* you can put them on their ends and they don't fall over, which is ideal for storage on shelves
* translucent so you can see what's inside
Pull off the shelf, open up, rummage / sort / process (with extra space in the lid if needed) then pour everything back into the main storage from the lid and reshelve.
It's amazing how being able to shelve on their sides (rather than in a stack) changes things.
> In insurance you expect to come out ahead in the average case.
Not financially, no. On average people who buy insurance receive less in payouts than they pay in in premiums. If that were not the case, nobody would sell insurance because anyone who tried to would go bankrupt.
If you factor in the non-financial benefit of risk avoidance, then yes, people who buy insurance come out ahead--but now not just in the average case, but in all cases, at least as long as the people buying insurance are rational and only buy the amount of risk avoidance they actually need.
Insurance is not about coming out ahead on the average case. In fact, it's the insurance company that comes out ahead when you average everything (otherwise they wouldn't be a business). You pay for insurance to come out ahead of (or equal to) the 40th(-ish) percentile cases.
Yes, you are, if you can't “afford” the loss. And this does not mean that loosing the car bankrupts you.
It just means that reimbursing you for your loss is worth more to you than the insurance company, because it's harder for you to recover form a (e.g.) $10k loss than for the insurance company.
When priced correctly, and depending on your wealth, on average insurance can be a win-win (i.e. profitable) transaction for both parties. That's why it's economically useful.
I think ideas like campaign finance reform are in the right direction, but how do we actually accomplish that? The people that can do it are the people blocking it because it isn't in their interests. How do you get the country to a place where this is possible? My top 'if only' (after you remove campaign finance reform) are:
- Some form of ranked choice voting.
- Fixing gerrymandering.
Of those I think ranked choice has some momentum and could lead to positive change. Gerrymandering is, again, an issue with the people that can change it won't because it is against their interests.
> If you really want to scare yourself, read this.
That kind of alarmism (in this case about the CDC failing during the pandemic) is scary, but needlessly so, and best avoided. In contrast, according to:
If America had the same covid death rate as Canada, nearly 700,000 less Americans would have died of covid.
Alarm by the Epidemic Intelligence Service officers is not "alarmism." It was an accurate forecast that the system was going to fail, which it did, then killing roughly 10 times as many Americans as the Vietnam War did.
Eh. The problem pandemic-wise is the number of humans in slobbering distance of the animals: pets like cats are less of a problem (toxoplasmosis) because they're in less proximity with each-other. But all the unsanitary conditions add up to a gigantically increased chance of developing new pathogens when compared to most natural settings.
Let me throw in one other tip for founders looking to get funded: do not ignore regional VCs.
Most of the stories about "how VC works" are 10, 15 years out of date. The cultural "sense of things" lags behind the reality. We found this out the hard way.
In fact, contrary to all expectations and myths, VCs (outside perhaps of the top 50 or 100 firms?) read their emails and take cold meetings.
They have to.
Every region in the world has some clone of Silicon Valley - technical universities and accelerators and incubators and funds - and most of them have very little deal flow or exposure to outside opportunities and ideas. The guy from a second tier French city part-funded by an Economic Development Agency has as much luck getting into a deal with Union Square as you do. But he still has money to invest.
So most of the VCs outside of a small, narrow set do answer emails, are glad to be approached, and are basically glad to see you if you've got anything at all which is interesting to say. It doesn't cost much to try, either. It's the price of an email.
Yes, warm intros to top tier VCs are really handy.
But that's also why the top tier VCs are so massively subject to group think and wind up collectively dropping five billion dollars on electric scooters and stuff like that.
Everybody is human.
Everybody is here to do the deal.
At the top of the chrome towers are men and women in shoes and socks trying to look good to their management. Nothing behind the curtain, no wizard of oz. Do what you can. Don't break yourself for the myths. Do intelligently bet the odds!
Tech is going to be the dominant story in human history for the rest of our lives in almost all scenarios. It's not a bad industry to be in. It's just the financial side of that industry is really heavy on the mythology and maybe that's holding us back now.
I feel like my entire takeaway from a business-y degree at a rather good university kinda boiled down to “don’t go to European VCs, they’re mean and valuations are bad, while providing no upside”.
Will be raising on an idea that makes me look at least a little bit like a lunatic in four weeks’ time, so keen to see how this is born out!
https://shivashakti.com is where you can find that aspect of his work.