5 ms·

Pyramids are awesome feats of engineering and construction. Also reminds me of the muon detection tech that can probe through solid material. https://www.pbs.o

Pyramids are awesome feats of engineering and construction. Also reminds me of the muon detection tech that can probe through solid material. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/next/ancient/cosmic-ray-muons-reveal-hidden-void-in-the-great-pyramid/ https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/next/ancient/cosmic-ray-muons-...

Circuits 7y ago
I am sure they are but I like my head where it is so I think I will pass on visiting Egypt and the pyramids.
- MartianSquirrel 7y ago
  Which is exactly why I'd rather visit Egypt than the US (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate#By_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention...)
  - thaumasiotes 7y ago
    Tourists are distinctive enough that you could probably usefully use the rate of intentional homicide of tourists rather than the rate of intentional homicide of anyone, though I doubt those statistics are kept. Egypt sees tourists as vital enough that one of the purposes of the police is to specifically look out for the well-being of nearby tourists, so probably pretty good on that metric.
    - baddox 7y ago
      Yeah, you probably have a lot of information about yourself that can be used to best a much more accurate estimate of being the victim of homicide. For instance, the homicide rates in different US states span an order of magnitude.
  - yitosda 7y ago
    Fascinating data. There's a breakdown per-state showing that only eleven states have a lower homicide rate than Egypt. Looks like Puerto Rico, District of Columbia and Louisiana are the worst as of 2012 (latest the set shows unfortunately). Puerto Rico is an outlier at 2x the next, but District of Columbia has improved massively between 2000 and 2012. EDIT: This might be a bit misleading. While there is more recent data for the US (up to 2016), there seems to be no reliable data on Egypt post 2012. Additionally, the 2012 number (2.5) represents a 4x /increase/ in homicides since 2003 (0.6). Only 2011 (year of the Egyption revolution) was higher at 3.2. So there's a clear trend towards an increase in homicide rates that might not be accounted for. That said, I guess it's unlikely that the number is much higher than the US average, even discarding the outliers mentioned above.
  - jessriedel 7y ago
    As thaumasiotes points out, the overall homicide rate is not the most relevant when selecting where to be a tourist. For instance, between 2012 and 2015, 15 and 5 British citizens were murdered in the US and Egypt, respectively https://www.quora.com/How-many-tourists-have-been-murdered-while-visiting-the-United-States https://www.quora.com/How-many-tourists-have-been-murdered-w... even though ~3M brits visit the US each year but only ~50k visit Egypt. So we can be pretty confident the murder rate for British tourists is at least an order of magnitude larger in Egypt.
- scarejunba 7y ago
  Your loss. Quite the amazing sights and sounds.
- dang 7y ago
  We've banned this account for repeatedly taking threads into flamewar and ignoring our requests to stop. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Circuits 7y ago

I am sure they are but I like my head where it is so I think I will pass on visiting Egypt and the pyramids.

MartianSquirrel 7y ago
Which is exactly why I'd rather visit Egypt than the US (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate#By_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention...)
- thaumasiotes 7y ago
  Tourists are distinctive enough that you could probably usefully use the rate of intentional homicide of tourists rather than the rate of intentional homicide of anyone, though I doubt those statistics are kept. Egypt sees tourists as vital enough that one of the purposes of the police is to specifically look out for the well-being of nearby tourists, so probably pretty good on that metric.
  - baddox 7y ago
    Yeah, you probably have a lot of information about yourself that can be used to best a much more accurate estimate of being the victim of homicide. For instance, the homicide rates in different US states span an order of magnitude.
- yitosda 7y ago
  Fascinating data. There's a breakdown per-state showing that only eleven states have a lower homicide rate than Egypt. Looks like Puerto Rico, District of Columbia and Louisiana are the worst as of 2012 (latest the set shows unfortunately). Puerto Rico is an outlier at 2x the next, but District of Columbia has improved massively between 2000 and 2012. EDIT: This might be a bit misleading. While there is more recent data for the US (up to 2016), there seems to be no reliable data on Egypt post 2012. Additionally, the 2012 number (2.5) represents a 4x /increase/ in homicides since 2003 (0.6). Only 2011 (year of the Egyption revolution) was higher at 3.2. So there's a clear trend towards an increase in homicide rates that might not be accounted for. That said, I guess it's unlikely that the number is much higher than the US average, even discarding the outliers mentioned above.
- jessriedel 7y ago
  As thaumasiotes points out, the overall homicide rate is not the most relevant when selecting where to be a tourist. For instance, between 2012 and 2015, 15 and 5 British citizens were murdered in the US and Egypt, respectively https://www.quora.com/How-many-tourists-have-been-murdered-while-visiting-the-United-States https://www.quora.com/How-many-tourists-have-been-murdered-w... even though ~3M brits visit the US each year but only ~50k visit Egypt. So we can be pretty confident the murder rate for British tourists is at least an order of magnitude larger in Egypt.
scarejunba 7y ago
Your loss. Quite the amazing sights and sounds.
dang 7y ago
We've banned this account for repeatedly taking threads into flamewar and ignoring our requests to stop. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html