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Daniel Dulitz
Product design, Google, relationships and communication, economics and finance, decisionmaking using statistics, rock climbing
Crazy Aunt, Unleashed - http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archive...
"Sarah Palin is crack for the GOP: gives a real jolt, is fun and addictive, and is really, really bad for your health."
- Daniel Dulitz
Uh, what does that make Bush. Heroin? :)
- Piaw Na
Battery acid.
- j1m
In super-sketchy old SUV "car service" from JFK. The taxi line wasn't even that long and he's not even cheap. Why did I do this?
Was it one of those unlicensed cabbies who solicit you as you're leaving the airport? I fell for that at JFK a couple years ago. He told me "It's such a busy night, the NYC taxi companies asked us to help out." Uh huh.
- Doug
Yeah. But I knew exactly what I was doing... Here's what happened. I often use those guys, because I'm too lazy to call for a real car service. I spotted a good one (spiffy dress), and he wanted $69+tip. Now, that was way too much, considering there were so few people waiting for taxis; I could have gotten a taxi in less than 5 minutes. I countered with $55. (Taxi is $45+tip.) He...
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- Daniel Dulitz
But I didn't. I asked if he had a TLC license at all; I'm sure he didn't. He claimed he did. "Car service" he said. Right. I didn't press him on it. And THEN. And THEN. At the end of the ride he wanted me to pay for his parking, etc. I was incredulous. What that business needs is a reputation system.
- Daniel Dulitz
Or, you know, some sort of regulatory authority, who set standard fares and issue medallion numbers you can use to lodge complaints and ... yeah, I've taken a gypsy cab too, I think most people do. Once.
- ⓞnor
Daniel (D), don't forget to take advantage of the Tourist Initiative Act, which gives you half off all your cab rides according to this very reliable source: http://www.youtube.com/watch...
- Doug
I took a gypsy cab once to JFK and it was straightforward. He rounded up me plus a few other dopes around Grand Central, we went JFK, and then we paid him the agreed amount, which was entirely reasonable.
- Andrew C
Yeah, I frequently take the unauthorized cars, and it tends to work out. This time, no. ⓞnor, yes, I could have used the regulated market but medallion systems are illiquid -- in fact, the whole point of them is to reduce liquidity. The market price of a medallion proves they are succeeding. A small tweak to the existing system would increase liquidity while cutting off the lowest-quality tail.
- Daniel Dulitz
Issuing more medallions by itself won't help, right -- the existing process is locally optimal. But depending on the time of day, weather, etc., there is often a dearth of cabs at JFK. Flights are bursty, and cabs don't have a way of coordinating with that. The issue in my mind is that there are lots more good drivers who are willing to drive (e.g. livery cab drivers) than there are...
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- Daniel Dulitz
Well, so: what's needed is a way for cab drivers to coordinate with the bursty arrival of flights.
- j1m
At least you can GET cabs easily in NYC. Have you ever tried finding/hailing a cab in SF? (okay, SFO is better, but there I'm guessing you'd probably pay 1.5x what you'd pay for an airport taxi in NYC)
- Adam Lasnik
(via davidenos) Fantastic work, David. - http://sexpigeon.org/post...
Doug liked this
This is a very creative map of SF.
- Daniel Dulitz
Lecturing each other on trade - http://mpettis.com/2009...
Piaw Na liked this
"There is too much acceptance at face value that China has managed to escape the crisis fairly well, and that there are no serious concerns within the country. On the contrary, however, it seems to me that the debate in China is very deep, very worried, and although I think that on balance policy is moving in the wrong direction because the preponderance of power is held by policymakers who simply do not understand China’s place within the global balance, it is focusing on most of the right things."
- Daniel Dulitz
"In the late 1920s, the US represented over 30% of global GDP and ran a trade surplus equal to around 0.4% of global GDP. In the mid-1980s Japan represented around 15% of global GDP and ran a trade surplus equal to around 0.5% of global GDP. Two years ago China represented about 7% of global GDP and ran a trade surplus of about 0.6% of global GDP. Given what the following decade brought to the US and Japan, it may be worth figuring out how these imbalances get resolved."
- Daniel Dulitz
DV8's Let Me Be Straight With You was brilliant, moving, disturbing.
All the talk about standalone GPS/navigation companies going away... I say there are a lot of creative ppl at those companies and they will find great products to sell. Their creativity is now freed from need to preserve existing revenue streams.
Louis Gray, WarLord, Maxamad and 2 other people liked this
They can use that line when they do layoffs: "Your creativity has now been freed from the need to preserve your salary here" :)
- Private Sanjeev
With expensive roaming data plans, a standalone gps is still cheaper. Unless Google implements pre-caching of routes on google map/navigation.
- Peng-Toh
Sanjeev, that is sometimes the way it works: everyone who ever said "best thing that ever happened to me was to quit or get fired." Peng-Toh, for people who roam that is a good argument. Not sure how many such folks exist.
- Daniel Dulitz
Data roaming is VERY expensive. If you going on a vacation in foreign land, it'll be far cheaper to buy a Garmin map. Or do without GPS. Or rent a car that comes with GPS.
- Peng-Toh
Or buy a prepaid SIM card for data roaming. Or find a wifi access point to get the directions. But anyway, GPS/nav companies will not stay in business selling gadgets to people who would otherwise use data roaming. They will stay in business because they'll remake their business.
- Daniel Dulitz
Disruption does have a cost. Plans are scuttled, investment is wasted. Garmin's headquarters are in Olathe, Kansas -- if the company can't make it, employees may have trouble finding similar employment nearby, and families may suffer. The eulogies are premature in any case -- but what would you do if you were in charge of Garmin, Daniel?
- ⓞnor
Perhaps I should have gotten a prepaid SIM card with data while I was in London for a month. My voice calls cost me US$2.20/minute. Ouch! I don't even want to know what the $/kb roaming rates are. But I made do without data access since I didn't drive there. Otherwise, I would have picked up a Garmin map instead.
- Peng-Toh
If I was Garmin, I'd build a unit that cached all of Google maps over wifi or on a cable.
- Piaw Na
And Google's routing algorithm still sucks if you're a cyclist. Garmin will continue to dominate the outdoor space.
- Piaw Na
Yes. From Garmin's 2008 annual report (the latest available), they made $323 million in aviation, $204 million in marine, $428 million in "outdoor and fitness", and $2.54 *billion* in automotive. Good news for Garmin: they will continue to dominate the industry that represents less than 15% of their current revenue.
- ⓞnor
Caching google's images would violate copyright? It is possible on a jailbroken iphone.
- Peng-Toh
Garmin will have to innovate in the car gps market as opposed to milking a cash cow. For example, voice plus HUD would be nice. So is a faster locking GPS plus faster updates. My PerformanceBox locks in a few seconds and updates 10 times a second.
- Peng-Toh
ⓞnor, I would focus on avionics, marine, ruggedized and water-resistant consumer units that can take lots of abuse, low-power units, emergency beacons to put in your trunk or your kid's lunchbox, inertial sensors to deal with dropouts, WAAS in every unit. Personal avalanche kits for skiers. Large screens with specially-designed antennas for maximum coverage/reliability. Devices to track...
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- Daniel Dulitz
Yeah, but that 50% profit margin from selling maps? That's going to go away no matter what. They will never be as profitable as when they could sell you a piece of plastic (or a chip) for $100+. And worse, charge you again for the same data whenever you upgraded to a new device. They lost a lot of customer goodwill with that move.
- Piaw Na
I use OnStar in my Buick, IMO far better than GPS for routing wiith road side assistance and talk to a real person for things like restaurant suggestions.
- WarLord
Maps? I never buy maps. There's enough good free maps :)
- Peng-Toh
ⓞnor, I don't know what you're talking about. Navigating by train and bus is a huge, huge market -- I don't know anyone who uses a car.
- j1m
PT, you've obviously never tried to find all the small roads that get you from one place to another in Europe. Michelin maps rule!
- Piaw Na
I think expectations get confused. An income of $323M + $204M + $428M would be considered very successful by some standards, so it's not like the whole company will vanish when they're still pulling in over a billion annually. Any business will eventually find that some sectors become less profitable. The newspaper industry, for example, can still make quite a bit of money, even if it...
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- Mr. Gunn
"We are the Canadian Borg"
- Daniel Dulitz
User experience of AdWords comparison ads for mortgages: http://google.com/compari...
Rachel Garb liked this
Introducing AdWords Comparison Ads! http://adwords.blogspot.com/2009...
Climbing - http://xkcd.com/655/
That's funny. Last night I saw a photo like this in a magazine. The trees were slanted, and I was like, um.... yeah, not.
- Kekoa Proudfoot
Google Voice with your existing number - http://googlevoiceblog.blogspot.com/2009...
Chris Prince, Ruchira S. Datta and Piaw Na liked this
"If you already use Google Voice, you can add Google voicemail to any mobile phone you've linked to your account. If you're not using Google Voice yet, you can request an invitation or ask someone with a Google Voice account to invite you."
- Daniel Dulitz
Using one of these makes it much easier to rethread a tie.
Dear Lobbyists: When Crafting Astroturf Letters, Remember To Do A Search & Replace On XYZ Corp. - http://techdirt.com/article...
Chris Prince, Adam Lasnik, Sebastian and Ruchira S. Datta liked this
America's Chinese disease (not quite what you think) - http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009...
WarLord liked this
"[W]hat would the effect be if China decided to sell a chunk of its Treasury bill holdings and put them in other currencies? The answer is that China would, in effect, be engaging in quantitative easing on behalf of the Fed. The Chinese would be doing us a favor! (And doing the Europeans and Japanese a lot of harm.)"
- Daniel Dulitz
Ah, when I read the title, I assumed it was about folks being "extremely terrified of chinese people" :P
- Adam Lasnik
Not quite what you think. :-)
- Daniel Dulitz
Apple closing down geek access to iPhone just when cool Androids starting to ship? Srsly? http://www.mobilecrunch.com/2009...
Daniel Rowley, Henner Zeller, Louis Gray and Piaw Na liked this
Mailing our 2008 tax return
Antony Jepson, Hein Roehrig, Piaw Na and 9 other people liked this
That's a tuna can next to it. The federal form is the top half, the California form is the bottom half, and at the very bottom is the "envelope" a/k/a "cardboard box" that it will be sent in. Life is weird!
- Daniel Dulitz
OMG WTF?!
- ana
We invest using Parametric, which holds individual stocks and trades them to track indices while harvesting losses. So there are many thousands of trades, each of which has a gain or loss to be itemized. As long as I don't have to keep track of it myself, it's pretty entertaining.
- Daniel Dulitz
Oh, that makes sense.
- ⓞnor
I would hope you could file that electronically!
- Gabe
Are you planning to send in the tuna can? That would be a nice absurdist touch.
- Doug
Doug :-). Gabe, it is ironic that electronic filing works well as long as there isn't anything unusual about your submission. If you just need to fill in the form fields, it's great. But if one of your entries has a footnote and other entries cite to attached documents, you can't file electronically. (One does that, I have discovered, in order to provide more information that would otherwise be sought in an audit.)
- Daniel Dulitz
From an IT perspective, the difficulty with electronic filing is in correctly referencing documents generated by other parties (K-1s etc.). Surprisingly nontrivial. If it doesn't have a URL, we are so screwed. And even if it does...
- Daniel Dulitz
I have to admit I had ana's WTF?! reaction too at first. But the Parametric explanation clears it up.
- Matt Cutts
It's a shame you can't just email them a PDF for them to print out themselves, then.
- Gabe
I only had a 128 page tax return this year, mostly from living in Germany last year. For the first time in my life, I could not understand every line of it and that freaked me out. I'm so glad I didn't go with parametric.
- Piaw Na
Since when does the IRS require a tuna can with tax returns?
- Jim Norris
Jim: :-D
- Henner Zeller
Expect an audit. The IRS is sure to think that your return smells fishy.
- Mark Alves
An audit? Oh no! And I even gave it a tuna up.
- Daniel Dulitz
Sorry world; apparently the FF email gateway is broken and has taken one email and made it into lots of posts.
Pete Campbell Is A Rapist - http://bitchmagazine.org/post...
Jenna Bilotta liked this
Eloquent and true: "It's getting people to listen to them that's the problem."
- Daniel Dulitz
New in Google Squared: quality improvements, sorting and exporting - http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009...
Nathan Snyder, Joel Webber and Matt Cutts liked this
The team has made a major step forward in quality with this release. Far yet to go, but they've just begun.
- Daniel Dulitz
Love and Trolls - Boxxy - http://www.youtube.com/watch...
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Private Sanjeev liked this
Yes, I just discovered Boxxy. Where have I been all my life. For my next act, I'll discover The A-Team. Anyway, I disconnected my YT from FF just to avoid polluting my stream with this, but here it is. </shame>
- Daniel Dulitz
After being initially enamored with boxxy, I ended up preferring the old fashioned keyboard and web browser most of the time (Mac mini setup). Boxxy just hasn't been reliable enough.
- Karl Rosaen
from Android
Karl, lol! Funny, that was my experience on my Mac mini too (and worse on my Apple TV). :-)
- Daniel Dulitz
from IM
Why I made Tom Syndor’s enemies list - http://moralpanicsandthecopyri...
"In Mr. Syndor’s world there are only two types of people: (1) those who believe in property rights– defined as our current level of copyright or hopefully even stronger, and (2) copyright haters – defined as people like me and the late great British scholar and jurist Sir Hugh Laddie, since both of us have expressed a desire that copyright be effective for its purpose and since both of us have annoyingly insisted on an evidence-based approach to law."
- Daniel Dulitz
cabel.name: Kashiwa Mystery Cafe - http://www.cabel.name/2009...
Matt Cutts and Chris Prince liked this
"This was unusual for Japan, because although most Japanese city centers seemed to be filled with hundreds of unregulated and overdriven speakers, I've rarely, if ever, been beckoned in English and in person. It caught me off guard. I wandered over."
- Daniel Dulitz
What a fun surprise!
- Chris Prince
from iPod
Wave not good for 100s of collabs for same reason SVN not good for 100s of devs. Distributed branching might be interesting for Wave.
Amit Patel and Josh Wills liked this
Video: 3.5% Of Google Wave Explained - http://www.techcrunch.com/2009...
zeroinfluencer, Jeff, Henner Zeller and 2 other people liked this
Someone get this brilliant man a Wave invite!
- Daniel Dulitz
Polys in the Maps API v3: Now with Level of Detail & Holes! - http://googlegeodevelopers.blogspot.com/2009...
I definitely like my polys to have a level of detail. ???
- Daniel Dulitz
Carl Sagan - 'A Glorious Dawn' ft Stephen Hawking (Cosmos Remixed) - http://www.youtube.com/watch...
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