interludead (u/interludead)

interludead commented on How London became the rest of the world’s startup capital economist.com/britain/202... · Posted by u/ellieh

walthamstow · 13 days ago

I am completely biased but I think London is one of the best places to live in the world, everything considered.

There's a guy on Instagram who spins a wheel for a random country and goes to eat that cuisine somewhere in London. There are maybe 1 or 2 places in the world you can do that. It's an incredible feat of human diversity to pack hundreds of global cuisines into a 10 mile radius.

interludead · 13 days ago

And there are a few places globally that have that vibe

interludead commented on How London became the rest of the world’s startup capital economist.com/britain/202... · Posted by u/ellieh

kjellsbells · 13 days ago

Is this really surprising? London picks up all the advantages of the UK (legal system is sound, eg in contract law, native speakers of English, the lingua franca of business, strong university tradition) and adds in its special sauce: access to the City, global-tier culture, excellent public transport (I know we moan about it, but it really is excellent), and a timezone location that easily serves the US and Asia markets.

The awkwardness for founders in London is that when they want to IPO, London doesnt have nearly as deep a pool of capital as the US, so they are potentially leaving a lot of money on the table.

interludead · 13 days ago

London ends up being this amazing on-ramp into global tech, but not quite the place where the biggest companies finish their journey

interludead commented on How London became the rest of the world’s startup capital economist.com/britain/202... · Posted by u/ellieh

fhennig · 13 days ago

I live in a big continental European city that also has a start-up hub. The companies here are also small, creative, solving problems, but don't necessarily aim for an exit and growth at all costs, many of them want to create a sustainable business solving a need that people have.

I think, to the economist, these are just SMEs and a start-up is about making money, an IPO, an exit, the unicorns. And of course London as one of the largest financial hubs will be a good place to start such a business.

But I've always thought of these "SME"-type start-ups as belonging to the start-up category too; after all they "start up" a company and often have ambitious goals and creative, tech driven approaches to solving problems. This is how I've thought it would work when I was younger, and it is how I still think it'd be good to do today, and how I'd try to build a company if I have a good idea to pursue.

Anyways, the point I want to make re the article is that I think the definition is narrow, leaves out a bunch of interesting companies, and thus skews the picture towards London. There are plenty of innovative places around Europe, it's just a different model of doing start-ups. IMO this overly financially motivated view onto the start-up world is quite a bit less interesting than a the broader (maybe harder to quantify) picture.

interludead · 13 days ago

Europe has plenty of cities that are great if your goal is "build something useful, make money, don't sell your soul," and those don’t show up in these charts

interludead commented on How London became the rest of the world’s startup capital economist.com/britain/202... · Posted by u/ellieh

TuringNYC · 13 days ago

I cant speak to all this, but as an American doing a lot of work in London, wow transportation is incredibly great. Shockingly impressive. Traveling to London, and getting around London, and doing a lot of meetings in a small trip, is easier than anywhere in the US now because of how beautifully their transit system works (despite occasional delays which can be expected.)

The rollout of the Elizabeth Line from Heathrow airport is also eye-opening. In NYC we speak about new subways lines with hundred-year plans (recall the 2nd ave subway extension) but in London the smoothly operating Elizabeth Line seemed to be introduced out of thin air.

interludead · 13 days ago

And for a city that wants to be a global startup hub, that kind of frictionless mobility matters way more than people realize

interludead commented on How London became the rest of the world’s startup capital economist.com/britain/202... · Posted by u/ellieh

interludead · 13 days ago

So London feels less like a Silicon Valley replacement and more like the world's best startup nursery

interludead commented on Doctors in Brazil using tilapia fish skin to treat burn victims (2017) pbs.org/newshour/health/b... · Posted by u/kaycebasques

binsquare · 20 days ago

In Chinese villages, I've seen them use fish skin, potato skin, various leaves, cooked birds nest, fish fin oil, and etc to treat open wounds instead of pure bandaging.

While it's not a new technique, it's fascinating for this area to be further explored.

interludead · 20 days ago

In a way this feels less like inventing something new and more like rediscovering and formalizing old techniques with modern safety constraints

interludead commented on Doctors in Brazil using tilapia fish skin to treat burn victims (2017) pbs.org/newshour/health/b... · Posted by u/kaycebasques

fhe · 20 days ago

I thought this a pretty mature technique? I have seen more than once our local vet using this technique to treat cats with large wounds -- with great results by the way. Interestingly, they too used tilapia fish skin, and not any of the more common local fish species. I wonder if there is something special about tilapia fish skin, or it was simply the species on which the technique was developed, and nobody bothered to try using other fish species.

interludead · 20 days ago

It's probably a mix of "this species happens to be unusually well-suited" and "this is the species people bothered to study rigorously first."

interludead commented on Doctors in Brazil using tilapia fish skin to treat burn victims (2017) pbs.org/newshour/health/b... · Posted by u/kaycebasques

interludead · 20 days ago

The fact that tilapia skin was basically waste, yet turns out to have higher collagen content, better tensile strength, and better moisture retention than human skin is kind of remarkable

interludead commented on Self Sanitizing Door Handle jamesdysonaward.org/en-US... · Posted by u/rendaw

mahrain · 23 days ago

The TiO2 will likely rub off and need regular replenishment. Also, the alternative here, sensor-operated or button-operated automatic doors are already widely used. I wonder who this is meant for?

interludead · 23 days ago

Motion sensors and push plates aren't perfect, but they remove the contact vector entirely instead of trying to mitigate it after the fact

interludead commented on Self Sanitizing Door Handle jamesdysonaward.org/en-US... · Posted by u/rendaw

RamblingCTO · 23 days ago

Sounds like a problem not worth solving? In my wework the handles get wiped down as per the cleanign protocol. Takes what, a second? The costs are marginal.

interludead · 23 days ago

Where I think this kind of idea tries to make its case is in places where cleaning is infrequent, inconsistent, or happens long after peak use