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Difference is you can't "hold in" a pre-term birth b/c you're afraid of covid.


Half of premature babies are delivered via c-section and many more are induced, usually because there is some risk to the mother or baby at holding the baby to term.


Such as inducement for preeclampsia, which in prior years accounted for ~15% of premature births in the U.S.: https://www.marchofdimes.org/complications/preeclampsia.aspx

Like with coronary and cardiovascular diseases, I imagine long-term impacts won't be known for several years.


c-sections are money makers, we left our hospital in Boston when we found they had a 50% c-section rate, ha


The pressure to schedule an induction up to a week or so early is also very strong. The sales pitch is "we can schedule at a convenient time for you and ensure that you'll have a bed". Implying that you're being super irresponsible by letting nature decide when the baby's ready. It all just feels like the OB/GYN is worried about their schedule more than the baby's or mother's well-being.

And c-sections are definitely subtly encouraged even if there's not a real need.


That's straight-up cyberpunk horror territory. What the actual fuck


Could many of those C-sections be at the request of the mother? I know quite a few professional women who have scheduled C-sections (or just induced births) so they can "manage" the delivery better. Seems crazy to me, but not my body, child, or career.


Unless there's a medical need it's not ethical to give a c-section as it creates greater risk of complication (including and especially death), more long-term effects, worse effects on the child, and just so happens to make the hospital more money. Of course if there is a medical need then they should be done, but it's not like tonsilectomy.


That also seems horrifying & cyperpunk to me but I doubt a significant chunk of women choose it, let alone independently.


In India, it's something of a fashion and women choose it because its convenient, etc.


India is cheating


Based on time-of-day data, it seems the scheduling is more likely to convenience the doctors.


It could be a ward that specializes in handling risky pregnancies, so a desired result.


I find it doubtful that the people researching this phenomenon didn't think of that, don't you?


I think the surprising truth is that women may, inconsciously or to some extent, influence the time of birth.

If you look at the distribution of birth per calendar days there are unusual spikes and distributions on special days such as valentines day and i'm not sure this could explain by people deciding to have specifically more sex 9 month before considering the "supposed" randomness of the day of birth aound the 9 month mark..

http://thedailyviz.com/2016/09/17/how-common-is-your-birthda...


I could be wrong but I thought that was explained by c section scheduling. Doctors love nothing more than a tight schedule and birth is anything but that.


Had a child due around Christmas in our family, and I think both you and parent are both correct. The mother really didn't want to miss Christmas and the doctor offered to schedule an early induction. They didn't offer to induce on Christmas Day, eve or the day after. The baby came a couple days after Christmas.


That would be kinda sad though


But you can 'hold in' cancer?


It's not about cancer deaths, it's cancer diagnoses. Don't go to the hospital/doctor => no diagnosis


Oh if that's what the commentor I replied to meant, I misunderstood completely. :thumbs-up:


The total deal with Uber was worth about 20M upfront. The rest was milestone driven. Milestones didn’t happen bc Anthony got fired and there was a fatality that shut the program down.


Lidar is solidly worse than the human eye in dust, rain etc. Waymo has struggled w/ dust devils in AZ. Cruise has struggled w/ steam vents in SF. I work at a John Deere subsidiary and we are quite interested in dust performance for field work. From our tests Lidar is low on the list for seeing through small particles.

Lots of things could fix this, less beam divergence, custom signals processing on multiple returns. But out of the box, it’s this statement does not hold true.


I work at an industrial plant we use microwave radar based imaging can get quite detailed surface profiles in very poor conditions including inside reactors etc where dust is big issue. I'm not expert in this field I think systems used are continuous wave based.

For vehicle applications specifically probably worth looking into what they use on autonomous vehicles at mine sites imagine that tech probably useful in agriculture. For example Pilbara here in Australia large autonomous fleets in very dusty conditions.


Hi, I've previously been to a company that makes the hardware for autonomous mining vehicles. They rely mainly on DGPS systems for positioning and a combination of simple camera vision and radar for obstacle detection. Keep in mind they don't drive that fast (around 25 mph), are supposed to be in clear unobstructed (unless they're in a queue to load or unload) and just stop when they detect a vehicle or a person.


http://www.bluerivertechnology.com/

Now owned by John Deere. Goal is 10x reduction in chemicals while doubling yields. We’re deep in ml & robotics and our creations scale across the deere fleet touching most of the arable land in the world.


Hi! What is blue river technology’s see and spray tech doing now? It disappeared from Salinas lettuce fields after JD bought them out.


Hey! We’re moving it to row crops to save herbicide. I miss Salinas but stoked with what we’re doing in the Midwest.


There are a lot of variables and these events don't happen that often so rules are hard to come by. That said being, I've been through three acquisitions and it really depends. How valuable are you personally to their strategy? If you're not, you're likely not going to enjoy it. IE: if you're in accounting and it was an engineering talent acquisition, then it's probably not good. If you are valuable to their strategy, then expect things for you personally to stay the same or improve. The big thing that happens is the company will likely become unbundled and they'll take the parts they like.

My latest has substantially improved the company. We're still very independent, employees made great money and now we have a strategic rudder and a patient investor that we didn't have before. In this case, our tech is very critical to their long term strategy.


I haven’t read your link bc your title is incredibly presumptuous. You don’t know who I am or what problem I’m solving.


Yes, linkbait 'you' is a perennial annoyance. At least this one has the good manners to leave a pretty nice title if we simply delete the offending pronoun.


I used to work for Anthony at 510 systems. He tried to hire me for Otto as well. Watching this whole thing unfold from, obscure story in 2011 to the Waymo Vs. Uber trial to federal charges and national news is rather surreal. Anthony is one of the most creative, energetic thinkers I've ever encountered. If he stopped taking shortcuts he'd probably be the next Jobs or Musk.


That's tragic and awful. I think calling this a "shortcut" though is misleading, at least from what the times is reporting here.

It's one thing to own your own brain, it's another take 14K files, including circuit board designs and lidar designs. It's yet another to start using them at new-co that is a direct competitor to old-co. I'm by no means an IP fanatic, but that really does cross over to theft in my mind. But, on balance, the very specific details really matter here, so we'll see...


Taking PCB design files and using them at a competing company absolutely is IP theft. I'm honestly surprised anyone would think they could even get away with this; the old company just has to get their hands on one of the competitor's units and open it up and look at it.


> Taking PCB design files and using them at a competing company absolutely is IP theft. I'm honestly surprised anyone would think they could even get away with this; the old company just has to get their hands on one of the competitor's units and open it up and look at it.

I am not a Google employee but my understanding is that the biggest fear is not that Anthony Levandowski stole all the stuff but that Uber or another unscrupulous company would race ahead with inadequate self-driving causing a backlash that would bring down a legislative ban hammer on everyone, including Waymo. I think that is the real danger here.

Personally, I don't want Anthony Levandowski in prison. I just want him or people like him to not be able to work on self-driving cars.

I want self-driving cars to arrive and will gladly campaign to ban humans from being able to drive on public road when that day arrives.


Many of us do not believe IP is a legitimate property right.


Many people think the Earth is flat. What's your point?


Serious question open to anyone.

What is the line between "short cut" and "working smarter"?

It's not related to this post. Stealing is wrong. It just seems to me the line between being efficient and taking short cuts is really murky.


It depends on which personal, professional, social, ethical and legal boundaries you are willing to cross.

Bribing a foreign government bureaucrat is a "short cut", but it crosses many lines, that are not ok.

Spamming users after buying their email address, cross fewer such boundaries, cause much less harm, and could be argued as "working smarter".


Hah!

Jobs and Musk are walking shortcuts. Anthony's biggest mistake is that he got caught by a corporation motivated to pursue.


A corporation (Google) who steals IP themselves. They steal from big fish to the little dreamers they inspired and such is well documented. See this popular HN thread... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18566929

I use to feel bad for Google and wanted this thief to face justice. But umm he's just doing what he witnessed and was taught(told) to do while working for the big G.


Also, Youtube facilitates IP trolls stealing revenue from creators on a massive scale.


I have no idea about this guy, but in my experience, people like this always seem to be pleasant, creative types on the outside. Every now and then in conversation they hold weird viewpoints you just can't reconcile with their projected image, and wonder if you've misjudged them.

They usually turn out to have an underlying wonky or absent moral compass, and abusive personality traits.

The outward image is a confidence trick, and that's how they got where they are.


Lewandowski evidently was very creative. I don't think that's in any doubt. His Google Maps work is genius.


I can tell from the goals he scored as well.


Former coworker of his here. As anyone who knew him well will attest, his favorite quote (from his favorite character) was "I drink your milkshake."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5d9BrLN5K4

There's more to say, but I'm not sure it's worth sharing on HN.


>If he stopped taking shortcuts he'd probably be the next Jobs or Musk.

Didn't these ended up where they are by taking all kinds of shortcuts?


What shortcuts did they take? Maybe the key is knowing which shortcuts.


A pretty big one was the options backdating scandal at Apple: https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2011/10/06/steve-jo...


Ask the SEC.


Lame retort. Let's do better.


"Good artists copy, Great artists steal" or something along those lines.


I feel like calling this a "shortcut" is putting it a bit mildly. He just got criminally indicted.


Musk will be the next Levandowski.


People have such an impetus for Musk's downfall but a few off colour or poorly thought out tweets is nothing compared to something as criminal as downloading everything from your company before starting a competitor. Or worse while you work on the competitor on the side even before leaving the company.

Anthony should have known that files are easily tracked in a place like Google and that he'd put a giant spotlight on himself by competing with Google's future golden goose.


There are a lot more problems with Musk's conduct than a few tweets. Just yesterday there was a post on the front page of HN effectively accusing him of nepotism and saving his family's dying business and merging it with Tesla. There is still a lot of controversy over the marketing/state of Autopilot. There are whistle blowers claiming unsafe working conditions at Tesla and Musk censoring/firing anyone who is pro union. The list goes on.

I'm not saying Musk hasn't created some impressive companies or that he is bound to fail - but he is not without controversy.


What does that have to do with Anthony getting arrested? I wasn't comparing how controversial they are on Twitter.

So far the worst thing that has happened to Musk legally is some dropped SEC charges and new controls for one of his companies. The Solarcity deal isn't being investigated by authorities and was approved by 85% of shareholders in 2016, where its connection to his cousins was well known. Otherwise none of what you listed is illegal or in the same ballpark as what Anthony did.


> People have such an impetus for Musk's downfall but a few off colour or poorly thought out tweets is nothing compared to...

I thought we were talking about questionable characteristics of these people and how it might lead to their downfall. I could easily see Elon Musk get sued for unsafe working conditions from years ago, or a fraudulent claim about Autopilot's capability, or for libel by attacking people unnecessarily on twitter (accusing a diver of being a pedophile is pretty fucking weird).

I remember talking to extremely well-paid lawyers in the industry before the Alphabet vs. Uber case saying there was nothing they could do to Levandowski. Let's circle back in 5 years and see how Musk is doing then.


Yeah, Musk never stole competitor IP, so the comparison is a bit banal.

If anything, Musk's undoing will be how he has handled Tesla, such as his nepotist SolarCity acquisition.


I'm pretty sure people criticize Elon for more than just a few Tweets.


From what I can see, Musk took tremendous risks with his wealth and time and is reaping rewards from it. It is one thing to be rewarded for your risks (good) — it is another thing to be rewards for other people’s risks and work.


All pretty pale in comparison to a faked $75 billion buyout tweeted out during market trading hours. Or the blatant self-dealing and faked product unveil used to push through the SolarCity bailout.


John Deere / Blue River Technology | CV/ML - Software (robotics / embedded) - Full Stack | Full Time | Sunnyvale, CA & San Francisco, CA | ONSITE

For the last 100 years John Deere has been giving farming equipment power in the form of diesel engines. The next 100 years will be about giving machines eyes. If machines have eyes, they can do better work. If they can do better work people get higher yields.

Email me at: willy dot p at bluerivert dot com


You know how in war movies when the guy leaves the trench only to come back and find that all his friends have been killed?

In the valley you leave the trench and come back to find that all your friends are rich.

No words can alleviate that regret. But if you’re having near misses like this you’re actually really close to something good.


If you trouble yourself over regret on how you didn't get rich that one time, while still living a life that is probably in the upper 90th percentile comfort-wise, you aren't doing yourself any favors. Money is just numbers, and in the end we are all dead, so spending your days regretting not winning the lottery has to be one of the most stupid things to trouble your mind with. A dose of some traditional values would probably help.


Yet I read a similar comment every day here on Hacker News. Maybe there's something cultural going on with a website run by an investment fund/startup incubator.


I identity with this - it bugs me that I haven't done as a Kevin (and people like him) when not only has he had the success but exited and moved on with his life.

I go to the gym most days and am pretty well disciplined but I still feel this way every so often (I've been ill earlier this week so I'm feeling down, which is probably what bought this on). How does someone get traditional discipline?


Similar themes in DHH’s “The Day I Became a Millionaire”, https://m.signalvnoise.com/the-day-i-became-a-millionaire-55...


> No words can alleviate that regret.

I can relate. I cry myself to sleep every night thinking about those bitcoins I didn't mine, back when you could get hundreds on a single GPU overnight.


Well, at least you aren’t the guy that bought two pizzas for 10 000 bitcoins. If he’d have held onto them until the $20 000 peak (a tall order in itself) he’d have netted a cool $200 million.


> If he’d have held onto them until the $20 000 peak (a tall order in itself) he’d have netted a cool $200 million.

If he could have sold them at that price without moving the market, that is.


Did that guy who binned his hard drive with his bitcoin wallet ever retrieve it from the garbage dump? Last I heard he was planning on digging up the entire dump to find it.


OTOH, the pizza shop owner sure struck lucky, if he kept them


Well, not so bad if they were nice pizzas!


I’ve had three misses of similar magnitude. No regrets.


Blue River Technology (recently acquired by John Deere) | SW & CV/ML | San Francisco & Sunnyvale | Onsite

Come make smart things in big machines: http://careers.bluerivertechnology.com


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