Not exactly the clearest announcement from AWS, but the "instance limit" they are referring to is the limit on the number of server instances you can have running in your account at any one time.
Before the limit was quoted in a maximum number of servers, now it's quoted in a maximum number of total VPUs (virtual CPUs) that all of your servers contain.
Unless you're running a lot of instances, this doesn't change anything for you because you're probably not bumping into this limit.
Transcript is a good idea, we've been looking into APIs & mechanical turk for that. In general we're trying to figure out how to present the responses in an interesting/informative way without you having to watch ALL the videos.
Generally when you run an in-person focus group or user interview, you're combining the interview time with the "watching" time since you're there in the same room. With instapanel, it's definitely faster than doing the interviews yourself, but there's no forcing function to watch the videos.
Reminds me of how my dad stopped watching talks at Xerox PARC once they started webcasting them. Without needing to show up for the talk at a specific time, he could always say "I'll watch that later".
Because Iowa farmers get to vote on federal matters, but they don't get to vote in SF and NYC.
When I worked at Climate Corp, it was pretty interesting to hear the (nearly universally) Republican farmers argue for why there should be farm subsidies. About half wouldn't even try to justify it, and just said if the money's there I'll take it.
> About half wouldn't even try to justify it, and just said if the money's there I'll take it.
I'd respect those people more than the people who tried to argue it, as it's a case of don't hate the player hate the game (unless the player is rigging the game of course).
If we think of soda like tobacco this makes sense. If tobacco companies are against it, then it probably is a good idea.
But what if the book industry spent $15/SF voter to stop some law that applied to books? Perhaps that law would be harmful to book publishers AND to society overall.
It's amazing how soda companies have come to be seen as evil so quickly.
It's also amazing how quickly diet-related illness have become a national problem. [1]
Say, I see you work for Instapanel. Who paid for this? And who pays for Instapanel in general? The book thing seems like an odd enough comparison that I'm wondering where your interests lie.
We paid for this as a test of instapanel, got respondents off of Craigslist for $10 each. In general, we're building a tool for startups to get feedback like this on their own products.
I went in strongly in favor of Prop E, I came out as convinced that obesity and soda are bad, but less convinced that this law was a good way to address the issue. I'll probably still vote "Yes" on Prop E, but it was fun to hear the other side out.
As much as I think vice taxes are a good idea, the panelists raised a lot of great points about the holes in Prop E.
It's only SF so people will just drive to Daly City to stock up on soda.
There are tons of other sugary products that won't be taxed - like milkshakes or candy.
It's a tax at the distributor level, so small businesses will just get their soda from outside the city.
This is a classic "if X is not perfect, there is no point to X" argument. Nobody sensible says, "This patch does not fix all the bugs in the module, so we shouldn't apply it!"
The only question I care about here is, "Is this going to improve the situation enough to justify the work?" So far, it looks like yes.
Those types of arguments fail to impress me. They are the equivalent of "But Mikey's mom lets him ride his bike without a helmet?!"
Are we so naive to think that until the entire country or the entire world decides to implement the same tax that nobody should attempt to make progress?
So a tax that is regressive represents "progress"?
I assume your reference to "progress" is based on an assumption that the tax will produce the intended effect of forcing individuals to make healthier choices, but there's no evidence that this is the case. In fact, there's evidence that many consumers will just substitute in untaxed high calorie foods[1].
Cigarette taxes are regressive and definitely represent progress. They were a big help in reducing smoking, and in turn reducing smoking-related health problems.
Putting aside a debate over regressive taxes, the problem with your comparison is that you assume the market for sugary drinks functions the same way the market for cigarettes does when, in fact, studies have not found the same type of substitution dynamic[1].
In other words, "support soda taxes because cigarette taxes!" is not an argument based on any hard data. If you're going to argue for the use of taxation to force behavior, as a starting point you should have real evidence that the specific tax in question has a high likelihood of producing the specific behavior you're trying to change. Relying on some other tax that may have influenced another behavior is simply specious.
Also, if your view is "before you can do an experiment you must have hard data to prove the experiment will work" then it sounds like you aren't getting many experiments done.
Data already exists, and you can model against it. Apparently you didn't read the study I linked to:
> The study, published online in the American Journal of Agricultural Economics, found that a half-cent per ounce increase in sugar-sweetened beverage prices, which adds up to about ten cents on a typical 20-ounce bottle of soda, could reduce total calories from the 23 foods and beverages examined under the study.
> However, researchers found, the reduction in sugary beverages due to a soda tax would likely lead consumers to substitute for those beverage calories by increasing their calorie, salt and fat intake from untaxed foods and beverages.
> “Instituting a sugary beverage tax may be an appealing public policy option to curb obesity, but it’s not as easy to use taxes to curb obesity as it is with smoking,” said Chen Zhen, Ph.D., a research economist at RTI, and the paper’s lead author. “Consumers can simply substitute an untaxed high calorie food for a taxed one. And as we know, reducing calories is just one of many ways to promoting healthy eating and reducing nutrition-related chronic disease.”
Other studies[1] have come to similar conclusions, and note that much of the research predicting significant reductions in obesity are flawed because they failed to look at substitution.
If you are genuinely interested in implementing a tax ("experiment") that actually has a chance of producing the intended outcome irrespective of cost, the first study suggested that instead of taxing based on ounces, a tax based on calories would address some of the fundamental flaws in ounce-based taxes like those proposed in Prop E.
The study you linked to didn't even mention the word "sugar", so I'm not sure what you're talking about there. I'm not going to read an entire apparently unrelated study because some anonymous dude says it's relevant to an argument I'm not even making.
The news article you link to is about two attempts at this in the 1990s, looks broadly, covers places with a very different food culture than San Francisco, and treats obesity as the only relevant health issue from sugar. So I would call it interesting, but not necessarily relevant.
Moreover, you seem to ignore that this is a process. If the soda tax doesn't work, then people will try other things. But this is the thing on the ballot, and the question isn't, "Is this the best possible thing to do?" It's, "Shall we try this next?"
> The study, published online in the American Journal of Agricultural Economics, found that a half-cent per ounce increase in sugar-sweetened beverage prices, which adds up to about ten cents on a typical 20-ounce bottle of soda, could reduce total calories from the 23 foods and beverages examined under the study.
> However, researchers found, the reduction in sugary beverages due to a soda tax would likely lead consumers to substitute for those beverage calories by increasing their calorie, salt and fat intake from untaxed foods and beverages.
> “Instituting a sugary beverage tax may be an appealing public policy option to curb obesity, but it’s not as easy to use taxes to curb obesity as it is with smoking,” said Chen Zhen, Ph.D., a research economist at RTI, and the paper’s lead author. “Consumers can simply substitute an untaxed high calorie food for a taxed one. And as we know, reducing calories is just one of many ways to promoting healthy eating and reducing nutrition-related chronic disease.”
Because I presume that's what you were referencing when you said, "Apparently you didn't read the study I linked to."
That study is titled "How Effective are Taxes in Reducing Tobacco Consumption?" and continues not to mention the word sugar. Probably because it is about tobacco.
I might be wrong, but I'm responding to you because I think you're genuinely confused and not trolling.
You pointed to the efficacy of cigarette taxes in clear support of the Prop E tax ("Cigarette taxes are regressive and definitely represent progress. They were a big help in reducing smoking, and in turn reducing smoking-related health problems.").
I linked to multiple studies which found there was a strong likelihood consumers would simply substitute the taxed sugary beverages with untaxed foods that are just as unhealthy, calling into question the efficacy of such a tax.
I included a link to a study about cigarette taxes in support of my argument that "the problem with your comparison is that you assume the market for sugary drinks functions the same way the market for cigarettes does when, in fact, studies have not found the same type of substitution dynamic."
To make this simple for you:
1. Studies on sugary beverage taxes find strong substitution effects.
2. Studies on cigarette taxes do not find strong substitution effects.
Given this, your suggestion that taxes on sugary beverages are likely to have a similar level of efficacy to taxes on cigarettes is not congruent with the evidence. Instead of needing to explain this to you, you could have just read what I posted before responding to it. If you did that, you probably would have noticed what the lead researcher for one of the studies stated:
> “Instituting a sugary beverage tax may be an appealing public policy option to curb obesity, but it’s not as easy to use taxes to curb obesity as it is with smoking."
Hi! Thanks for the detailed reply. I see where things got confused.
> You pointed to the efficacy of cigarette taxes in clear support of the Prop E tax
No, I didn't.
You wrote "So a tax that is regressive represents 'progress'?"
I replied to that by giving an example of a regressive tax that represents progress. That's all. Your comment struck me as annoyingly glib, constructing a false contradiction through word games. Since cigarette taxes have been so successful, I thought it was a good counterexample to the false contradiction. Everything else you write is about what you read into my statement, not what I said.
But to address your point:
I agree that a sugary beverage tax in San Francisco could lead to substitution and no net health gain. But A) the circumstances are different enough (and the original sample size is small enough) that I'm happy to try it out to see what happens, and B) if it doesn't work like the proponents hope, I think that's fine because humans often have to try the obvious thing before they will try the less obvious thing.
Marginal effect of tax != average effect of tax. Also, every objection you raise could have just as easily been leveled at cigarette taxes in the middle 20th century. In the long-run tobacco excise taxes have been a huge public health victory. I'm not accusing you of shilling for the ABA but you have pretty much repeated their talking points in your post. It just amazes me what an effective job they have done of distracting everybody from the obvious parallels to tobacco.
They are taxed at every single level of government. The feds have a ~$1/pack tax, plus whatever that state adds onto that. Then cities and counties are free to add on a tax too - New York and Chicago do. There might also be a general sales tax added to all of the above taxes. And of course sales tax can be at the state, county, and city level and said taxes are cumulative.
Why do you think of those as negatives of the proposition itself? Those seem like arguments that it perhaps won't be as effective as supporters might hope, but not that the proposition itself is flawed.
(I'm actually unsure how I feel about the proposition at this point, so I'm just curious to hear some more discussion about it.)
It just feels too much like a symbolic victory rather than actual progress. I think it falls into the same category as the plastic bag ban - bags are a very small component of overall trash, but they're highly visible so let's ban them.
Who said they were about reducing total landfill volume? My understanding is that they're mainly about reducing litter. Which they've certainly done in my city.
It always takes one issue and one municipality at a time to make progress. Is marijuana decriminalization in Colorado a symbolic victory because people in the surrounding states and even here in California haven't yet experienced decriminalization.
Wouldn't if be great if we can one day get back to having robotic milkmen deliver milk in re-usable bottles?
I was really surprised by the results. When I created this instapanel I was a strong "Yes" on Prop E - governments need to raise funds, so why not tax vices.
Watching the responses, I've changed my vote to "No". The panelists raised a lot of great points about the holes in Prop E. It's only SF so people will just drive to Daly City to stock up on soda. There are tons of sugary products that won't be taxed. It's a tax at the distributor level, so businesses will just get their soda from outside the city. It's a regressive tax. On and on.
Why would you ever think adding additional taxes to other products is the best way to make up for a government deficit? Certainly makes things more complicated and may have unintended consequences. Shouldn't we be trying to simplify the system?
Anyway, I'm not economist either. Perhaps it's best if someone could referred to economic theory, instead of what feels right.
Every tax will do two things: raise revenue and modify behavior. Usually, the purpose of the tax is the former, but you need to remember that the latter will still happen.
In the case of income tax, you raise revenue but you change behavior in a negative way (discouraging work). If you instead tax vices and consumption, you can raise money while not causing negative behavior changes (and maybe instead causing good behavior changes).
However, as the parent comment pointed out, you have to really look deeply at a tax to figure out how it will affect behavior. It won't always be in the desired way.
The "drive out of the city to buy" still is a form of disincentive/tax. Its just paid to the oil companies instead of schools :(
I also like how the myth of fatty food causing obesity is repeated a few times in the panelists. Clearly not experts on nutrition or its effects on the human body.
If you watch Jude's video, she says she bicycles to Daly City to buy her cigarettes because they're too expensive in SF, and threatens that she'll just start doing that for soda too.
Get people to bicycle an hour for cigarettes and soda? That's a public health official's dream.
It also shows you how little someone might value their time. If I take a 20 minute walk or ride to get something which could be had 1 minute away, I better be able to save a whole lotta bills.
> I also like how the myth of fatty food causing obesity is repeated a few times in the panelists. Clearly not experts on nutrition or its effects on the human body.
Do you really believe this or is it some kind of satire?
edit: not snarking, I genuinely can't tell if parent thinks fatty food does not contribute to obesity. Obese people aren't obese just because they eat far too much sugar. They're obese because they eat far too much sugar, starch, and fat. It is ridiculous to think that the amount of fat in an obese person's diet has no influence on that person's obesity.
tldr; i was commenting on the false claim that composition of food causes obesity vs the number of contained calories.
From what i've read, ive taken a few points:
fatty food does not cause or contribute to obesity. Total intake does.
1000 excess calories of fat and 1000 excess calories of sugar will roughly cause the same weight increase.
1000 calories of fat is far more satiating than 1000 calories of sugar and therefore leads to lower future consumption of calories. 1000 calories of the former may take 4 hrs to become hungry, whereas 1000 calories of the latter may take 1 hour to become hungry, for example.
Saturated fats a no more correlated with heart disease than other forms of fats.
Sounds like you are under the false impression that governments are the ideal size, need to grow larger, or are able to spend money efficiently. Almost all state and city budgets are in a crunch due to mis-management and over-spending, not do to any kind of shortfall in tax collection.
Always vote NO on crap like this. The less ways the government has to collect taxes, the better.
If tweens listen to 10 hrs/day of Justin Bieber on repeat using free accounts, Bieber shouldn't get money from adults who listen a few hours a day to anything but him using premium accounts.
I think it's quite reasonable to assume that differences in listening and paying habits between users would NOT average out, and a per user split would be fairer.
I agree that a per person split would be might be better (for how I think royalties should be distributed) -- but one would also take into account the ad revenue those tweens (and other "free" users) generate.
I don't know how Spotify is doing financially, but hopefully they make money off free users as well as paid users (but I'd not be surprised if they end up a bit like Opera did -- making money from paid users and licensing/bundling deals -- and just using the commercial breaks/ads as stick to guide users towards the paid service).
Either way I'd much prefer being able to pay for lossless records that I get to keep -- I gave up on Spotify quite early as it ended up a little like youtube -- come back to a playlist after a few months and half the songs were gone. I know they're better now, but that experience just underlined the idea that paying for licensing content in a way that leaves you vulnerable to that content disappearing is a very bad deal for me as a listener/consumer.
Its interesting that you mention their ad breaks. For 6 months, I had no idea that spotify operated a premium service whatsoever, until they imposed the 2.5hr limit per week on my account and hit me with more ads. I subscribed immediately.
I think by broadening the pool they are effectively bringing more music to Spotify. This is good even if it's of the Bieber variety because then users like me can discover artists I wouldn't normally listen to or discover new CDs from artists that used to be in fashion and are no longer.
Choice with reasonable defaults sounds ideal to me. The suggestion that you HAVE to make all these choices is FUD.
To bring a bit more consumer psychology into the discussion, people love SUVs because they give them the choice to go driving off-road, driving in snow, etc. Those SUV owners aren't then suddenly overwhelmed each morning with the question "Should I commute to work or should I drive to Tahoe?"
Android is a flexible tool that allows you to make choices when you want to make choices.
Extend that concept of choice to things like support for FLAC, mkv and a host of other formats. How is this a bad thing? The absence of these things is limiting, but having the choice is bad?
If choice is bad, why not prune the App Store and remove the multiple calendar apps, or the multiple memory mapping tools, navigation tools, etc - and allow one choice only.
Before the limit was quoted in a maximum number of servers, now it's quoted in a maximum number of total VPUs (virtual CPUs) that all of your servers contain.
Unless you're running a lot of instances, this doesn't change anything for you because you're probably not bumping into this limit.