Unfortunately my team didn't end up visiting when I participated in the rally, but every team who wanted to go to Turkmenistan had to advertise some horse show that was running in the country that summer. They made everyone slap a rather large sticker with the logo on their car. I wonder if the campaign was considered successful considering most people outside of the country weren't able to attend or watch it anyway :)
I'm trying out building a board game modelled after Blokus in TypeScript with online functionality enabled by websockets. I have a group of friends who enjoy the game so I'm mainly making it so that we can play together :)
I agree that the $99/year/developer isn’t that much for Apple. The 30% of all sales is probably significant though - the App Store has a lot of users.
I don’t necessarily agree that PWA developers have no way of monetising their apps though - if I’m not mistaken they could use ads and subscriptions for their services. These would normally grant a cut to Apple if they were done through the App Store, hence the incentive for apple to delay the implementation of PWAs.
> The 30% of all sales is probably significant though
I realized they just announced something on this yesterday, which I found transcribed[1]:
"We're happy to announce that this week, we're going to achieve another huge milestone. The money that developers have earned through the App Store will top $100 billion."
So if that's the developer's %70 to Apple's 30%, then Apple's share is $43 billion. That's a lot, but over just about 10 years. I don't know how much was, e.g., in the last year, but Apple's revenue is over $200 billion/year, I think, so in terms of percent, it's in the low single-digits.
> I don’t necessarily agree that PWA developers have no way of monetising their apps though.
I didn't say they have no way of monetizing, just nothing with the reach comparable to the Apple app store. Outside the app store, a PWA developer can charge, e.g., subscriptions. But (1) it's not free (they'll have to create or buy a mechanism for doing so... there are transaction fees too, but much less than 30%); and (2) would entirely lack the discoverability of Apple's app store. Sure, it's perhaps possible that a completing PWA app marketplace could be created and marketed, but it doesn't exist now, and it would take a lot of time and a lot of money.
I didn't think Apple generally took a piece of ad revenue from iOS apps. Wasn't it just their own iAd network that took a piece? (Also, I thought that was killed off).
$99/year isn't small. There are 2m apps in the iOS App Store today. Each app must pay $99/year. That's $198m/year as a passive income stream for Apple.
Factor in 30% of app purchase price, plus 30% of in-app purchases, and you have a significant revenue stream.
This assumes (incorrectly) that every app is released by a different developer with their own account. In reality many of those 2M apps are basically shovelware - with developers releasing dozens if not hundreds of different apps under the same account.
Hey - just wanted to let you know that I really identify with the comments you made here today. I just read the blog you linked and I think it could help me a lot.
I struggle with excessive procrastination on a daily basis and seeing the stuff that generally gets posted on the topic of 'productivity' here and for example LinkedIn doesn't track with me at all since it tends to focus on doing massive amounts of work every single day with a 'just do it' mindset. All that does is stress me out, and I often feel like I'm not the right type of person to achieve things. Your view on the topic has given me some well needed positivity - thank you!
I'll just leave this final piece of advice here, which I would say is the distilled essence of wisdom I've worked hard for in the last decade — whether it might reach you at the point you currently are or not:
It's not that when you have your procrastination issues covered, that you will finally be able to accept and trust yourself.
It is that when you finally accept and trust yourself, you will be able to have your procrastination issues covered.
It may sound cheesy and simple, but trust me that it's correct. Getting there is a whole different game, it took me 10 years for the first 80% and I fear the last 20% will take the rest of my life.
I participated this summer and I would agree - it’s an amazing experience. The fact that the Adventurists still have a very personal approach with everyone taking part even though there were over 300 teams this summer is testament to how cool those guys are!
> But what about the other 60%? The majority of the public make bad long term decisions in order to get a quick payoff, examples: Payday loan companies, Fast food / obesity, binge drinking, credit cards .. these are (not absolute) but examples of how people "just cant wait" for the long term payoff and take 'fix' and run.
People do these things, but I'm not sure that's enough of a reason to ban said activities. I think most people agree that banning e.g. 'being fat' or 'eating too much' would be unreasonable. Instead we allow people to make these mistakes, and then deal with the consequences.
> Having > 50% of the population addicted to drugs would be disastrous.
I completely agree with this statement, although I'm not sure I think legalising drugs would actually lead to that. If we were to legalise drugs there would need to be a system in place where people are informed about the effects and side-effects of the drug they wish to purchase. They would not get access to unlimited amounts at a low cost. While some drugs would be potentially quite problematic under this system (e.g. the very addictive and damaging ones such as methamphetamine and heroin) some probably would not. For example MDMA does not carry a large risk of being abused, and neither do psychedelics (they are not addictive, at least not in the physical sense).
Completely legalising drugs has many challenges associated with it, but also many benefits. I think decriminalisation, at least, could be a very good idea. It moves drug addiction from being a crime to be being a medical issue, where the correct response is treatment and not prison. Portugal is an example of a country where this was implemented with positive results.
Supersonic flights over land is actually a fairly difficult problem to solve, as the noise levels are very high. This is a major reason behind why the Concorde only flew across the ocean.
Nonetheless I did not know Boeing was lobbying against it - that kind of protectionism does indeed hinder innovation.
When I was 13, we had a math class that was scheduled at the same time the Concorde flew over the school, 35 km away from the Roissy airport. The teacher had to stop talking for 10 seconds and wait for it to fly away. This thing was loud.
Concorde did actually fly over land - Braniff Airways operated it between Washington DC and Dallas Fort Worth under a short-lived, strange 'tag flight' arrangement (where the aircraft would continue on from Washington to London / Paris under BA / AF crews).
And for each US domestic rotation each individual aircraft was reregistered onto the US N-register, and then back onto the UK or French register for the Atlantic crossing.
At that time only N-reg aircraft were pemitted to operate internal commercial US flights.
To simplify the process the BA Concordes were allocated unique-for-the-UK alpha-numeric registrations which could have their 'G-' prefix hidden by speed-tape:
Apparently (can't find the article I read on it) the noise would be much less of a problem today.
The magnitude of the sonic boom is relative to mass, and modern planes are being built lighter and lighter (to save on fuel). Something like a 50-seat mostly-carbon-fiber super sonic aircraft at 50,000 ft might well be perfectly fine to fly over land at Mach 2. The smaller size might also help with the problem of empty seats. As well, ideas like wings that change shape/angle for different portions of the flight could also help.
Someone just needs to put down the R&D money and take the risk to build such a plane.
That doesn't sound reasonable. The sonic boom is caused by (I had thought) air being compressed at the front of the plane. That would mean the loudness is determined by speed and shape of the plane.
The only way mass would have an effect is if the exhaust (which heavier planes presumably generate more of) contributed to the sonic boom, which doesn't sound right.
I'll believe that modern planes might generate smaller sonic booms, being more efficient sounds like it's related to how you displace the air, which sounds very related to the size of the boom, but I don't believe you that mass is related.
Not necessarily. The amount of air displaced is related to the mass of the aircraft. A heavier plane displaces more air, leading to a more energetic boom.
Are you suggesting that if we have two planes of the same size and shape, the heavier one displaces more air?
I can understand that objects floating on water follow that principle but that's because they are floating. Once fully suspended in water, I think the amount of water they displace is just their volume. Shouldn't it be likewise for aircrafts in the atmosphere?
To maintain level flight, a plane has to generate lift equal to its weight. It generates lift by forcing a mass of air down. More mass means more air disturbed.
When people explain flight through Bournoulli or whatever, they tend to forget Newton's basic laws, which really are the simplest way to understand flight. It won't make you an aerospace engineer, though.
Not quite. Outside of ground effect, a downward force is applied to the air mass around the aircraft, resulting in lift on the aircraft. IIUC, this results in compressed, high pressure air below the plane and low pressure air above it. The result of that is a pair of vortices roughly centered on the plane's wingtips. These vortices themselves are Somehow Important to the whole thing. Anyway, you can see the deal when a plane flies close to a cloud top.[1]
In ground effect (i.e. the aircraft is flying within roughly one wingspan of the ground), the proximity of the ground blocks the formation of the wingtip vortices (?) and greatly enhances the efficiency of lift production (by some form of magic, AFAIK).
You need to sum craft weight and lift when applying Newton's laws in figuring downward pressure, more lift -> less ground pressure across all craft weight.
The magnitude of the sonic boom is not relative to mass. It is relative to the altitude and to the speed of the aircraft, and the duration and maximum amplitude of the shock wave are dependent on the shape of the aircraft.
You may have misread an article describing pounds-per-square-foot as a measure of sonic boom intensity. This measurement is not about the mass or density of the aircraft relative to its area, this is the change in air pressure at the ground caused by the sound wave.
Actually being able to use simulations to a much larger extent than was possible back when Concorde was being developed must play a role in lowering the costs of building a new supersonic aircraft. I believe this is what Boom is trying to do! Let's hope they can spur more investments into this field - it would be very cool if we got to see supersonic travel again :)
Question out of interest - is it likely he is talking about companies moving from a location from within the US to SV?
Lots of young programmers/entrepreneurs in Europe seem to dream of going to SV as soon as possible. At the same time there are lots of great cities for startups around over here - London, Stockholm and Helsinki to just name a few... SV might be the best/a great choice later on in the process but I'm quite sure Europe has lots to offer as well (not even considering potential visa issues here, which obviously restrict many or most Europeans from joining startups over in the US).
Attended a talk by one of the creators of Erlang a couple of weeks ago. Very passionate about achieving maximum uptime for applications written in his language. This is one of the features that makes that possible... Fascinating stuff.
Unfortunately my team didn't end up visiting when I participated in the rally, but every team who wanted to go to Turkmenistan had to advertise some horse show that was running in the country that summer. They made everyone slap a rather large sticker with the logo on their car. I wonder if the campaign was considered successful considering most people outside of the country weren't able to attend or watch it anyway :)