a_c_s

28 ms·

241.
by a_c_s 12y ago
1. Mortgage contracts are too complex for a layperson to understand. Often the amount of time people are given to sign them is less than it would take to read the entire contract through just once. 2. Getting a mortgage is an instance wher
242.
by a_c_s 12y ago
This seems like a cool idea, but in my experience Amazon's prices for household goods fluctuate dramatically. Sometimes things are a great deal, but a month later they could be more expensive than purchasing at a local store (and I&#x2
243.
by a_c_s 12y ago
Chemotherapy is a research-backed approach that has been constantly refined since it was first used roughly 100 years ago. Bloodletting is a theory-based approach and was, as far as we know, in continuous use for thousands of years despite
244.
by a_c_s 12y ago
The key difference is that they didn't have a good mechanism for sifting the wheat from the chaff: in addition to doing some things that are actually helpful, some things that seemed to work are actually harmful/dangerous (eg. blo
245.
by a_c_s 12y ago
While I've never seen this use personally, UrbanDictionary very strongly corroborates this. http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=unf
246.
by a_c_s 12y ago
This article is based on multiple studies done by people at Ivy League institutions. Trying to "throw the theory into question" with a few generalizations isn't contributing to intelligent discussion. HN is fast becoming Slas
247.
by a_c_s 12y ago
Btw, is commonly referred to as Financial Independence (FI). There are also several online communities devoted to FIRE (Financial Independence Retire Early).
248.
by a_c_s 12y ago
France is actually one of the examples used in the article. "When France lowered the barriers to receiving unemployment insurance, it actually increased the rate of entrepreneurship.. Until 2001, citizens on unemployment insurance had
249.
by a_c_s 12y ago
We're discussing an article based on multiple research studies by somebody at the Harvard Business School. Rebuttals should be based on more than vague anecdotes.
250.
by a_c_s 12y ago
Minor point: for some of us, HBO costs more than $15/month to add to our cable bills. (For me it is ~$21/month!)
251.
by a_c_s 12y ago
Broadly speaking, economics talks about three categories of things: Land (natural resources), Labor & Capital. Looking at things from this perspective, capital includes everything from carpet, books and desk chairs to massive heavy indu
252.
by a_c_s 12y ago
Using these sensors is cool, but not so different from what other car companies are doing (Ford, Toyota, Mercedes-Benz, ...?). It seems Google is the "odd one out" relying on primarily on different hardware (LIDAR).
253.
by a_c_s 12y ago
If dealers would all go out if business if they had to compete fairly, then doesn't that suggest they might not be providing customers with much value? While I do think market interventions are sometimes justified, in this case it seem
254.
by a_c_s 12y ago
This is a terrible excuse: the Unicode Consortium should always seek out at least one (if not a group of) native speakers of a language before defining code points for that language. These speakers really should be both native speakers of a
255.
by a_c_s 12y ago
Great point! The only quibble I have is that 'compound return' doesn't include fees. However, 'total return' includes both fees & distributions (such as dividends). If we use fairly common fees, the table looks
256.
by a_c_s 12y ago
There are ways of reducing corrupting by adding more money to the system, such as paying police reasonable wages or digitizing systems/processes. But of course more money has to be coupled with a desire to reduce corruption.
257.
by a_c_s 12y ago
Re: #2: in some US states, if you are laid off you are entitled to be compensated for vacation days you have accrued but not used.
258.
by a_c_s 12y ago
The second sentence I agree with, but not the first. An 'untalented' developer is one who is perhaps slow to complete features, needs work on their design patterns, produces buggy code, etc. Process isn't needed for these peo
259.
by a_c_s 12y ago
I was poking around when this was first announced, and if I remember correctly it seems like HBO only gets $4-$6 per cable subscriber. So even with the administrative overhead, the per-subscriber profits will almost certainly be significan
260.
by a_c_s 12y ago
I don't watch sports, so what I want is only $15. Big sports fans might only pay for ESPN, and those who watch a lot of both will pay $35. (Where I am, HBO is an extra $21/month, so $15/month is actually a discount!)
261.
by a_c_s 12y ago
The Parkinsons app, for example, correlates symptoms and physical activity. I don't know who would have an incentive to bankroll data skewing. The current crop of apps have nothing to do with rating products.
262.
by a_c_s 12y ago
What's the point about speculating about motivation? Whether motivated by altruism or calculated strategy, who cares? These kinds of discussions tend to devolve into platform bickering rather than substantive commentary.
263.
by a_c_s 12y ago
Yes, there is a difference betwixt 'true REST' (as defined by Roy Fielding in his PhD dissertation) and what most people refer to as REST. I was referring to the latter: in my experience 'true REST' APIs are rare in the
264.
by a_c_s 12y ago
Sure, that sounds nice in theory. In the wild, how many developers (especially those working on internal APIs) have the time & inclination to thoroughly document their entire APIs? And if it exists, many developers read the entire spec
265.
by a_c_s 12y ago
The author doesn't provide much of a counterpoint: underneath the layers of rudeness and rhetorical flourishes, the only point of the article is that Mr. Buffet generally purchases companies for less than what the seller would receive
266.
by a_c_s 12y ago
The parent is referring to the fact that consumer plans for nearly all ISPs don't guarantee 4 Mbps at all times. Instead they offer "up to 4 Mbps". Average performance is less than that, especially at high-usage times of day.
267.
by a_c_s 12y ago
Net neutrality is the way things ran for most of the last 20 years. This is less of a change but a return to what worked well in the recent past. The reason we are even discussing this topic is that telecoms are moving away from net neutral
268.
by a_c_s 12y ago
"assuming they are well behaved" This is the key statement: in NYC a large portion (perhaps even a majority) of the dogs that I encounter are poorly behaved and improperly trained. Given how many 'bad apples' there are,
269.
by a_c_s 12y ago
This is false: "The caloric intake for all the mice was the same." "By the end, the mice eating at all hours were generally obese and metabolically ill, reproducing the results of the earlier study. But those mice that ate wi
270.
by a_c_s 12y ago
There are two things happening with opposite effects: releasing the peg and cutting rates. Since the CHF is strengthening, we know that releasing the peg is having a stronger effect than cutting rates.

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