crdb

11 ms·

31.
by crdb 9y ago
Excellent news! The last time I tried to take the RER (early 2010s), I was in a train full of graffiti, with drunks (or drug users?) passed out across the seats, and few escalators/lifts for my 20kg suitcase. So after this I thought it
32.
by crdb 9y ago
It's confusing because the terms are different internationally. The RER B is not a direct train link - it's equivalent to taking the Piccadilly Line from Heathrow, you will take a long time through many stations and share with com
33.
by crdb 9y ago
I'm not talking about politically, but about philosophy or spirit. Compared to the Anglosphere megacities, there is a certain comradeship amongst the French (which you find in other countries, like Japan), a sense of shared fate and co
34.
by crdb 9y ago
The service available in France as UberX is what is known as UberBlack in the rest of the world - a black car and a professional driver (also applies to Pool). Uber in France is effectively a taxi company with an app (which is not a trivial
35.
by crdb 9y ago
Whilst real world events have caused many people to focus on the social ranking aspect of the story, when I watched it, I thought it was more concerned with privilege (and the loss thereof). The main character actually worsens her fate by
36.
by crdb 9y ago
Uber owns and runs rental car companies, such as Lion City Rental in Singapore, whose fee structure is designed specifically for the car-less to sign up as drivers (minimum rental duration for discounts to apply, a discount based on Uber ri
37.
by crdb 9y ago
> Money left over could be used to pay dividends to shareholders or to do tech acquisitions or long term investments in Apple projects which would benefit the shareholders in a more direct fashion. This assumption is incorrect in a world
38.
by crdb 9y ago
> Many comments ask if non-medical persons would use ultrasound should it become affordable. I think not. I immediately thought of a non-medical use case. A pregnancy and birth in Singapore costs $5-20k, so an extra $2k is not that much
39.
by crdb 9y ago
> I don't expect my surgeon to do surgery in his spare time. I really like it when my specialist has a prominent public profile. A recent case: tenure at a major university, had written or was quoted in many good journals and pape
40.
by crdb 9y ago
> Treat cars as a luxury good It's subtly different. The core idea is that car ownership has externalities and the implementation of solving these externalities is to limit absolute numbers and let the market decide what use to make
41.
by crdb 9y ago
Lee Kuan Yew actually thought, almost a decade ago, that he didn't go far enough: “I knew that once people in Singapore could have a car, they’d never give it up. So, before it got out of control, I said you need a Certificate Of Enti
42.
by crdb 9y ago
You don't. At least we didn't. Here's the real problem: 1. modern shopping sites are built haphazardly without structure; 2. a typical page load time is 10-20 seconds for many (most?) shops. 1. matters because you cannot buil
43.
by crdb 9y ago
Also Waterloo for that matter. No CGI in 1970. From Wikipedia [1]: "To recreate the battlefield authentically, the Soviets bulldozed away two hills, laid five miles of roads, transplanted 5,000 trees, sowed fields of rye, barley and
44.
by crdb 9y ago
You may enjoy Lee Kuan Yew's biography, The Singapore Story, and to a lesser extent his more recent Conversations with Tom Plate. There is a lot in common between Xi and Lee's thinking and way of doing things. Reading the BBC and
45.
by crdb 9y ago
It is different, and it does wrap up the quest at least. I guess I read it quite a while back and thought of Hyperion and Fall as one book in two parts, and got carried away in my original comment.
46.
by crdb 9y ago
I don't know if it is common, certainly the reviews for the following three did not seem as warm as for the first, which was also the only one to win a Hugo. This is why I prefaced it with "if you like literature", because I
47.
by crdb 9y ago
Coming from a reader of the whole series: the second season has much better writing and budget, and the actors have also worked together long enough to gel well. Aside from the casting of a certain Martian girl (someone should introduce the
48.
by crdb 9y ago
A number of the books (Use of Weapons, Surface Detail for example) would make fantastic series by themselves. The grander ones like The Algebraist are begging for a mega budget treatment with a brave, independent minded and intelligent di
49.
by crdb 9y ago
If you enjoy literature and have not read the Hyperion Cantos yet, I beg you to stick to just the first book. What Simmons did to conclude the Cantos is on par with Star Wars episodes I-III. Sometimes it is better to preserve the magic by
50.
by crdb 9y ago
> If your product is software, literally it is impossible that sales add more value than the engineering organization that builds the product. Without engineering organization, you don't have anything to sell. Anecdote as counter-ex
51.
by crdb 9y ago
> i decided the conservatory could fuck off after 1 year. Yes and no. Remember Picasso: "It took me four years to paint like Rafael, but a lifetime to paint like a child". Being patient enough to acquire the mountains of knowle
52.
by crdb 9y ago
Try post-stroke Stephen Kovacevich. He was already a maverick before, the loss of much of his physical ability forced him to review his approach and the result has, at least, forced me to reconsider my view of many pieces I thought I had do
53.
by crdb 9y ago
For a different take on it from Heinrich Neuhaus who taught Richter, Gilels and Lupu: "Godowsky, my incomparable teacher and one of the great virtuoso pianists of the post-Rubinstein era once told us in class that he never practised sc
54.
by crdb 9y ago
I wouldn't call it a slippery slope so much as events precipitating the situation. The revolt in 1857 led to the dissolution of the East India Company and a formal takeover of India by the British government [1]. The British Raj lasted
55.
by crdb 9y ago
> With modern signals and a good track, high speed trains can deliver good throughput with high comfort. This exists in France where some countryside TGV stations have become Parisian commute towns. E.g. Angers-Paris (296km, 1h15 by TGV)
56.
by crdb 9y ago
> Yet voter turnout often is quite low. Why? The idea is that only the knowledgeable vote. If you do not feel confident that you have a good grasp on political issues, your vote dilutes the signal sent by those less ignorant. Encouraging
57.
by crdb 9y ago
This paper is published during an era where the dominant global empire is founded and (mostly) run on principles opposite to ethnocentrism, at least internally. All of the current POTUS' grandparents were born in Europe, and the previo
58.
by crdb 9y ago
Can't speak for Mobike, since I don't use it, but oBike has a very efficient penalty system. Breaking or stealing a bike results in an effective ban from the app (the cost goes up to $5/minute, then $15/minute) and users
59.
by crdb 9y ago
I would love to try them, they look really good, with solid tyres, a chain, and a large solar panel to feed the lock. However none of my cards are accepted by Mobike (including the two market leading banks). At least I can install the app,
60.
by crdb 9y ago
Ofos get stolen. There are almost none left in Singapore. All you need to do is remember the PIN, and scratch out the serial. The "overengineered" Mobikes and oBikes (a competitor with very similar bikes - solar panels for the ele

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