…a knockoff is clearly trying to confuse the market into thinking it’s something more popular, often using off-the-shelf parts, while cutting corners on the design of the product. Basically, it’s a product that succeeds because an unobservant parent or loved one doesn’t know the difference.
(emphasis mine)
Love this blog!
…[It] was the success of his own vision that demonstrated the limits of that vision.
via Now would be a good time for Mark Zuckerberg to resign | TechCrunch
this well meaning documentary meant to alert you to the dangers of stimulant medications used to treat ADHD misses the mark. It doesn’t include any perspective on what medications can do when they’re prescribed and used properly.
First off, I haven’t watched this particular documentary.
But it’s not surprising -___-
Instead, according to the complaint, she constructed an elaborate fiction that she would spend the rest of her tenure trying to keep alive, and that would lead her down the path to this week’s charges. In other words, Holmes’s mistake was that she refused to do what so many other entrepreneurs do every day, and come to terms with failure.
Also, the actual complaint from the SEC is a great read. What a train wreck 
via Kevin’s Week in Tech: Theranos, Fraud and the Failure to Fail – The New York Times
So the most interesting and distinguishing feature of Luna, at least to start with, might not be the tokens, or the incentives, or the machine learning. It might be that it’s a place you can go to meet the sort of people who want to date on the blockchain. I could make a lot of cheap jokes here, but whatever weird hyperplanes through categoryspace further the difficult and desperate project of human-seeking-human are good and worthwhile in my book. I hope that lots of libertarian women find lots of security-conscious men and make lots of beautiful, high-price-volatility babies.
via Practically-A-Book Review: Luna Whitepaper | Slate Star Codex
And when you’ve made your choice, be specific in your project documentation. There’s no need to make somebody else (possibly your future self) go through the process of guessing which connector type you used.
This is even more important for component vendors. Even though internet specifications are generally poor, that’s no excuse to be lazy. Customers need to know the specific connector to interface with your product.
The world is a blizzard place.
Despite its popularity, Tide is not a big moneymaker for stores. P&G’s proprietary surfactants and enzymes are relatively expensive to produce, notes Bill Schmitz, a Deutsche Bank analyst, so Tide’s wholesale cost is steep. Only so much of that can be passed on to customers. “It’s so tight,” says Schmitz of the profit margin. In general, a retailer clears just a few percentage points on a Tide purchase. A store that charges $19.99 for a 150-ounce bottle might claim $2 in profit. But if it buys stolen bottles for $5, that jumps to $15.
via How Tide Detergent Became a Drug Currency — New York Magazine
Why on earth might a reborn LM3909 be of interest to him, you ask? Well, he wasn’t able to make a 555 flash the LED from a coin cell, and a friend mentioned this chip which piqued his interest. The internal schematic is in the data sheet (found in the files section of his project), so he was able to implement it relatively easily using common parts. It still requires an external capacitor just like the original, but there is space on-board should you wish to put it there.
Amazing!
Today you can buy flashing LEDs; a simple two-lead component that requires only a power supply to produce even flashes of light. They look for all the world like any other LED, though embedded in the plastic dome is an integrated circuit to do all that flashing work. There was a time though when a…
via There Once Was an IC Dedicated to Blinking an LED — Hackaday
Interesting post — and I have a new thing to add to my list, Pmod modules.
The BlackIce board has female sockets that support Digilent Pmod modules, so adding VGA display and PS/2 keyboard sockets was as easy as buying a couple of cheap modules and plugging in.
via Ghost in the machine: a BBC Micro on an FPGA – Machina Speculatrix
In my field they all mean something. I find people who dislike this sort of ‘corporate’ language generally don’t have experience in trying to parse technical subjects to the business side of the office, or parsing business back to the IT crowd.
I have to say that after working a corporate job for a little over a year now I would have to agree. The buzzwords make my eyes roll every time, and it’s fun to joke about with the developers, but sometimes they are the only tool to get the job done. (that is if you have other things to do besides describe the complete architecture of your app)
via agentpanda comments on What buzzword do people need to stop using?
Flying Upside Down 