Funny you should mention meteorological use cases. At a previous startup, we built global historical weather data sets (at 5km resolution, 30+ year hourly time series), accessible via a metered API. This took HPC,…
Ground speed doesn't seem like a feature to me - after all, the ideal is an unblinking 'eye in the sky' that provides high-resolution video for large regions a la ARGUS. A stationary observer seems like it would provide…
For a long time, public satellite imagery came from satellites flown by the US Geological Survey (USGS). They came in two flavors: geostationary and low-earth orbit. The geostationary satellites are perched very high…
"Pixel Perfect" - awesome! The google logo looks particularly 'pixel perfect.' Seems like some "sub-pixel" texturing could be done by drawing different characters a la ascii art. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AAlib
Well, the innovation is really about storing electricity. We've been generating and transmitting electricity for over a century now. Once we can store electricity (in batteries, for example), then intermittent power…
RINSE - https://www.rinse.com - Santa Monica, CA and San Francisco, CA Rinse is a technology-enabled dry cleaning and laundry delivery service. We've been growing our service at an exponential rate for the past two…
I couldn't believe that the new 49ers stadium (in Santa Clara) cost a trillion dollars, so I looked it up. It cost $1.2 billion [1] - a "gigabuck" rather than a "terabuck." To put that in perspective, a single office…
RINSE - www.rinse.com - Design District, San Francisco, CA Rinse is a technology-enabled dry cleaning and laundry delivery service. We've been growing our service at an exponential rate for the past year, and our…
The oft-cited statistic is "97% of climate scientists believe in anthropogenic climate change" and the wikipedia article [1] is actually quite thorough. I personally do not know any scientist who doesn't believe in…
They have bunch of blends to choose from, and serve carefully-made single-drip "Third-wave" coffees. The order process is a bit chaotic, which makes the whole thing seem nice and quaint. Plus, they do little things like…
Google Ventures invested in Blue Bottle. Their (excellent!) designers-in-residence showcase the work they did to help: http://www.gv.com/lib/behind-the-scenes-with-blue-bottle-and...
In rural areas, it's actually common to have a gas pump near the garage. After all, what are you going to do, drive your tractor to town to fill up?
There is an excellent New Yorker article on fecal transplants and gut flora. The article spends considerable time talking about the donors, and the rigorous screening process to make sure the donated bacteria are good…
A space railgun is theoretically possible, but you'll still need a rocket to circularize the orbit. In practice, a rocket goes up (out of most of the atmosphere) before going fast. A projectile fired out of a railgun…
I've built a number of teams, and have repeatedly had the fortune of anchoring the back-end with a senior engineer over age 50. Experience matters, and it helps the entire team from a morale, design, and process…
For cables, Monoprice is also a good alternative (and, generally, price-competitive with Amazon). Another commenter mentioned that Monoprice's HDMI quality has declined; I haven't noticed any problem with their Ethernet…
As I understand it, there are fins that deploy in order to steer the rocket on the way back down (the first stage). They are really cool "Grid Fins" [1] that work even in supersonic flight. In particular, they are used…
There's a difference between requests that the user "expects" to take a long time, and those that can never be fast enough. For example, POSTs, credit card transactions, and things like Wikipedia edits generally have…
Rinse - www.rinse.com - Design District, San Francisco, CA Rinse is a technology-enabled dry cleaning and laundry delivery service. We've been growing our service at an exponential rate for the past year, and our…
If you're already charging batteries for a hybrid electric drivetrain, perhaps the electric supercharger makes more sense? After all, the electric motor itself is used for extra torque when the gasoline engine is…
This makes great sense! I'd guess this would be (relatively) easily integrated with a standard hybrid system, although the powertrain would be quite expensive (hybrid system PLUS turbocharger system). I wonder if this…
If you're not sure if you want to play Diplomacy, you might read this article: http://grantland.com/features/diplomacy-the-board-game-of-th...
Funny you should mention meteorological use cases. At a previous startup, we built global historical weather data sets (at 5km resolution, 30+ year hourly time series), accessible via a metered API. This took HPC,…
Ground speed doesn't seem like a feature to me - after all, the ideal is an unblinking 'eye in the sky' that provides high-resolution video for large regions a la ARGUS. A stationary observer seems like it would provide…
For a long time, public satellite imagery came from satellites flown by the US Geological Survey (USGS). They came in two flavors: geostationary and low-earth orbit. The geostationary satellites are perched very high…
"Pixel Perfect" - awesome! The google logo looks particularly 'pixel perfect.' Seems like some "sub-pixel" texturing could be done by drawing different characters a la ascii art. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AAlib
Well, the innovation is really about storing electricity. We've been generating and transmitting electricity for over a century now. Once we can store electricity (in batteries, for example), then intermittent power…
RINSE - https://www.rinse.com - Santa Monica, CA and San Francisco, CA Rinse is a technology-enabled dry cleaning and laundry delivery service. We've been growing our service at an exponential rate for the past two…
I couldn't believe that the new 49ers stadium (in Santa Clara) cost a trillion dollars, so I looked it up. It cost $1.2 billion [1] - a "gigabuck" rather than a "terabuck." To put that in perspective, a single office…
RINSE - www.rinse.com - Design District, San Francisco, CA Rinse is a technology-enabled dry cleaning and laundry delivery service. We've been growing our service at an exponential rate for the past year, and our…
The oft-cited statistic is "97% of climate scientists believe in anthropogenic climate change" and the wikipedia article [1] is actually quite thorough. I personally do not know any scientist who doesn't believe in…
They have bunch of blends to choose from, and serve carefully-made single-drip "Third-wave" coffees. The order process is a bit chaotic, which makes the whole thing seem nice and quaint. Plus, they do little things like…
Google Ventures invested in Blue Bottle. Their (excellent!) designers-in-residence showcase the work they did to help: http://www.gv.com/lib/behind-the-scenes-with-blue-bottle-and...
In rural areas, it's actually common to have a gas pump near the garage. After all, what are you going to do, drive your tractor to town to fill up?
There is an excellent New Yorker article on fecal transplants and gut flora. The article spends considerable time talking about the donors, and the rigorous screening process to make sure the donated bacteria are good…
A space railgun is theoretically possible, but you'll still need a rocket to circularize the orbit. In practice, a rocket goes up (out of most of the atmosphere) before going fast. A projectile fired out of a railgun…
I've built a number of teams, and have repeatedly had the fortune of anchoring the back-end with a senior engineer over age 50. Experience matters, and it helps the entire team from a morale, design, and process…
RINSE - www.rinse.com - Design District, San Francisco, CA Rinse is a technology-enabled dry cleaning and laundry delivery service. We've been growing our service at an exponential rate for the past year, and our…
For cables, Monoprice is also a good alternative (and, generally, price-competitive with Amazon). Another commenter mentioned that Monoprice's HDMI quality has declined; I haven't noticed any problem with their Ethernet…
As I understand it, there are fins that deploy in order to steer the rocket on the way back down (the first stage). They are really cool "Grid Fins" [1] that work even in supersonic flight. In particular, they are used…
RINSE - www.rinse.com - Design District, San Francisco, CA Rinse is a technology-enabled dry cleaning and laundry delivery service. We've been growing our service at an exponential rate for the past year, and our…
There's a difference between requests that the user "expects" to take a long time, and those that can never be fast enough. For example, POSTs, credit card transactions, and things like Wikipedia edits generally have…
Rinse - www.rinse.com - Design District, San Francisco, CA Rinse is a technology-enabled dry cleaning and laundry delivery service. We've been growing our service at an exponential rate for the past year, and our…
If you're already charging batteries for a hybrid electric drivetrain, perhaps the electric supercharger makes more sense? After all, the electric motor itself is used for extra torque when the gasoline engine is…
This makes great sense! I'd guess this would be (relatively) easily integrated with a standard hybrid system, although the powertrain would be quite expensive (hybrid system PLUS turbocharger system). I wonder if this…
Rinse - www.rinse.com - Design District, San Francisco, CA Rinse is a technology-enabled dry cleaning and laundry delivery service. We've been growing our service at an exponential rate for the past year, and our…
If you're not sure if you want to play Diplomacy, you might read this article: http://grantland.com/features/diplomacy-the-board-game-of-th...