Johanna

Why was no one even experimenting with two-wheeled vehicles until the 1800s? And why was no one, as far as we know, even considering the question of human-powered vehicles until the 1400s? Why weren’t there bicycle mechanics in the 1300s, when there were clockmakers, or at least by the 1500s, when we had watches?

It’s worth emphasizing that basic income does not have to be an amount of money that meets people’s basic needs. Such an amount may be both desirable and achievable, but it is not part of the definition. Basic income is “basic” only in the sense that everyone gets it. The income itself is basic — not what it buys.

The right question to ask isn’t: Can we afford a basic income? The right question is: What’s the optimal level of basic income for our economy? How much basic income can our economy handle without causing inflation or other problems? To what extent will various taxes and other economic policies increase or decrease that amount?

Invention is easily overrated, and implementation is often underrated.

Something that you personally can replicate is replication. Watching someone else do it is also pretty close, since you still get to see it for yourself. Something that a big lab would be able to replicate is not really replication. It’s nice to have confirmation from a second lab, but now you’re just taking two people’s word for it instead of one... See more

I call this the deluge of crappy papers. A recent article in Nautilus comes up with a more visually-arresting term - “zombie science”. This is apt, because zombies eat brains. Zombie science also consumes brains, or specifically, brain’s attention. Scientist’s time is one of the most precious resources we have and more and more is being wasted... See more

He persists in looking at the hours from 10 to 6 as ‘the day’ to which the 10 hours proceeding and the 6 hours following are an epilogue and prologue … this general attitude is illogical and unhealthy.

I realize that not every business has a community around what they do, but if you do have a broader ecosystem of users, developers or fans, you should try like hell to hire from that crowd whenever possible.