I’d argue Kudzu has visibility bias. It grows on sunny roadsides, railway corridors, and disturbed land. Basically all the places where people see it so attribute it to being more pervasive than it is. It's also mostly harmless[2].
Bad code is the inverse. It’s more pervasive than people think it is and builds up precisely in the places that are not disturbed. More like Privet than Kudzu. But that isn’t nearly as catchy.
If you want to dig into the quasi redemption story of why Kudzu isn’t this terrible evil we’ve given it to this was a decent episode of 99%PI at around the 18 minute mark[1].
This description feels like you are describing mold. It is invisible. It smells bad. And can slowly erode everything it grows on. One day you will take a shovel with molded handle and it will just detach.
Don't discount disturbed land. Early successional habitat is even more biodiverse than old growth forests, and high quality early successional habitat is very rare in the south.
Part of getting deals done in China (in the old days) involved drinking.
After enough trial and error, I found I had luck with pre-gaming bioavailable pre-pre-precursors and water about 6 hours before drinking. More so than just water. Or just precursors.
The surprising bit I learned in some papers (in mice) was that glutathione precursors like NAC can actually do more liver damage if taken after drinking than just taking nothing. Timing seems to matter a lot.
That and there’s a bit of a difference between effective hangover prevention and after the fact hangover cure. The latter is kind of like asking how to uncrash a car. IV drips are very effective for symptom relief but the damage is already done.
It does give you the option to change cards when you double tap, before you pay.
But I think the real reason is that people would walk around with card readers and scan peoples watches to collect cash. I can only guess it doesn't happen in Japan for cultural reasons. You could try and do that with purses/wallets too, but since most people are carrying multiple cards, they interfere and largely prevent RFID skimming.
I recall we were seriously talking about using one during the early days of the Deepwater Horizon disaster. For a variety of reasons it wouldn’t have worked in that instance.
I just restored an 1800’s house and we redid the paint in limewash as part of that process. (Effectively zero VOCs but pretty caustic when wet.)
Historically (for interior paint) you would use regular limewash in dry spaces and add casein/milk in high traffic/wet spaces. It works in a bathroom but wouldn’t hold up in a shower (for that you would want to use “tadelakt“ - especially if you’re going for that Aman spa look).
The contemporary solution with modern limewashing is to use “mineral shield” - it uses silicone instead of casein - it makes water droplets bead up but still lets water vapor breath through.
It also doesn’t flatten out the nice velvet texture one gets with limewash paint from the calcite crystals.
That said, it’s extremely obvious if one touches up a patch of wall with limewash. No two batches are the same color unless you’re going pure white and even then…
Seeing the index in action next to an oura I appreciate how much smaller/thinner the index is (or at least how much less it seems to “spread” my fingers apart with of a width of 6.5mm vs 8mm).
It’s effectively a regular ring with a button on it that’s smaller than a typical 1ct engagement ring. The oura by contrast (even the 4) is a chonker compared to “regular” wedding bands. I’ve tried in the past but personally a very thick ring is a non-starter for me. Might just be a personal sensitivity thing. Clearly the oura sells.
From a V1/MVP/founder lens I am sensitive to the value in shipping a product that just works rather than doubling the complexity with a bms, custom charger, wrap around flex pcb, and associated engineering effort to mitigate ignition hazards. Especially when there’s platform risk in seeing if this thing even gets used. There’s no platform risk on the watch side which has comes miles from my first pebble/Alerta that was one day charge and blackberry phone compatible only.
As for the ewaste argument? If the market demands a rechargeable product then that’s the right move. But from a weight perspective? This feels performative. Even pessimistically three-four 5g device that are 0% recyclable will generate less ewaste than a 200g phone with 55% recovery and a 5% recapture rate of obsolete devices thats turn over every 3.5 years. It’s like 10x less and probably in the ballpark of what a hypothetical “rechargeable” index would look like.
Sounds like a kanji version of their Big Tic line.
You can find old copies of the JR-1999/JR-8034/JR7978 on eBay but if you’re curious about fashion history (as I am) the backstory is more interesting[1].
You may be pleased to know that fossil is rebooting the big tic series of watches.
Recurring revenue, K-factor, long shelf life and low actuation rate.
Few verticals outside of video storage could support a monthly subscription putting negative pressure on supporting a shipped product.
Most smart home products are anti-social and had a low k-factor. You don’t want to share access to your scale to more than a handful (2?) people. This makes market adoption slower than a social networking app.
Touched on in the video but median shelf life for these $200 products is 8 years. Thats very “bad” relative to most other consumer hardware. Especially say a $1500 smartphone that’s replaced every 2 years.
Actuation rates on many categories are abysmal. Your smart smoke detector may go years without sending you a message. Compare to say screentime for ChatGPT on mobile averaging hours per day.
Interestingly a lot of those floundering smart home products became thriving businesses when pivoting to smart office focus. Subscriptions go up, user counts go up, utility goes up.
You're describing those things as failures. I see them as successes.
A smart device that doesn't need a subscription to feed and keep track of, doesn't consume hours of my life trying to get my attention, doesn't get shared with the world, and doesn't bother me with needless bullshit? It just quietly does its thing and it also lasts 8 years?
That sounds great! Count me in!
(Actually, I'm already a member. My personal favorite smart devices come with open-source ESPHome firmware pre-installed, and they have all of the features I've described above. These manufacturers make their money by exchanging money for widgets in simple one-time transactions, not by being sneaky under-handed rent-seeking slimeballs who live to optimize ways continuously extract money out of my billfold for the rest of my life.)
Watched this when it came out. I felt like it had that typical Technology Connections problem where it will take one under explored point along a Pareto frontier and conflate it for the global optimal design.
At least that was my experience with the toaster, microwave, and dishwasher detergent episodes.
While Hybrid System II is very clever and non-intuitive coming from an ICE or EV frame of reference there are reasons even Toyota hasn’t placed all their chips on this bet. In fact as Japan’s largest manufacturer they want to have a bet on every point of Pareto frontier which is why Toyota makes cars with their own competing iForce hybrid design (I’m a big fan of the generator + torque assist), hydrogen cars, electrics, plug in hybrids, diesels, propane and yes gas.
Specifically Hybrid System II is best if you can 1) only have one car 2) don’t have a place to charge it 3) do lots of starts and stops driving around town.
Bad code is the inverse. It’s more pervasive than people think it is and builds up precisely in the places that are not disturbed. More like Privet than Kudzu. But that isn’t nearly as catchy.
If you want to dig into the quasi redemption story of why Kudzu isn’t this terrible evil we’ve given it to this was a decent episode of 99%PI at around the 18 minute mark[1].
[1] https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/roman-mars-describes-...
[2] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/true-story-kud...
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