I still have some old hypercard stacks on floppy from third grade that I can't bear to throw away. Every time I come across the disks I remember how awesome it was to fire up the IIGS in computer lab and create the dumbest animations.
This might be out of date now, but 10 years ago I purchased a couple of monitors for a digital display. IIRC the monitors were more expensive because the screen wouldn't "burn" in images if left on the same image for a long period of time.
This is significant. Current OLEDs at full luminance burn in within 100 hours. The problem is mitigated somewhat by the variety of details displayed during typical TV programming, but if you use an OLED TV as a daily driver computer monitor or with a gaming system to play the same games for hours you will notice burn-in quickly.
I have an OLED TV and after thousands of hours of use, sometimes hundreds on a single game, there is no burn-in. However, I do not set the TV to full brightness.
Edit: I suspect an OLED digital sign WOULD burn in though as I imagine that content is much more static and displayed many more hours per day. I just wanted to make the point that I do not fear OLED for common consumer use cases.
I couldn't tell from any of the articles today if they're going to accept cash or not. Given the push back they received on the first round of convenience stores, it's interesting that it's not mentioned at all.
Does Seattle allow for stores that don't accept cash? I know NYC recently passed something that said you can't run a credit card-only store as it excludes the unbanked.
Or maybe there's a kiosk where you can fund your account with cash? I can imagine a bunch of ways to both accept cash and also have the Go concept. But I don't know, I don't live in Seattle and haven't ever been to a Go store.
Edit: Someone else posted this link[0] elsewhere. The stores are in SF & NYC which both have laws against cashless stores. So, contrary to your reply, the following is actually false:
(Presence of Amazon Go store) ⇒ (City doesn't have a ban on cashless stores)
Forgive me if this is an obvious question as I've only been to the Seattle convenience store twice and haven't heard about any pushback (but I could see it resulting from basically making the store inaccessible to people who can't afford a smartphone?), but how would they logistically accept cash without any cashiers?
I'm not sure the traditional self-checkout kiosks logistically fit into this model, though. In a "normal" store, everyone needs to pay somehow, and security (in person or in LP) can monitor/flag/stop people who try to leave without paying.
In Go stores, you authenticate as you enter the store through a turnstile, which ensures that even if you were to bolt for the door you'd still pay for what you have and there's no reason for anyone to stop you (besides potentially for suspicious activity).
However, once you start letting unauthenticated people into the store, that entire system flies out the window and you now need to once again monitor who needs to manually pay and whether they actually have or not as they're leaving. You need to worry about when they pick up a can of soup and put it in their pocket, but not worry about it for most other customers.
On top of that, accepting cash (even to a machine) requires additional hardware installed (which comes with its own challenges like how easy it is to integrate into whatever Amazon's using on their backend for inventory tracking, etc) as well as manpower (to track/refill drawers, handle issues if the machine has problems, etc). I imagine there could also be a potential need for more security in a store that contains registers full of cash and goods versus a store full of just goods. Lots of stores around here (in KC) are cashless specifically for the safety argument.
Just seems like a lot of extra work that Amazon wouldn't intentionally commit to for a store built on automating employees away.
Meijer already does this, it is just a normal terminal, that knows your order based on your phone or some other scan, which then accepts cash like every coin return machine. It just dispenses change.
Interesting! Do people using cash have a separate checkout flow / exit than everyone else? It seems like it'd be difficult for human security to differentiate between someone that entered the store with their phone (so they can come and go as they please) versus someone who needs to pay at the end before they can leave.
These kinds of announcements are always full of hype. Panasonic has a similar concept in Denver. Google / Sidewalk Labs in Toronto. The practicalities of executing on real estate development at scale is always underestimated or neglected. Between regulations, the labor force, and tastes of eventual residents, the end result ends up close to the mean because the stakes (amount of capital involved) are so high and many decisions are prohibitively expensive to reverse.
Thanks for this breakdown. Any thoughts on how this process might unfold for psilocybin as opposed to a drug that's subject to a chemical patent? Funding, timing, etc.
I'm not familiar with the company running this trial, but I can basically guarantee you they have found a way to patent this. Their intention is to come to market in 5 to 10 years, and there's no way they're bearing the expense of phase 3 trials just to become a generic manufacturer. Psilocybin isn't hard enough to manufacture (as opposed to say, propofol) to provide any sort of moat. They'll probably try to patent either an extended-release form or a particular administration device (e.g., inhaler).
E.g., the company that did the major trials for ketamine actually studied the s-enantiomer of ketamine using a nasal spray, which is quite distinct from the years of data we've accumulated on racemic ketamine with prolonged IV infusion. But this let them get a patentable version of ketamine on the market.
Shaka Senghor spent seven years in solitary. Everything of his that I've watched / read / listened to is extremely thought provoking. Check out his recent appearance on Conversations with Tyler:
https://conversationswithtyler.com/episodes/shaka-senghor/
Not that I disagree with your premise, but real estate and, to a lesser extent, art and gold, have intrinsic value in that they can be used for a purpose outside of a store of value. For real estate, utility is a much larger share of the market value than the others.
I agree but that doesn't negate the point. Any economic asset with limited supply has two sources of value. The first is intrinsic as you've correctly pointed out which through intrinsic demand by people looking to use the asset for its actual properties will gain intrinsic value.
The second is monetary. Asset values inflate beyond intrinsic values as a result of monetary demand for them by users that acquire them not for their intrinsic properties but for their potential capacity to be redeemed for value in the future. This monetary demand lives on top of intrinsic demand and drives overal value of the asset up the supply / demand curve.
My comments applied specifically to the monetary user base of any asset. This base's choice of their monetary base is entirely elective, socially constructed and reinforced. And their particular choice will gain favor if they can convince people to get on same the band wagon. Under this specific use case, they will tend to exhibit the perfectly understandable behaviors I've described.
Correct. There's correlation with the band's tour dates and artwork popping up. Robin Gunningham is the other popular theory. Either could have been the "Rob" Goldie was referencing.
