Society on Dan Goldin

Everyone's a hustler

Wed, 30 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

It’s the holiday season and mine has been filled with a lot of Bing Crosby. I’m one of those people that will Wikipedia anything new and came across this sentence that describes his popularity:

“Also in 1948, Music Digest estimated that his recordings filled more than half of the 80,000 weekly hours allocated to recorded radio music”

This reminded me of another celebrity from that era, Charles Lindbergh, and his popularity:

Science vs policy

Wed, 30 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

In what seems to be a part of the modern American experience there’s another case of a scientific group proposing some changes and a regulatory agency ignoring the suggestions. In this case, a group of scientists proposed further limiting sugar and alcohol but the USDA didn’t include these in their official guidance. There may be some truth to the USDA’s claim that there wasn’t enough evidence to justify a change but I can’t help but think this is another example of strong private interest groups sacrificing the public good for themselves.

2020 donations

Sat, 26 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Last year I wrote a short post highlighting my donations with the hope that they encourage others to donate. Given this year’s trials and tribulations it’s even more important to donate and help others if you have the means.

I continued my donations from last year and donated to the EFF, ACLU, Wikipedia, and Planned Parenthood for the same reasons as last year. The additions this year have been a function of everything that’s happened. Earlier in the I made multiple donations to various BLM charities and most recently contributed to Fair Fight to help with the Georgia election.

Gasoline

Wed, 21 Oct 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I’m a believer in climate change and know we need to change our habits and yet every time I drive I’m reminded of how amazing gasoline is. A gallon of a liquid is not much - we can all drink a gallon of water a day and yet a gallon of gasoline is enough to move a mutli-ton car more than 20 miles. It’s so normal that we don’t appreciate how amazing that actually is.

Apple and Mr. Burns: Indestructible

Thu, 20 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Apple hit a $2T market cap and yet I can’t help but think they’re in an incredibly precarious situation due to the relationship between the US and China. I find the Apple/US/China dynamic much more interesting than what’s going on with TikTok. Right now it feels as if every side wants Apple to succeed. For the US it’s a success story and a cultural export to the world. To China it’s an indicator that they can power the manufacturing, at scale, of one of the most sophisticated technical products in the world and a massive boon to their economy. Yet it only takes a bit of politics to completely disrupt that balance.

TikTok: A Prisoner's Dilemma

Sun, 09 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Everyone has an opinion here and I’m late but joining the fray. I fall into the ban TikTok app. I would not be doing it the way it’s currently being done but there’s a legitimate case to make that the US should adopt a tit for tat strategy with China. China prevents many US companies from competing there so why should we allow it?

There are of course arguments around us being the United States and needing to take the high road. This was a worthwhile belief decades ago when we had the belief that a richer China would be a more democratic and fair China but in fact the opposite has happened - China has gotten more and more emboldened and now has leverage and power. Why let it get any stronger?

Black Lives Matter

Sat, 06 Jun 2020 00:00:00 +0000

It’s difficult to think of or write about anything other than the protests going on right now. I hope that everything going on is a necessary step to get the United States to accept its sordid treatment of Black people and into a more fair and equal world. The past few weeks have made race come to the foreground as a topic that must be discussed. In the past I shied away from discussing anything race related; especially coming from my privileged background and despite my intent I was worried about the language I used and concerned about being misinterpreted. Given how pervasive and obvious Black mistreatment is it’s not something that anyone can be silent about. It’s critical for those of us that don’t know about what’s going on to educate ourselves and have the real and honest and often painful conversations. Those in turn will spur action which will lead to us finally tackling the nearly 500 year history of Black oppression.

AlphaGo documentary

Sat, 18 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Spoiler: If you haven’t seen the documentary and want to avoid any spoilers don’t read the post. At the same time you should watch it - it’s an incredible film.

I watched the AlphaGo documentary and it left a powerful impression on me.

The accomplishment by the AlphaGo team is incredible. At the same time I felt incredibly sad watching it and became slightly depressed. It felt very much like a man vs machine battle yet the machine was a huge team of engineers with nearly unlimited resources. You know that it’s inevitable that the machine wins and yet the way the documentary was done made it seem less of a highlight of the great work by the team and instead a defeat of a single person.

Google and Apple's COVID tracking project

Sat, 18 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Google and Apple recently announced a partnership to help people anonymously see if they’ve been exposed to someone with COVID. The idea itself is elegant and does a nice job balancing the functionality with the need for privacy. One of the most common takes I’ve seen in tech circles is that no one will use it due to a concern for privacy.

I think the opposite. I believe that with enough marketing this will be a massive success. Over and over again we’ve seen that most people do not value privacy and this will be no different. In fact, for this case it may just be the opposite - most people would love to know the answer to “is there a chance I have Coronavirus.” Curiosity, one of our greatest traits, will be enough to overcome whatever privacy concerns people have.

Start open sourcing government software

Sun, 05 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Two years ago I wrote a post describing an open source model for developing government software. The driver then was improving the user experience of government services and making them more approachable but the news this week makes this much more than a nicer UX. The state of NJ is apparently looking for COBOL programmers in order to update the unemployment system to handle the unprecedented volume. It’s easy to make a government joke but there are real people that are unable to get the services they need. This particular problem will be solved but another one will pop up in its place.

Finding the truth in a sea of misinformation

Sat, 04 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Two days ago I read an interview between Ben Thompson and Zeynep Tufekci which highlighted the current state of information (and misinformation). That same day I came across an article by Will Remus on the cause of the toilet paper shortage (spoiler: it has to do with differences between the corporate and personal toilet paper supply chains). Both of these highlight how little I actually know and how valuable skeptical mindset is these days. I still don’t know the truth and it’s likely something that changes constantly but being able to separate fact from fiction is a massive advantage. The obvious example is knowing how serious COVID-19 would be and preparing for it in January. The challenges and opportunities will only get larger as the amount of information (majority of which will be misinformation) being produced increases. The ability to be objective, dig into the sources, and understand biases is going to be a critical skill in the upcoming century.

COVID-19

Sat, 28 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000

It’s taken me a few weeks to write this post. Partly due to lack of motivation, partly lack of time, and partly due to my fluctuating feelings towards COVID-19.

Some days I was completely disillusioned and sad about the modern state of the world. It seems to be spreading unconstrained despite the more than one hundred years of scientific progress we’ve had since 1918. Politicians seem to care about their own ego more than they do about the people they purport to represent. If we didn’t have the resources or knowledge to fight back I’d be more accepting of our fate but it’s the fact that we can fight and defeat this thing if we just channel our energies the right way that’s frustrating.

Power of media

Tue, 31 Dec 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Despite the fact that the Marvel news about a transgender character is not true it reinforced how significant media is to progress and growth of culture. Adults are set in their ways and are less impressionable than children. By exposing children to a more accepting world we help make it a reality. It’s unfortunate that this news turned out to be false but the fact that it was even believable is a sign that we’re making progress. I have no doubt that it will happen and it’s only a question of when.

Drop in piracy, drop in accessibility

Fri, 27 Dec 2019 00:00:00 +0000

A few days ago I came across a tweet that was making the rounds:

I agree with the sentiment and know how much I benefited from having access to software as a kid. It got me both interested in computers and gave me a head start on writing code.

The one point that’s missed here is how difficult it is to pirate software these days. In the early days of the internet it would take a very, very long time to download applications but nearly all were piratable - even if it did require running some obscure code and editing hex files. These days, nearly all substantial software is subscription based which makes it incredibly difficult, and potentially impossible, to pirate. This doesn’t affect the well-off but it becomes more and more inaccessible for those that just can’t afford it.

Privacy updates and emission standards

Fri, 20 Dec 2019 00:00:00 +0000

It’s that special time of the year when a whole slew of companies are sending out their privacy policy emails. Last year the culprit was GDPR, a European privacy law, and this year it’s the CCPA, the privacy protection bill from California. Given the onslaught most users will ignore these updates. These regulations seem to be having the desired effect. A bold company may choose to have separate privacy policies per geography to reduce the coverage of these laws but it looks as if most companies have just updated their general privacy policies. Europe and California are driving fairly significant change across the tech industry.

Class action settlements

Thu, 19 Dec 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Earlier this month I received an email from Zappos with the subject “Settlement Notification re: 2012 Security Incident.” Sure enough, Zappos had a security issue in 2012 and the result of the class action lawsuit was that they’d give their affected customers a 10% off coupon on any order placed before January. As far as the typical class action settlement this was a surprisingly fair offer since it is something I’d actually use.

QR codes in China

Sat, 02 Nov 2019 00:00:00 +0000

I’m fascinated by the way mobile works in China. Based on everything I read it seems China is far ahead of the US in the way technology has been absorbed in the day-to-day fabric of society. I’m not making the case that that’s actually a better way to be but more of an observation of how different daily life can be when technology is embraced in nearly all areas. This is much easier with China with more centralized control and a few companies, namely Tencent and Alibaba, that have monopolies over every device.

Free speech and the First Amendment

Mon, 23 Sep 2019 00:00:00 +0000

I recently finished The Great Dissent which describes the thought process Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr went through as he changed the interpretation of the First Amendment and free speech in the United States. These days we all take the scope of free speech for granted and assume its a static part of our democracy but it went through multiple iterations and will likely continue to do so - something I didn’t even realize.

Environmental sustainability

Mon, 15 Jul 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Lately I’ve been much more aware of how much waste we generate and wish there was a way to not just recycle but instead to reuse. There’s so much we consume that recycling only gets us so far and it’s much better to reuse as much as possible. How much better off would we all be if we were able to reuse existing containers for takeout and food delivery? It is an inconvenience but it’s much more sustainable and as a society we’d get used to it.

Toward a global government

Sun, 14 Jul 2019 00:00:00 +0000

The world isn’t in the best shape these days. There’s a rise in extreme nationalism and intolerance, climate change is leading to some wild weather, and overall it just feels we’re moving in the wrong direction. Everyone can speculate on the causes but to me it’s a function of the complicated, and often, antithetical incentives from the various global players. Each country is looking out for its own interests and despite their behavior having an impact on others. This leads to a “tragedy of the commons” situation where the earth is being abused. The world’s institutions are just not strong enough to support the policies the world needs.

Increasing the bar for reelection

Thu, 04 Jul 2019 00:00:00 +0000

I avoid writing about politics but in honor of July 4th I decided to pen some thoughts around elections.

Last year I wrote a post proposing that all laws should be temporary and upon expiration require a higher and higher majority to be sustained. What if we adopt a similar policy for electing politicians? In the United States different offices have different term limits: a Supreme Court Justice has a lifetime appointment, a senator has 6 years, a president has 4 (and limited to two terms), and a congressperson has 2. The intuition behind these is that a Supreme Court Justice should have a long term outlook and not be influenced by any short term incentives. I don’t know why the others have such specific term limits or why a senator term is longer than a presidential term while a congressperson term is shorter than a presidential term. The intent of these is to avoid corruption by giving people a chance to course correct if a political is not working out but the exact years and the ratios between the offices feel arbitrary.

Gerrymandering

Sat, 27 Apr 2019 00:00:00 +0000

I tend to avoid blogging about politics but I couldn’t help but rant against gerrymandering. The concept is rooted in the idea that political parties can divide voting areas in order to bias the populations in their favor. It doesn’t make any sense that in a functional democracy voting districts can be so easily manipulated.

The fact that one sees numerous examples of the ridiculous geographic shapes that can develop should be sign-enough that it’s an irrational approach.

Dorm rooms for adults

Mon, 31 Dec 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Not to keep beating a dead horse but the housing situation in San Francisco seems ridiculous. Back in March, the NY Times wrote an article covering Starcity, a company that builds “dorms” for professionals. The article is positioned as a positive since it’s giving people an option to live in San Francisco who may not be able to afford a place to themselves but it just feels like as if the real world is mirroring the software world.

Facebook's latest hit

Wed, 19 Dec 2018 00:00:00 +0000

The Facebook hits just keep on coming. The latest is a NY Times expose around Facebook’s lack of privacy or data protection when it came to their strategic partner integrations. Citing some examples won’t do it justice and the entire article is worth a read just to see how loose Facebook was with user data. It’s shocking how ridiculous some of these practices were. I’m not surprised by the data Facebook is collecting or how it’s being used for ad targeting but I’m amazed at how much data they allowed to leave their platform. Facebook’s entire bread and butter is user data and letting it leave the “walled garden” for some short term benefit was misguided. It’s impossible to get that data back and especially now with everyone eagerly looking for Facebook’s missteps it makes them look especially imprudent.

The modern economy relies on information

Sun, 09 Dec 2018 00:00:00 +0000

In many ways modern capitalism is about bigger and bigger companies owning more and more industries. We’re seeing with the major tech companies moving into new verticals to keep growing. We’re seeing it with the media and telecom companies going on acquisition sprees aimed at both vertical integration and horizontal scale.

Yet there are also ton of small business being launched across a variety of industries - especially in consumer products. The world is much more open now and if you offer something unique and compelling it’s easier to find customers than at any other time in history. You don’t need to invest in a ton of marketing or advertising so long as you know your audience and figure out the best channels to reach them.

Tragedy of the commons: Apartment edition

Fri, 30 Nov 2018 00:00:00 +0000

‘Tis the season where mailrooms get filled with delivery boxes and it’s getting busier every year. Mary Meeker mentioned the trend of building lobbies becoming ecommerce storage facilities and it’s more true than ever. My building has a small package room which has been filled solid this week after Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

It’s so inaccessible that it’s easier for me to just wait for others to get their packages and free some space before I go in to search for my own. Unfortunately, if everyone feels that way then no one gets their package and it becomes a true tragedy of the commons. Instead of helping each other out we’re waiting for others to improve the situation while it constantly gets worse with newly arriving packages.

Privacy in a face detection world

Tue, 27 Nov 2018 00:00:00 +0000

In a bit of dystopian news a CEO was charged for jaywalking when a face detection algorithm saw her face on a bus ad. While simultaneously amusing and dystopian it does make one think of a world in which everyone is constantly monitored. At some level we’re already in this world digitally - our browsing behavior is constantly tracked and we all have ad behavior profiles that are constantly being tweaked and updated. Some get around this by using adblocking while a small fraction take the opposite approach and have their browser search and navigate to random pages in order to clutter and confuse their digital footprints.

Social Security Administration spoofing scam

Mon, 12 Nov 2018 00:00:00 +0000

I use Google Voice as my voicemail due to the built in transcription which lets me tell at a glance whether a call is spam or in the rare case, worth returning. This past Friday I had my phone on silent for most of the day and was pleasantly surprised with the following transcription greeting me after I checked in:

Scam voicemail message

Just ship it

Thu, 25 Oct 2018 00:00:00 +0000

I don’t know whether it’s the pace of modern life or something else but I no longer have a good intuition for recent events. Things that happened a few months ago feel as if they happened a year ago and things that happened a year ago feel as if they happened multiple years ago. An example of this was Twitter increasing a tweet’s character limit to 280. Try to guess when they increased the limit?

Equity in the gig economy

Sat, 13 Oct 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Recently both AirBnB and Uber have asked the SEC to allow them to give equity to their contractors - hosts in the case of AirBnB and drivers in the case of Uber. The gig economy is clearly here to stay and it’s encouraging that we’re seeing companies trying to adapt to the changes. I’m sure it’s partially for the marketing spin - both AirBnB and Uber have been facing significant criticism lately - but even then this is a good example to set for future companies. We are moving towards the gig economy and being able to give equity to participants is a great way of sharing the wealth.

Bulk discounts hurt competition

Sun, 22 Jul 2018 00:00:00 +0000

While reading yet another article about scooter startups I came across an obvious quote by Gao Lufeng, CEO of Segway-Ninebot, the leading scooter manufacturer: “As one of the biggest battery buyers, we have the bargaining power to get the lowest price in the market.”

This is obvious and we see it everywhere: buying in bulk gets you a discount. As a consumer I can go to Amazon and look at any item and the per unit price when buying a single item is going to be higher than when buying a pack. And the more I buy the more the discount on a per unit basis. The business world is no different and it’s not surprising since both sides benefit in this situation: the buyer is able to get a cheaper product and the seller is able to get guaranteed sales while hopefully getting more efficiencies of scale and which further reduces the manufacturing cost.

In a software world, humanity comes first

Tue, 10 Jul 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Google Duplex was announced earlier this year as a way to automate tasks that require a phone call - such as booking an appointment. Rather than calling yourself google has an assistant that understands human speech and speaks convincingly enough to do these simple tasks. Relatedly, a few days I read an article describing how Google is also pushing Duplex to be used in call centers. A bit surprising but makes a ton of sense since the vast majority of the calls are relatively simple tasks that companies are already trying to automate as much as possible using Interactive Voice Response (IVR) systems.

Rise of microbrands

Sat, 28 Apr 2018 00:00:00 +0000

While browsing Instagram the other day I saw an ad for Optimum. Despite it being for Optimum the ad showed a sports clip that could have just as easily been on a highlight real or a a trailer for a sports movie. In fact, if it weren’t associated with Optimum maybe I would have even clicked on it.

Having a strong brand is incredibly valuable - think Coca Cola. A weak brand (think amy ISP), on the other hand, is incredibly damaging. If a company has a strong brand they should definitely flaunt it but I’m surprised that in this day and age poorly branded companies still operate under their primary brand. There’s nothing stopping them from launching dozens of unique brands each designed to appeal to a particular audience.

Open sourcing self driving car data

Tue, 03 Apr 2018 00:00:00 +0000

There’s a rush by the world’s largest companies to develop the first fully self driving car. The investment so far has been insane and it’s only the start. It’s one of those problems that get more and more difficult to solve the closer they are to the finish. The upside is so large that it also leads to some perverse behavior in order to get any advantage - the Uber/Waymo lawsuit comes to mind here.

Facebook's "breach"

Sun, 18 Mar 2018 00:00:00 +0000

The big news this weekend was that Facebook suspended Cambridge Analytica, a company that leveraged behavioral data to come up with very focused and accurate political ads, for using data that they were not supposed to have as well as not deleting it when caught. Everyone seems to be surprised by this revelation but I’m honestly surprised it took this long and I wouldn’t be surprised if there are still hundreds, or even thousands, of companies in the same situation as Cambridge Analytica, albeit at a smaller scale.

AR Adblocking

Thu, 28 Dec 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Augmented reality is still in its infancy but when it grows up it will change modern life. We’ll have a world of information at our fingertips and will end up with tools we can’t even imagine. An idea I’ve been thinking about is an AR based adblock. The way I envision these AR headsets working is that everyone will be constantly wearing them, akin to glasses, and the headsets are always processing, monitoring and altering what we see. Now imagine that there’s an adblocking application that intercepts everything visible and replaces it with blanks. Web adblockers work by blocking ad requests as well as removing ad HTML elements. This would work at an entirely different level by being in between the world and our eyes, acting as a sensory input filter.

Google's news problem

Sun, 10 Dec 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Last week, I wanted to get a bit more information about the vote in Alabama and have always had good success by starting with a Google search so did a simple search for “alabama vote.” I saw three suggested results but surprisingly the first one was a link to Breitbart.

Search for alabama vote on 2017-12-05

I ran the same search a few days ago and saw that the first link was to yet another Breitbart article.

Make all laws temporary

Sat, 25 Nov 2017 00:00:00 +0000

I see the debate around net neutrality going on everywhere around me and I can’t help but think of the law making process and how it can be improved. I’m a huge proponent of net neutrality but at the same time I realize that maybe I don’t know the whole story and maybe we would all really be better if the FCC rolls it back. I don’t believe it’s likely but I’m not 100% convinced that it’s not the case either. Unlike a video game, you can’t save life at any point and restart it if something goes wrong or you want to try a different approach: we’re stuck with the decisions we’ve made. At the same time it would be nice to bring some more experimentation into the world and our laws so we can keep iterating to a more ideal state.

GPS: The foundation of them all

Sat, 21 Oct 2017 00:00:00 +0000

I spent a few hours driving today and couldn’t stop but think how different driving is now compared to the pre-GPS, pre-smartphone era. Before them I would be extremely wary of deviating from the preplanned path in any way. That meant avoiding all sorts of detours and prioritizing rest stops over exits. It also meant traveling with a road atlas and planning your exact route before setting off. And always questioning whether you missed a particular exit or turn and need to turn around.

Open sourcing government

Fri, 22 Sep 2017 00:00:00 +0000

This past week I had two stereotypical government experiences that got me thinking about ways the open source community can help improve government products and services. There’s a huge different in quality and joy when you compare consumer apps with government services. This is understandable: there’s more competition, fewer restraints, and more money in private enterprise so naturally government offerings won’t be as exciting. At the same time government services affect us much more than a generic app.

Death of retail

Tue, 22 Aug 2017 00:00:00 +0000

I keep hearing that retail is dying and while I do believe that to be true it’s been difficult to see that from living in the NYC area. The city streets are always bustling and while there are always some empty commercial spaces they seem to always get rented within a month or two. Yet this morning on my way to the office I came across a legitimate sign, literal and figurative, that brick and mortar retail is on its way out.

Cities and outsourced infrastructure

Thu, 13 Jul 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Earlier today I read an interesting piece about the difficulty facing Chinese bike share companies trying to enter the US market. The primary challenge is that many cities have already signed exclusive agreements with ride sharing companies and in many cases subsidized the initial investment. I find this fascinating since it highlights how even in relatively new industries it’s very easy to encounter established players that are difficult to dislodge - especially when they have the backing of the local government.

Mary Meeker's Internet Trends 2017

Sun, 04 Jun 2017 00:00:00 +0000

In what has become annual tradition, Mary Meeker has just published the 2017 Internet Trends report and it’s a whopper. Over 350 pages describing the state of the modern digital world. I can’t imagine how long it must have taken to pull the data and put it together but I’m incredibly grateful that it’s been done and continues to be done every year. There’s so much great stuff in there that it’s worth going through it on your own but I wanted to highlight the slides that stood out to me.

Subscription all the things

Fri, 21 Apr 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Reading modern technology and business news it seems that every single thing is moving to the subscription model. It’s no longer just the obvious stuff that’s being turned into a subscription with the help of technology. Software is becoming a critical part of many systems - ranging from powering cars to tractors to juicers - and would be hilarious if it weren’t so real. Software has transformed the world and now we’re trying to find the remaining places that software can be jammed into. And once the software sets in everything can be turned into a subscription model.

Embrace experimentation

Wed, 22 Mar 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Rather than debating various approaches the best way to determine the ideal option is to run an experiment and look at the outcome. The tech industry has embraced this and is constantly running all sorts of A/B tests to optimize any and all metrics. Unfortunately, this approach hasn’t spread to the rest of society where decisions are based on abstract theories and perceptions. Imagine how much society could improve if we expanded experimentation into policies affecting our cities, states, and countries.

Mancur Olson and the changing economy

Mon, 13 Feb 2017 00:00:00 +0000

I studied economics in college but only encountered Mancur Olson years later when I picked up “The Rise and Decline of Nations” at a bookstore years later. It proposes a simple theory that explains why some countries succeed while others fail - as a country maintains growth and stability it ends up developing more and entrenched interests that hobble future growth. Olson uses a variety of historical economic examples to prove this point - ranging from the British empire to Germany and Japan post World War II - that make a compelling case. This also ties in nicely with the sharing economy since it ties into the idea of regulatory capture - where government agencies are lobbied by special interest groups to introduce laws that defend their market position. This is currently playing out with the sharing economy - the taxi and limo lobbies are fighting Uber while hotels are challenging AirBnB. Both Uber and to a slightly lesser degree bring significant value to society but spend money on lawyers and lobbyists that could be spent on pushing the economy and world forward.

New law? Let the opposition name it

Mon, 06 Feb 2017 00:00:00 +0000

The Washington Post

Whenever a new law is passed it’s incredibly difficult to have it repealed since there are enough people benefiting who will fight against the removal. This leads to a situation where instead of replacing old laws with new laws we end up with a massive system of laws with new ones that just get thrown on. This leads to a whole slew of inefficiencies and requires experts to help navigate the landscape who themselves benefit from the complexity and want to maintain it as much as they can.

The freedom to move

Sat, 28 Jan 2017 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve had this thought for a while now but Trump’s latest executive order banning Muslim immigration is forcing me to put it in writing. The freedom to move should be a human right and can act as the foundation of all others. If you don’t like the policies of your city? Move to another one. Your state? Move to another one. Your country? Same thing.

By giving people the freedom to choose where they live policies will arise that benefit the greatest number of people. If you’re keen on having a strong religious state you should be able to move there. If you want to live in a big city you should be able to move to one. If it turns out that a particular location is losing residents it will act as a signal that they need to do something. Over time the best policies will rise to the top and the world will have an rapid pace of policy innovation.

Powering our devices using the human body

Mon, 16 Jan 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Lately I’ve been thinking of how we’re moving more and more to a world where humans will start merging with technology. We’re already carrying our phones around nearly every minute of every day but at least we keep them in our pockets. Watches are always on our wrists and with augmented reality the permanently attached technologies will only grow.

At some point they’ll just become part of our bodies and I was curious what additional energy we’d need to consume in order to power these devices. A naive calculation makes it seem that our devices are incredibly cheap to power. An iPhone 6S comes with 6.61 Watt hour battery which is 23,796 Watt seconds (6.61 * 60 * 60). And since a single calorie is equivalent to 4.1868 Watt seconds with some simple math we get that an iPhone 6s battery is equivalent to 5683 calories. But these are true calories and not what’s actually listed on food labels. Food labels list kilocalories so remarkably the capacity of an iPhone 6s is fewer than 6 “food” calories. For context 6 calories is what one gets from a large strawberry. I charge my phone once a day and I’m shocked that the energy in a strawberry would be able power my phone for a single day.

Human-AI cooperation

Fri, 30 Dec 2016 00:00:00 +0000

There’s been a lot written about the rise of AI and the impending automation which will lead to a mass reduction in industries requiring a human touch. The counterargument is that every time there has been a technological improvement new, higher value jobs have been created that more than offset the loss. Farming used to grossly inefficient when done by man but now massive harvesters are able to replace dozens of human workers. Similarly, technology has allowed entirely new industries to be created that just wouldn’t have been possible before - every company is embracing technology to succeed and with that comes improved efficiency and lower costs.

Comparing public transit systems: New York vs London

Sat, 24 Dec 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I’m behind on my 2 blog posts per week goal since I’m traveling and want see as much as I can but plan on catching up next week when I’m back. Right now I’m on a high speed train going from Porto to Lisbon and have 2.5 hours to do a bit of writing. And what’s more appropriate than comparing the public transit system of New York with that of London, and generally those of the United with those of Europe.

Preventing future DDOS attacks

Sun, 23 Oct 2016 00:00:00 +0000

After Friday’s DNS DDOS attack I’ve been thinking of approaches that could prevent this from happening in the future. In a perfect world every device would be up to date with the latest updates and it would be difficult to compromise anything that’s connected to the internet. Unfortunately, this is not the case and there’s an ever growing number of devices that are quickly hacked together and sold without any focus placed on security. Akamai did a study that shows over 2 million internet connected devices have been compromised which allows them to be used to run DDOS attacks, very similar to the one that took down a big chunk of the internet on Friday. The challenge is that most owners both don’t know and don’t bother to do any security audits when setting up these devices and very likely never upgrade the firmware nor the software to make them more secure.

Friction and mass surveillance

Sun, 09 Oct 2016 00:00:00 +0000

One of the best arguments I’ve heard against mass surveillance is that the marginal cost has dropped to nearly zero which warps the system. Since so much of our world is digital it costs the government nothing extra to collect each additional data point. Given these incentives it’s no surprise that the government was able to get the major companies to provide a dedicated feed of the data they were collecting - modern technology has enabled both the collection and analysis of massive amounts of data.

Comparing my top sites: 2012 vs now

Sat, 10 Sep 2016 00:00:00 +0000

While going through and making sure each of my old posts was AMP compatible I came across a post from 2012 where I tried to list the first autocomplete suggestion for each letter. This naturally made me think of what the results would be if I did the same exercise now. Comparing the information 4 years apart is an interesting way to see how my habits have changed but also provide a glimpse into the evolution of companies, products, and technology. The biggest surprise is how much of the list is work related - it’s somewhat expected given how much time we spend working and how many more cloud services there are but it’s still shocking that almost half the list is work related. The other major realization is that much of my consumption has shifted to mobile - many of the sites that are no longer on the list I actively use on my phone; I may actually use Instapaper, Google Maps, and Twitter more frequently now but it’s mostly on mobile via an app. Given how interesting this exercise was I plan on doing this annually and encourage others to do the same - it’s an extremely simple way to see how technology and our relationship to it changes over time.

Consumer tech leads to cyborgs

Mon, 08 Aug 2016 00:00:00 +0000

The iPhone is the top selling consumer product of all time and a variety of podcasts and articles makes it seem that this is the peak of consumer technology and we’ll never see anything as popular. This is shortsighted. Every new technology achieved wider and wider adoption and eclipsed the previous generation - laptops eclipsed desktops and smartphones eclipsed laptops. One thing that’s clear is that each generation of tech gets closer and closer to us. Initially we were exposed to computers when we went into the office. Soon we started buying desktops for our homes. After that we decided we wanted laptops that we could carry around with us. Smartphones gave us the ability to carry computers around in our pockets with a full day’s worth of charge.

Consumer protection for UX

Sat, 09 Jul 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I haven’t seen much written about how consumer protection relates to a product’s user experience but it’s a topic that’s worth exploring. I was reminded of this when my mortgage loan was sold to a new servicer. I came home to find a letter in the mail notifying me that my loan has been sold and that going forward I’d have to use a different payment portal and system. It was simple enough to register but the payment process became less efficient and there was no support for a Mint integration.

Uber and self driving cars

Sat, 28 May 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Self driving cars are inevitable and yet I’m surprised by how aggressive Uber is in contributing to the space. Uber is winning right now due to massive network effects. For most drivers and passengers Uber is the primary option and they only switch when Uber is either in surge if you’re a passenger or if you’re a driver when no passengers are available. Self driving cars eliminate half of the market. They won’t need to balance multiple apps on their phones and won’t need to go back and forth trying to find a passenger. It will all happen behind the scenes and do a much better job than any human would. They’d be as likely to work with Uber as any of their competitors. In fact, the entire protocol may evolve to be open with owners setting up their cars to start picking up and dropping off passengers when they’re not in use. The equivalent of how you can sell electricity back into the grid without having to do a ton of extra work. Imagine being able to own a car and just let it roam so it starts earning.

Unintended consequences

Sun, 10 Apr 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Earlier today I read an article about MaxMind, a company that offers an IP address to geographic location mapping service, making a seemingly minor decision in 2002 that that led to unintended consequences that have been going on since then. The article goes into detail about the decision and the effect but the main idea is that it’s not a prefect system and they needed a way to approximate some IP addresses to particular locations. Lo and behold these locations are now seeing tons of harassment from law enforcement and various strangers online.

Airbnb, Uber, and local laws

Sun, 06 Mar 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Yesterday I read an interesting piece on Airbnb in New Orleans. The content itself isn’t new - it highlights the typical conflict between those that view Airbnb as violating local ordinances and ruining the city and others who believe that Airbnb brings value and is helping New Orleans rebuild after Katrina.

But what was interesting was the repeated claims of Airbnb and the other rental marketplaces that it’s just not scalable to follow local policies for every city and it’s up to the users to know their local regulations and follow them. I understand it’s difficult to localize complex products but these responses just feel like an excuse.

Platform partnerships

Mon, 22 Feb 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I set up the Amazon Echo over the weekend and have been an active user of my wife’s Spotify account which comes integrated with the Echo. I would have preferred to use my Apple Music account but the Echo currently only supports Spotify. I suspect the biggest reasons are competitive - Amazon and Apple are competing for the home and it’s likely that either Amazon doesn’t want to integrate Apple or Apple is preventing Amazon from getting the integration done. At the same time Amazon has a music offering yet they specifically call out the Spotify integration. Is this because Spotify is only a competitor for music and the value of an Echo trumps this? Is it because Spotify has more reach and this is a necessary integration? I’m sure the answer is a bit of both but it’s fascinating to see how these partnerships develop.

The impact of self driving cars

Wed, 17 Feb 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Nearly every major tech company is pursuing a self driving car future and it’s inevitable that at some point most cars on the road will be completely autonomous. Cheap and easy transportation is the immediate change but there will be massive secondary effects to the shapes of cities and society.

A college professor used the example of the invention of the car to highlight these sort of effects - if told that cars would be successful most people could have guessed that they’d replace horses and clean up cities. But very few would have been able to predict the rise of highways which led to the development of suburbs and the current structure of the United States.

The sharing economy and human behavior

Sat, 21 Mar 2015 00:00:00 +0000

The sharing/rental economy is getting stronger and stronger and will have a massive impact on societies - especially cities. One thing that’s been on my mind is how it will fit into human behavior and biases. We’re so used to making infrequent or one time payments and then owning something that moving to a rental or sharing model might be difficult. For example, I don’t own a car and mostly rely on a combination of public transportation and CitIBike to get around. The rare times I need a car I’ll use either Zipcar, Hertz 24/7, Lyft or Uber depending on my exact situation yet each time I make the decision I can’t help but think about the cost. I realize that in the grand scheme of things it’s much cheaper than owning a car but during the moment itself it’s draining. It’s similar to the of unbundling TV - it’s much cheaper to just pay a dollar per episode to watch a TV show than pay more than $100 each month for cable but do people actually want to be thinking about spending the dollar each time? I suspect most would rather pay the premium for the entire bundle and the option of watching anything instead of feeling as if they’re being nickeled and dimed. I have no idea whether this is innate in human behavior or something that we’ve just grown accustomed to. I suspect it’s the latter - there are countless items we pay for individually and don’t think twice about it. What will make the sharing economy universal is when we start treating the majority of our purchases as per use rather than a lifetime subscription.

Smartphones and literacy

Thu, 26 Dec 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Source: Business Insider

In 2012 global smartphone ownership surpassed PC ownership and smartphones are still seeing massive growth. The obvious consequence is that many people who’ve never owned a computer are starting to own smartphones and that’s having a huge impact on the world. Almost everything will be affected - not just technology but also business, politics, and general culture. As these smartphones get more powerful and pervasive we’ll see applications that we can’t even imagine right now.