Could a D-Wave be used to perform Shor's algorithm? I remember reading a long time ago that In-Q-Tel and an unnamed 3-letter agency had invested in D-Wave
I agree. It wouldn't surprise me if Reddit's initial subreddits were narrow and reflected the interests of the founders and early employees – they created a proto-listserv for people like them and it grew from there
I think it's important to remember that none of these startups were as popular now as in the beginning. This is obvious, but it's hard too think back to the late-90s and put ourselves in the metapsychology of a user who was evangelizing Google when (basically) everyone uses Google now. Same with Reddit and Mint.
I first heard about Google from my 1st grade teacher. He bought us 1984 Macintoshs (with his own money) to use since our school didn't see the point of buying new computers to teach first graders computer skills in 1999 (the irony is not lost on me...). When he saw me using Alta Vista one day in our school's computer lab, he stopped me mid-search, logged onto Google and the rest is history.
My teacher was kind of a hippie and had spent time on an Indian Reservation as a photographer. He was obsessed with astronomy and took us on field trips to the Griffith Observatory at night where attendance was extra credit. I don't know if this is representative of Google's initial user base but it wouldn't surprise me if it was.
TL;DR: It's almost impossible to tell in hindsight who the few users were especially when a company is ubiquitous. Needless to say, it seems to be the best way to succeed
I disagree completely. Uber's inception/success was partly because of existing taxi services' "barriers to entry". Medallions were worth about $1 million each when Uber started in NYC (http://bloom.bg/2aCEeQA). That's a textbook case of an economic rent.
Taxi service was often discriminatory in NYC and other cities: taxi drivers often refuse to pick up black passengers assuming they won't pay once they reach their destination and I've had gay friends openly complain about how SF cab drivers used to throw them out on Pride or after a PDA with their significant other. This was the status quo for decades because of the barriers to entry of municipal taxi services' monopoly. They never had to anything about it since their was no competition and if you didn't like it, you probably shouldn't take a cab.
Besides Uber's barriers to entry are it's scale (low prices and reliable service) and brand than de facto monopoly status (which I assume is what you're talking about since you mostly talk about competition beside summing up your link). The fact that a co-op could potentially "disrupt Uber" is evidence of that.
>> I disagree completely. Uber's inception/success was partly because of existing taxi services' "barriers to entry". Medallions were worth about $1 million each when Uber started in NYC (http://bloom.bg/2aCEeQA). That's a textbook case of an economic rent.
I live in NYC and if you look at my other posts to this article, you'll see I made the point that before Uber/Lyft the medallions went for $1.2 million.
Still, Uber/Lyft are way, way too expensive compared with other cities in USA and this is from the "legacy pricing" from the pre-Uber/Lyft days. Also, the "surge" pricing is really annoying and makes it Uber/Lyft far more expensive than taxis (they have the Arro app). I've had surge pricing on a Saturday morning! Hardly rush hour when it is raining! (I didn't use it).
>> Besides Uber's barriers to entry are it's scale (low prices and reliable service)
Uber does not have low prices in NYC. In other cities I've used it they are lower, eps. Uber-pool when it is available. Don't take my word for it. Check the Uber prices of NYC vs. Chicago or other large cities. NYC is about twice as expensive.
Most of the uber price goes to the driver. So higher prices means more money for the driver. Since NYC is a more expensive place to live, and people have more money, you have to charge higher prices to get enough drivers to drive.
Make NYC as cheap as new mexico to live in, and you will see new mexico prices.
Because of the limit on taxi medallions, the market value of a medallion was as high as $1.2 million. When drivers lease the medallion it can cost $125 per 12 hour shift or about $85,000 per year -- an amount Uber drivers don't have to pay and thus should result in much lower fares.
Other US cities that are still expensive gave much lower fares.
Also there are many elderly on a fixed income that can't drive or negotiate mass transit easier.
That may be true. I'd imagine that a cheap median price and solid service will depend on the scale of Swift's supply side. Assuming there's plenty of demand (lots of Uber, Lyft customers switching over) then Uber's drivers would be more than willing to switch over to Swift. The co-op model would be a great incentive.
The issue is though how does one get drivers to switch from a reliable (though possibly imperfect, inefficient) source of regular income with a well-known brand to an upstart at a large enough scale to pose a direct threat to Uber, thereby forcing them to change their model or go out of business?
I'm living in LA right now and I typically wait 4 min for a car (longest has been 10 min). My last ride cost $4.44. That's less than a Big Mac! ($5.04 average price in the US). I can't imagine a new service being able to beat that from it's inception.
The other issue is that if drivers are allowed drive for Uber and Swift there could be a free rider dynamic: drivers get the benefit of belonging to Swifts' co-op but still get to be part of Uber's network. Sure Uber's service would suffer, but it would be a huge drain on Swift's resources and undercut their model (and reason of existing) from the driver's perspective.
> The issue is though how does one get drivers to switch from a reliable (though possibly imperfect, inefficient) source of regular income with a well-known brand to an upstart at a large enough scale to pose a direct threat to Uber,
Incrementally, starting to use the second for a small percent and then gradually more
Steven Pinker wrote about the distribution you mention in 2002 in the "Blank Slate". I'd highly recommend it to anyone who's interested in neuroscience and assumptions about human nature that underly political discourse in this country.
It's remarkably relevant even though it's over a decade old
Does anyone live in a city (within the US) that takes a similar approach to GDS? I live in SF and developers usually create their own apps for services (Like MUNI/BART) but the city seems to have a mix of good and bad UX when it comes to municipal services (from my experience, at least)
Link to https://data.gov.uk on that page in fact points to ’file:///C:/Users/mcallister_mj2/AppData/Local/Microsoft/Windows/Temporary%20Internet%20Files/Content.Outlook/5P3C0P9L/data.gov.uk’
I live in Pittsburgh. I don't know if it is a "rule", but none of the municipal applications I've built are apps. As we show how much less expensive responsive web is to develop and maintain, it will only get harder for efficient and competent agencies to propose to build an app. Of course inefficient, corrupt agencies will probably still build apps.
If the Microsoft was liquidating bit coin the way planetjones describes, it was probably too inconvenient since the exchange rate (Bitcoin to $) would fluctuate so unpredictably and wildy (at times) there was no way to reliably exchange bitcoins for the exact amount customers were charged.
If the exchange rate was too low, MSFT would lose money. If it was too high, they'd be breaking a number of very basic but important laws that are designed to protect consumers.
Microsoft did liquidate to USD right away using a company called BitPay. BitPay would take on the short term price risk and Microsoft would get exactly what they quoted in USD. Microsoft was not subject to BTCUSD price fluctuation in this scheme.
That said, just by eyeballing some graphs at Coinbase it looks to me like the exchange rate was a more volatile back when Microsoft started accepting Bitcoin than it is now. Which isn't to say that they couldn't reasonably decide that it's too volatile, but it does seem odd that they'd do so while the volatility's dropping rather than increasing.
I'm inclined to guess that all the BTC in the news just led them to a more fundamental reconsideration of their bet that it is (or will become) a viable unit of exchange. There are a lot of take-aways you could get from recent events that might lead to that decision, but the most fundamental one is simply that it's become clear that a huge portion of the people controlling Bitcoin's future don't want it to become one.
I actually thought MM had the right idea at first re: Yahoo! being a low-brow web entertainment portal. At one time Gweneth Paltrow was going to have her own lifestyle blog/website on Yahoo!. Even though anybody reading this comment or anyone we're close with probably wouldn't be interested in that there's a large number of US consumers who would be.
Either because of a personal bias or something else (we'll probably never know) she pulled a 180 and did things like buying the rights to every season of SNL (which was a favorite of her's growing up) and poached Katie Couric to run their news desk.
Having said all that, I don't know if I would anything different myself: If I'm bringing a tech giant back from the grave, I want to make it "sexy" again. I want the glory that comes with that. I don't want my company to be a mouthpiece for celebrities' personal brands
