many big breakthroughs of the future. For example, software will be able to notice when you’re feeling down, connect you with your friends, give you personalized tips for sleeping and eating better, and help you use your time more efficiently. Seems like a retrofitted use case that is more of an answer t…
I can imagine a huge host of compensating bad behaviors that would result from something like that. Then should it go away are you just doomed and emotionally catatonic?
"We still need a lot of innovation to solve problems like malaria or obesity ..." There's really no innovation needed for the latter. Just educate people and when that fails implement better controls, i.e. sugar taxes on sodas and food. Fundamentally the goal should be get rid of refined sugars in foods, especially high fructose corn syrup.
You have no idea about obesity...
0 - https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2017/12/7/16587316/ba...
"We still need a lot of innovation to solve problems like malaria or obesity ..." There's really no innovation needed for the latter. Just educate people and when that fails implement better controls, i.e. sugar taxes on sodas and food. Fundamentally the goal should be get rid of refined sugars in foods, especially high fructose corn syrup.
"[Warren Buffett] says his measure of success is, “Do the people you care about love you back?” I think that is about as good a metric as you will find." I love this.
Given that he’s successful at investing, he must have some other standards.
> software will be able to notice when you’re feeling down Facebook-controlled depression, what a dream
https://slate.com/technology/2014/06/facebook-unethical-expe...
"[Warren Buffett] says his measure of success is, “Do the people you care about love you back?” I think that is about as good a metric as you will find." I love this.
> [...] we are also going to be focusing more on improving the quality of life. I think this will be the thrust of many big breakthroughs of the future. For example, software will be able to notice when you’re feeling down, connect you with your friends, give you personalized tips for sleeping and eating better, and help you use your time more efficiently. Seems like a retrofitted use case that is more of an answer t…
Has Bill ever been good at predictions? No mention of smartphones or social media in The Road Ahead. Blindsided by how quickly the Internet developed, underestimated "bazaar" economies that enabled millions of people building both software and content. All the smart home stuff he was in love with has gone hardly anywhere. I think he's very smart and great at setting huge goals then hitting them, but I'm not sure he's…
The road ahead is from 1995 and is about the Internet ("Information Superhighway") which Microsoft almost missed, but got right just in time.
The Smartphone he saw coming earlier than almost anyone else, and Microsoft desperately tried to conquer that market. They initially failed because existing mobile phone companies (Nokia, Motorola, Ericsson) feared Microsoft too much and refused to partner. Then Microsoft had to enter the market with third tier player HTC, which had no distribution at all. Then they executed very poorly, trying to miniaturize Windows using a pen interface and killing the much better specialized numerical ui they had. Then they got surprised by the iPhone and touch screens, and took way too long to come up with a good implementation of that, with Windows Phone 7. And then finally with Windows 8, they redid everything again for no good reason, loosing any loyalty from customers they had left.
They missed smartphones, but not because Bill Gates did not foresee them.
If this is Bill Gates blog, I do wonder the following: On first visit, it pops up a modal subscribe email dialog. On a second visit, a distracting large survey thing slid in from the bottom. Why would Bill Gates need spammy patterns that detract from reading the text on his personal blog?
He's still a brand that needs to be marketed