A 12-Hour Window for a Healthy Weight - <AUTHOR> http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/01/15/a-12-hour-window-for-a-healthy-weight/?smid=tw-nytimes&_r=0 <comment><USER2> I've tried all kinds of diets, including time restricted eating, I've eventually failed at all of them for various reasons, or succeeded, but was unable to enjoy keeping the lifestyle.

Enter the portion control diet. This is the only diet that I've been successful with, and I've been doing it for just over a year now. The reason I'm able to sustain it, is because I can eat whatever I want. For example, I eat ice cream every night if I want, but only a scoop, and when I go out to eat, I split my entree and take half home. The only caveat is that I try my best not to eat processed food; if I can't make it at home with whole ingredients, then I will likely not eat it.

I can now look at a plate of food an know exactly how much will fill me up (this took a while). So, even when I don't leave the table feeling full, I know I'll feel satisfied within 15 minutes. I used to love the feeling of being overstuffed, but now I just feel sick when I overeat, and I don't enjoy it.

I've lost over 30 lbs in the past year using the portion control method. It's not a lot, but it's a healthy reduction, and one that I know I can sustain.

I know everyone is different when it comes to dieting, both mentally and physically, but I just wanted to share my experience with the most successful diet I've ever undertaken. I hope someone else can benefit from my anecdote.

<comment><USER3> I don't want to discourage you so much as warn you; I too have spent a lifetime dieting and have lost and gained back weight many times. All working diets feel like you to maintain them for ever during what I call "the momentum phase". Your brain is amazing at slowly making diets cease to work over time.

That said, portion control and calorie counting are components of a working weight loss plan and one should be extremely skeptical of diets like the "eat only before midnight diet". I have never been a night snacker and managed to get morbidly obese just fine without it.

<comment><USER2> Thanks for the warning.

I feel that I'm out of "the momentum phase", because I've never maintained a diet for over a year, until now. However, I realize that I may be deluding myself on that point.

I think that the key to my success is eliminating all but portion control. I don't count calories, or anything else that would make more work for me. All of those things are the things that would make my diet cease to work over time. Now I eat whatever I want, but keep processed foods to an absolute minimum.

Growing up, my nickname used to be "Trashcan", because I would finish everything on my plate, and then eat whatever my dining partners didn't from their plate. I still do, but I take it as leftovers, and eat it for breakfast or lunch the next day. I used to relish being stuffed to the point where I couldn't move. I still very occasionally overeat, but now it's more of a sick feeling that I despise.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This discussion has shown that, if anything, the only thing we can rely on is that our bodies are incredibly complex. There does not appear, at least to me, any consistently correct way to do things when diet and exercise are concerned.

All of this is why I prefer to just stick with the basics:

\- Real, unprocessed food

\- Calories from food, not drinks

\- Consistently getting up and out of the chair

\- Sleeping when I'm tired

\- Waking up when I'm not tired

\- Exercising regularly

I'm happy, healthy, and energetic. I'll let scientists keep working on the hard stuff without stressing too many details.

<comment><USER5> There may not be a consistently correct way to optimize health, but there is a consistently correct principle when it comes to weight loss. Consumer fewer calories than you burn and you will lose weight (even if those calories come from processed foods: [http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/11/08/twinkie.diet.professor/](http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/11/08/twinkie.diet.professor/)).

<comment><USER6> ...unless your body responds to a reduction in caloric intake by burning fewer calories.

If you employ a caloric restriction diet, you must do something to keep your metabolism from down-regulating, by whatever means that works for you. Otherwise, you will get stuck at a weight-loss plateau that is probably well above your goal weight, and further restricting calories from there might just worsen your situation.

You can't push on a string. Don't consume fewer calories than you burn; burn more calories than you consume. It's a fine hair to split, but be aware that they are not two independently controllable variables.

<comment><USER5> > If you employ a caloric restriction diet, you must do something to keep your > metabolism from down-regulating

No you don't. You will always burn calories by simply existing. You can get no exercise and still lose weight simply by cutting calories. Cutting 100 calories from your daily diet may be matched one-to-one with metabolism decreases, but I guarantee that if you cut 1,000 calories from your daily diet you will lose weight.

<comment><USER7> If your only goal is losing weight, might as well chop off your legs, lose 50 pounds and be done with it.

Hint: nobody's goal is _just_ weight loss.

<comment><USER5> Lowering your BMI from 31 to 24 by cutting fat makes you healthier and increases your expected lifespan (regardless of whether or not you exercise), chopping off your legs does not.

<comment><USER7> Yes, BY CUTTING FAT.

See, your goal is not just to lose weight. Your goal is to _lose fat_. Your body will burn a hell of a lot of muscle if you just sit still and not eat.

And becuase you're burning more muscle than fat, you're even going to lose _more_ weight. Hooray!

For added bonus, you can lay in bed all day so that you lose bone density as well. Even more weight loss even faster! So much better BMI. Much healthy and awesome.

Point is, _nobody 's goal is JUST to lose weight_.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Constrain eating to a 12 hour window? It has to be more nuanced than that... no?

I usually skip breakfast (bad, I know) and eat lunch at noon. So does my window stay open till midnight? My expanding waist line is questioning this.

<comment><USER9> I'm a practicioner of intermittent fasting, and I've found that an 8 hour window is ideal for eating my meals, with a 16 hour fast. I can eat like shit on occasion and it doesn't do a thing to my physique. It's been pretty sustainable; I've been doing it for a good 4 years now. You might give it a try!

I found out about all of this from [http://leangains.com](http://leangains.com). The guy has some really good reads and he always provides the science/citations from medical journals.

<comment><USER10> What window times do you use? I want to try this but I can't seem to cut out night eating.

<comment><USER11> I've done IF as well for extended periods of time (I quit mostly because I wanted to gain weight). The most common schedule is to skip breakfast and eat a late "lunch". I.e. if you wakeup at 8am, have your eating window be between 4pm and midnight. If you have a less flexible schedule, there's really not much harm eating just one really big meal after work, together with some more snacking (preferably high-protein) before bed.

In my experience, it's much easier to fast the first half of the day and do social eating in the evening and go to bed full, than doing the opposite.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Many people have found success using similar methods popularized by Martin Berkhan's Leangains or Brad Pilon's Eat Stop Eat. So anecdotally, efficacy isn't just limited to Rats (although I don't know the state of controlled studies in humans).

It's interesting watching these intermittent fasting styles grow from niche body building communities to general population. It seems to be a great heuristic based way of keeping overall food intake under control.

<comment><USER13> For what it's worth, I've tried several approaches to lose weight and the one that works for me is intermittent fasting.

I was never obese or anything, just a bit overweight.

I usually only eat dinner. Between about 20 and midnight I allow myself to eat whatever I want. This just fits my personality, I find it easier to skip meals knowing that later I'll be free to have whatever I want than constantly watching what I eat. I suspect most diets work, the trick is to find one that you can live with in the long run. This probably has to do more with personality than biochemistry.

<comment><USER12> Agreed, the best diet is the one you can adhere to over the long term. Here is a great series comparing dieting approaches: [http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/comparing-the- diet...](http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/comparing-the-diets- part-1.html/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This has been relatively common knowledge for a few years, at least, and the science behind it is very sound and also makes a lot of evolutionary sense. Fasting has an incredibly good impact on our metabolisms and our overall health, especially for those who are suffering from diabetes.

The direct link to the study:

[http://www.cell.com/cell- metabolism/abstract/S1550-4131%2814...](http://www.cell.com/cell- metabolism/abstract/S1550-4131%2814%2900498-7)

Has a really good graphic on the impacts. One of the critical things to note here is that the allotment of food to the restricted group and the unrestricted group was the same. Fasting detractors commonly try and create an association between fasting and reduced caloric load, which can be the case, but this study shows that fasting has a different mechanism for weight loss.

</comment><comment><USER15> This should be a pretty good place to start IMO: [http://www.leangains.com/2010/10/top-ten-fasting-myths- debun...](http://www.leangains.com/2010/10/top-ten-fasting-myths- debunked.html)

</comment><comment><USER16> I wonder how they managed to keep the calorie intake the same for each group as mentioned in the study?

Either the mice self-regulated this, and the shorter window mice learned to eat more when it was available or there was a fixed amount of food available then the window seems less relevant unless they tracked when the food was gone for the day.

</comment><comment><USER17> I am doing one of the fasting systems in islam. I have been doing it for around two month.

What i am experiencing in observing this are mainly good things, which are:

\- I can controll my eating habits into a good systematic way, in sahoor and iftar. Before I would eat regardless of time or my hunger level, it is just difficult for me to moderate myself.

\- My state of mind seems improved quite a lot. I am more aware of my self, my being, my hunger, and many other aspects in my life.

\- I can taste food a lot more better, before I would just stuff anything as long as it is there. After I got used to the fasting, I am more selective of what I eat and enjoy each bite with great gratefulness.

Of course there are several times that are difficult for me when I am doing it. But they are far out weighted by the better things.

This is based on my own experiences and they may differ with other people's.

</comment><comment><USER18> An increasing body of evidence is supporting intermittent fasting in humans helping with weight and health indicators.

[http://www.livescience.com/48888-intermittent-fasting- benefi...](http://www.livescience.com/48888-intermittent-fasting-benefits- weight-loss.html)

<comment><USER19> "Increasing body of evidence" is even better than "Dr. Panda" in the article. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> How does this work for people who regularly burn 500-1000 calories in a workout (bikers, swimmers, runners, skiers, etc)? I'm genuinely curious, not so much from a weight loss perspective but from a mortality/longevity point of view.

<comment><USER14> It can help prevent diabetes and is theorized to assist in slowing down aging (through HGH secretion). Longer fasts are theorized to help stave off cancer to some extent, but I don't believe those ideas are backed up by hard science yet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> What works for me: skip breakfast, skip lunch, eat a large dinner with a lot of protein (fish/meats/eggs) and green vegetables. After dinner I can pretty much eat whatever I want left / can afford to eat. Works for me.

</comment><comment><USER22> I have recently changed my way of living loosing 40 pounds in 4 months. The number one factor is exercise and holding back on carbs. I actually feel better not eating carbs (but I do miss my pasta and my bread which i only eat occasinally)

A family of four we cook all our meals ourselves completely from scratch unless we go out for dinner that also helps me control what I am getting. I drink wine and drinks when I want to, try to keep my lunches to fish and dinners to meat and veggies.

But I would say exercise is the most important of everything I am doing.

</comment><comment><USER23> Cool, another useless diet article:

"Scientists, like mothers, have long suspected that midnight snacking is inadvisable."

"began experimenting with the eating patterns of laboratory mice"

"Precisely how a time-based eating pattern staved off weight gain and illness is not fully understood"

"To date, Dr. Panda's studies have been conducted with only mice"

</comment><comment><USER24> How does this reconcile the advice that eating more often (say, 6 times a day) but with smaller portions helps increase metabolic rate and thus helps with weight loss?

<comment><USER25> I think that's just conventional wisdom/wishful-thinking propagated forward (like so much dietary advice): [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19943985](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19943985) (cited in [http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/23/health/23really.html](http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/23/health/23really.html)).

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> OT but am I the only one who tries to gain weight? I'm on a 500 kcal surplus every day, lifting heavily four times a week.

<comment><USER27> You must be under the age of 25 or so.

Please believe as you age, gaining weight will get easier and easier.

<comment><USER28> I'm currently trying to gain at age 35, I eat until I can't eat another bite and lift hard 3 days a week. Gaining weight comes slowly.

<comment><USER8> Do you drink alcohol? If so, how much?

<comment><USER28> I'd say I average less than 1 drink a month.

<comment><USER8> Drink more. You'll gain weight.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> "This article appeared in the January 18, 2015 issue of The New York Times Magazine."

Future past tense?

</comment><comment><USER30> I think it's more of a function of how much time elapses between dinner and bedtime.

</comment><comment><USER31> Is it really a surprise to anyone that if you restrict almost any of the variables of diet, you can make a study showing it'll lead to weightloss?

>Precisely how a time-based eating pattern staved off weight gain and illness is not fully understood

Really? It's not fully understood how, if you give less time to eat, you'll eat less? It's not like mouse-stomachs are infinitely big

<comment><USER32> I believe the caloric intake was the same across all diets.

<comment><USER33> > The caloric intake for all the mice was the same.

Yup. Directly from the article.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> It's just calories in vs. calories burned, nothing more nothing less.

Why does everyone make it more complicated than this?

Of course not consuming calories for half the day (does sleep count or not? I couldn't tell from the article), as compared to those who do, helps you not gain weight.

<comment><USER34> People think they are special snowflakes whose bodies aren't bound by the laws of thermodynamics. They'd rather focus on trendy microoptimizations (like "eating vegetables before rice", and other non-sense) than diligently tracking caloric intake.

<comment><USER35> The laws of thermodynamics are not limited to the total calories consumed and calories burned during intentional exercise. Many variables matter.

We know that humans are not capable of converting 100% of food's available energy. What if your body is less capable of breaking down certain types of food right after you wake up? what if consuming a large portion of your daily diet in once overwhelms your body's ability to digest it. Science may have solved those specific questions, but pretending that the complex bag of chemical reactions in the human digestive tract is entirely governed by two simple summation variable seems naive. Please forgive any formatting errors. I'm typing this on a tiny little phone

<comment><USER34> If you assume (incorrectly, as science has proven) that the human body can metabolize 100% of the energy it consumes, your worst case scenario is your caloric intake. In practice, since you're not receiving 100% of that energy, you're actually better off. Figure out your BMR (basal metabolic rate) and add your estimated calorie expenditure and consume fewer calories than that. The fact that not all those calories are actually used by the body makes it even easier to stay below your daily energy requirements. Thanks for the reply

<comment><USER35> The study is specifically stating that of groups of mice consuming similar diets with the same caloric intake, the group that ate whenever they wanted became obese and unhealthy while the windowed eaters did not. That, I think, is scientific evidence that strict caloric regulation is not a complete solution as implied by you first commment. I think the researchers would agree that the difference between obese and healthy is not the result of a micro optimization.

The point I was making is that the equation isn't calories_in + calories_out = weight_loss/gain. It is at least x(calories_in) + y(calories_out) = weight_loss/gain where x and y are complex physical and chemical variables that we haven't completely teased out yet. One less than insignificant part of x seems to be related to the time window of consumption. A small change in x or y would result in significant improvements over the course of a life.

<comment><USER34> I'm thinking more in the context of modern "weight loss" theory. These articles are just more fuel for fat Americans, Brits, and Aussies who want a scapegoat for their weight and a shortcut to lose it. They will do anything except change their diet and (optionally) exercise. They've made that small change to x or y for years and aren't willing to revert those changes. Thanks for the reply.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Under Pressure from Uber, Taxi Medallion Prices Are Plummeting - <AUTHOR> http://nytimes.com/2014/11/28/upshot/under-pressure-from-uber-taxi-medallion-prices-are-plummeting.html <comment><USER3> "The crucial question for medallion owners like Mr. Ionescu is, if Uber is that much cheaper than a taxi, why would anyone take a taxi, and therefore why would any driver pay to lease a medallion? Mr. Ionescu says his revenues are down around 25 percent, and he's having trouble leasing out his whole fleet."

Apart for selling the right to operate in a government sanctioned monopoly what service does this man provide? This looks like the worse example of rent seeking I have seen.

<comment><USER4> Here are the "non-services" that he provides:

o A poorly tracked rider/driver interaction in which it's somewhat obscured which riders I road with in case I have a bad interaction and need to follow up.

o A poorly designed hailing system in which I need to physically see the taxi in order to request its service.

o A poorly designed (non existent?) tracking system, in which the taxi that I've requested may, in fact, be service another passenger, and have no intention of coming directly to me for the next 30 minutes. Or, never at all.

o Almost no feedback, and certainly no "default opt-in" feedback mechanism on the driver, providing no incentives for the drivers to behave professionally or courteously for every ride, resulting in frequent rude or abrasive customer/rider interaction.

Without the medallion, of course, he couldn't afford to provide those "non- services", and would therefore have to compete for business. The medallion is what allows him to provide such a horrible level of service - and, such poor service is frequently seen in most monopolistic markets. See Comcast.

<comment><USER5> It's also important to list the proposed services the monopoly provides. Personally I avoid them at all costs... Nevertheless they are historically:

* Price reliability: Prices in most taxi systems follow strict rules. Customers can use this knowledge to estimate what they will spend, and drivers what they can earn.

* Service dependability: Because medallions are limited and prices are regulated, taxi drivers can make a living, and the service does not boom/bust. This means customers are not gouged in good times and unable to find taxis in bad times.

* Non-discrimination: Taxis are usually required to respond to all hails, and to not refuse service because your ride is too short/long.

* Driver tracking: because a taxi driver must have a medallion and follow rules about posting information in/on their cabs, passengers can distinguish between 'taxis' and random people offering ride services. While there may be no built-in reputation system, there is incentive and recourse. How do passengers know if a non-taxi is a guy who makes his living from offering rides, or a guy who just stole a car and is going to rob them? A taxi driver is risking a lot by robbing his passenger.

Many of these points are matters of preference, or can be solved by technology (reputation). Do we, as a society, want to incentivize a stable transit system by limiting the number of drivers or by paying more than 'market' prices in slow periods, and more in busy periods? Do we want drivers to be able to refuse service? If not, how do we compensate drivers who make short/long trips that have low profitability and high opportunity costs?

<comment><USER4> I like the general balanced approach you are taking, but I have to critique a few elements.

Service dependability - I take cabs exclusively, and, while I can't comment on other markets, I have deep knowledge of the bay area taxis. First, it's important to note, that even when they are operating in "normal mode" \- you can never, ever quickly get a taxi on the peninsula. Minimum time is always about 15-20 minutes, and frequently 30 minutes. Also, when it's busy, or late - forget it, you will not get a taxi. Compare this to Uber, that works hard to ensure you will always have a ride, regardless of time, level of busy. And yes, basic economics therefore suggests that in order to make that happen, you will have to vary the price. But, I would definitely like to have the _choice_ of taking a more expensive ride, then no ride at all.

Non-Discrimination: You've got it backwards. Taxis discriminate all the time based on every conceivable factor. Uber doesn't even let the driver know where you are going, and the driver is committed to picking you up before he sees if you are young or old, black or white, male or female. About all they can discriminate on is _how well you treat them_ (Drivers rate passengers).

Your Driver tracking thing is a long stretch. A better example would be, "Taxi Drivers in general have been doing their job for a while, there is little churn, so it's unlikely you will get one that will rob or rape you, (though it's not unheard of, particularly with drunk passengers.) as those drivers who do that are probably going to get fired, and it's less common to get new drivers with taxi services than with uber.

Of the 200 or so RideShares, the worst one I got was a Driver who had only been working for Lyft for a week, and used her cellphone to get GPS directions to the airport, and came to a hard stop at a stop sign. Every other one has been excellent, courteous, and clean safe cars. I have no end of horror stories of psychotic taxi drivers driving cars that sometimes wouldn't open from the inside.

<comment><USER6> Yeah I love Uber but the one thing that's really annoyed me the past couple of years is whenever it goes above 2x surge every UberX driver immediately "forgets" how to navigate the city. Even a couple of blocks out of the way means a couple of bucks extra on your fare at surge pricing levels. Uber definitely has this data, I would love to see them release it given their commitment to data transparency. Even some really simple metric like average distance traveled vs. average GPS route distance during surge vs. normal should give a fairly unbiased view of how often this is happening.

<comment><USER7> Surge pricing gets more, less experienced, drivers on the road.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > Yellow taxis in New York also face competition from new green "boro taxis," > which may pick up fares only in the boroughs outside Manhattan and in > northern Manhattan. That program has been in the works for three years, > including during a period when medallion prices were still rising. The vast > majority of yellow cab pickups occur in Manhattan below 110th Street or at > airports, where yellow cabs face competition from Uber but not from green > cabs. Still, the green cab program has faced strong opposition from yellow > cab medallion owners, and the start of falling medallion prices coincides > with a June 2013 court ruling upholding the green cab program.

Did anybody read this? My understanding is that green taxi medallions started selling at around $5,000 when they were introduced, and green taxis are now fairly common in the outer boroughs. You also see them quite a bit in lower Manhattan as well (dropping off fares).

Also, did anybody look at that chart? Prices haven't been stable for the entire time span that the chart covers, and the current price isn't even the min for the data set.

Uber's been operating in New York since well before 2013. It just so happens that the (three month as indicated by the chart, mind you) decline coincided with a court decision that upheld a city policy that would put more cabs on the streets in areas of the city that are booming right now.

On top of that, I wonder if there are any other macroeconomic trends that might be affecting medallion prices and ridership overall. Mind you, if total taxi-like revenue for the last given period is R = T + U, where U is Uber's share of the revenue and T is the rest, and the next period's revenue is R' < R, then it's completely consistent to have T' < T and U' > U. In other words, total taxi-like revenue can be on the decline even as Uber's revenues are increasing. This could be because the Uber service is cheaper, or because people are overall using taxis less. Who knows if this is actually happening? I don't. But it'd be interesting to see the question raised and pursued, even to be quickly dismissed by some obvious fact.

Don't mistake this article for economic analysis. It's a puff piece.

<comment><USER9> I'm ashamed to say that I didn't. You're right. Medallion prices look pretty close to average for the dataset, which only covers 18 months. The article also mentions problems with the data. Low data, small dataset, questionable outlier removal.

" _There was only one medallion sale in September, followed by nine in October_ "

This data doesn't really say anything. The remarkable thing here is that medallion values aren't dropping. This really is terrible reporting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Stories like this confuse me, they seem to suggest that I should be sympathetic towards previously inflated prices starting to fall. In this case we're talking about taxi medallions but closer to home it's been UK house prices where a decline is reported as "bad" and a rise is "good". In both situations it's seemed pretty obvious to me that there's a crazy overpriced asset that will correct eventually and those who paid over the odds will take a hit.

<comment> k-mcgrady House prices are always reported as bad. Either too high for new buyers or they're falling and owners don't like it.

<comment><USER11> Falling prices are bad in the current arrangement, unfortunately, for more reasons than the current owners being upset: a bunch of other financial products are also tied to them, so falling house prices cause a mess cascading beyond just the real-estate market. E.g. the 2008 crash produced defaults on housing derivatives worth more than the entirety of the actual real-estate in question, which in turn produced bank failures, etc. (Not a good situation in the first place, but it's why financial news treats falling housing prices as negative news.)

<comment><USER12> > a bunch of other financial products are also tied to them, so falling house > prices cause a mess cascading beyond just the real-estate market

That's an argument for gradually deflating housing prices, assuming they are overpriced. If people are running businesses and preparing for retirement with faulty price projections in mind, I don't see why others (people who don't own homes, mind you) should be forever penalized because the system is already stacked against them.

<comment><USER11> I agree they should be deflated, if overpriced. My point was that the people who don't own homes _also_ suffer from real-estate declines in many cases, with the current way the financial system is intertwined with real estate (which is itself a problem). By dollar terms the vast majority of money lost in the '08 real-estate crash was lost by people who didn't actually own a house or condo, because the second-order losses were much larger than the primary losses.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> ""I'm already at peace with the idea that I'm going to go bankrupt," said Larry Ionescu, who owns 98 Chicago taxi medallions."

That's how much again? 30Million?

If you manage to go bankrupt with this kind of equity you're bad at business. Like, really bad.

The best investors know when it's a good time to go into a business, but also when it's time to disinvest. Looks like the time is now (or maybe, 6 months ago)

<comment><USER14> The problem is that pretty much everyone realised the problem at the same time. In order to disinvest there would need to be people willing to buy, but in this case it seems his assets became unsellable pretty much overnight. It's not like Uber was always certain to win; for a long time there were plenty of people who thought Uber would be legislated out of business. Now it's looking like that won't happen. Consequently his position is sensibly pragmatic - <USER2> business is failing and he has no way to get back much of his money.

The best investors realise that there is _always_ a possibility of that happening.

<comment><USER13> "The best investors realise that there is always a possibility of that happening."

Exactly. Especially with things that are very dependent on legislation.

This is not a material asset, it's a license. Cities might one day legislate a medallion is not needed anymore, or increase their number, or change the rules in some way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The article doesn't touch upon the illiquidity of the taxi medallions in these cities. In most of them, once you buy the taxi medallion, it's difficult or impossible to sell again. Even in cities where you can sell it (San Francisco), you get a fraction of what you paid for it (30% typically). This distorts the market even further, when the buyers need to price in the fact that these are assets that in some cases might depreciate to $0, and not give them the ability to sell them before that happens. Additionally, there's no price feedback, or it happens rarely. As the article points out, NYC publishes the price once a year, and did it incorrectly last year. What type of investment gives you no feedback on its current value?

To reduce the price swings, cities need to create an auction system where they allow current owners of medallions to list their current medallions for sale. The auction system would provide price transparency, and allow all the stakeholders involved (medallion holders, buyers, and sellers) to get a clear picture of the market price at any given point.

</comment><comment><USER16> I'm bored of stories about Uber, they're all paid for, marketing crap.

<comment><USER17> You are suggesting that Uber paid the New York Times to write this piece on medallion prices?

<comment><USER16> Yes, and I don't know why I've been downvoted for it. Read this: [http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html)

Then this: [https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome- instant&ion=1&e...](https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome- instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#tbm=nws&q=Uber)

Uber's PR agencies are Westbourne and FleishmanHillard: [http://www.prweek.com/article/1295173/uber-bring-european- pr...](http://www.prweek.com/article/1295173/uber-bring-european-pr-taxi-wars- demand-comms-firepower)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm shocked at how the taxi industry is behaving in the face of this new competition. Uber and lyft have been around for several years and all they are doing is sitting there and then eat their lunch with no attempt to protect themselves. But believe me I have no sympathy for them, especially in the Bay Area. I welcome the idea that they go bankrupt after the years of disservice they have provided this area.

The interesting thing is that I'm not sure what options they have at this point. Uber is spending hundreds of millions of VC money, which is a huge advantage over existing taxi companies that don't have this free money that allows them to operate at a massive loss. About the only thing I can think of is taxi companies from several cities across the U.S. have to merge together, and then partner with a smaller company that can raise the same 100M+ in financing and then create an uber competitor that can drive prices even lower. Basically it's a scorched earth policy on taxi fares driven by VC money, similar to the dot com days.

Other than that, I have no idea how the taxi industry will survive, unless they can somehow get uber regulated the same way they are.

</comment><comment><USER19> I'm not familiar with medallion system, do you have to buy them per-car or per-cab-company?

In any case, 1 million is just, wow.

<comment><USER20> Per car, and also they are tied to the car, not the driver. So divers rent them for the day, or by the hour.

It's basically a government sanctioned monopoly. It doesn't even have the pretense of being about safety or anything like that.

<comment><USER21> Does it transfer to a new vehicle? Cabs put on so many hard miles that it seems like a really steep price for something that isn't going to last that long.

<comment><USER20> The medallion itself is physically attached to the cab, but since the medallion does not expire I'm sure there is a transfer process.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I realize that most people here thin medallions were always a and idea, bad for consumers and _should_ die.

But, the fact is that they do exist and were promoted by the municipal government (this is a municipal government system, isn't it?). Even if it was a bad idea, aren't they responsible for it? They sold or issued medallions on the grounds that they are a resellable perpetual license to run a taxi. If i'm not mistaken, the city made money selling them.

Unless you consider the whole "contract" void, I can think of only two logical perspective. Either the city is violating that contract by allowing uber to operate or uber is a new kind of service with no bearing on that contract. IE if segways had replaced cabs, tough luck #1 sounds prohibitively expensive to accept & #2 sounds dishonest.

<comment><USER22> I think that question is perfectly valid; even if the contracts are considered unfair/rent-seeking or whatever, why shouldn't the city be at least partly responsible for issuing such contracts?

There's an article on Cato about the issue, which focuses on the economic efficiency of the issue: [http://www.cato.org/blog/should-taxi-medallion- owners-be-com...](http://www.cato.org/blog/should-taxi-medallion-owners-be- compensated)

<comment><USER9> I agree that this is anti-consumer. But I can imagine similar schemes that aren't.

Say a city decides to have a market in the park every Sunday. They issue resellable medallions for stalls, food carts, etc. A few years later, they cancel the market or the medallion system or otherwise make the medallions worthless.

With uber there is some ambiguity. Maybe uber aren't cabs. If some awesome new public transport system lowered demand for cabs the city wouldn't be responsible. Claiming that they aren't cabs is how/why uber get around the medallion system in the first place. Taxis and medallion issuers are challenging this in someplace.

In any case, I think there is a genuine question here. Even if medallions were wrong in the first place, issuing them was the wrong, not buying one. Buying a medallion is the only way to operate a cab. I don't understand the downvote- anger.

<comment><USER22> _I don 't understand the downvote-anger._

I think it's because they're being sloppy in the reading of your post and assuming "therefore Uber should be banned" somehow.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm not sure the math works out. It mentions a weekly lease price of $780 per medallion in Chicago. Assuming 15% tax and 15% cost of insurance that comes out to $600 to the leasing company. Assuming the car costs $25,000 and has a depreciated value of $10,000 after 3 years as a fleet car, that means the weekly "cost" of the car is $113.21 (assuming a 5% financing rate), which prices the medallion at $486.79. A perpetuity of $486.79 per week at an expected 20% gross return only costs $126,566.15, less than a third of the selling price of a medallion in Chicago today. Even at a expected 10% gross return still only comes out to $253,132.20. Am I off on my math somewhere?</comment>


Tachyon – Memory Centric Reliable Distributed Storage - <AUTHOR> http://www.tachyon-project.org/ <comment><USER2> Main domain told me almost nothing. The documentation link transforms it into what should've been their homepage given it's presented like a whole, different site with everything you need.

[http://tachyon-project.org/documentation/](http://tachyon- project.org/documentation/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Never heard of it before. Seems... possibly useful if they would actually tell me what its useful for then perhaps I might find the documentation more engaging.

</comment><comment><USER4> Anyone has experience with this project? We are currently thinking about using it in our cluster with Spark Streaming instead of an external DB (MongoDB)

<comment><USER5> we use it, but (after reading the homepage linked to at the bottom) pretty clearly outside the core use case. In particular, we use it for off-heap caching, which we configure through org.apache.spark.StorageLevel. We monitor via tachyoneFolderName which as you probably know is a spark context (sc) attribute (eg, ./bin/spark-shell, then type "sc."[Tab] to find it).

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Url changed from [https://github.com/amplab/tachyon](https://github.com/amplab/tachyon), which points to this, which seems like a better starting place.</comment>