hardtke

25 ms·

211.
by hardtke 7y ago
Companies used to prefer having a pension for their retirement program because any excess returns on the pension fund would become profit. Many of the ill fated leveraged buyouts in the 1980s/1990s were PE firms raiding these "ex
212.
by hardtke 7y ago
I always confused backcountry.com with The Back Country, a cool shop in Truckee ( https://thebackcountry.net/ ). I wonder if The Back Country is old enough to predate the trademark, or they are about to get sued.
213.
by hardtke 7y ago
I've noticed a trend across many scientific fields where publications are basically irrelevant since nobody reads them. Status is conferred by high profile talks, which tend to be invited. The material discussed in high profile talks
214.
by hardtke 7y ago
Unfortunately this is one of those issues that our current federal political system can't possibly address. The large companies know that federalizing this issue is functionally equivalent to killing meaningful privacy regulation in th
215.
Americans Will Pay a Price for State Privacy Laws(nytimes.com)
2 points by hardtke 7y ago|1 comments
216.
by hardtke 7y ago
Large employers are self insured. The insurance companies just manage the benefits. In that sense there is no negotiation, beyond a manager fee. Price is determined by health of employees and benefit level.
217.
by hardtke 7y ago
Gravitational waves are indeed everywhere. If the early universe underwent inflation, they should be everywhere. Any object orbiting another object emits gravitational waves. These exotic events, however, are the only gravitational waves
218.
by hardtke 7y ago
Although unions have their flaws, they do help to keep wages high for skilled workers, both in terms of the prevailing wage but also in enforcing overtime rules (double time for Sunday work, for instance). They also prevent out-of-area wor
219.
by hardtke 7y ago
A lot of long time and native Bay Area residents have favorable housing situations, either by owning a family home from before the latest bubble, or by living in a rent controlled apartment or an apartment with a landlord who prefers tenant
220.
by hardtke 7y ago
Article misses an important point. Free food is a benefit, and ERISA requires all employees get the same benefits. If you have a company with lots of low paid workers, it doesn’t work financially. Silicon Valley firms mostly contract out lo
221.
The Marijuana Billionaire Who Doesn’t Smoke Weed(fortune.com)
3 points by hardtke 8y ago|0 comments
222.
by hardtke 8y ago
The US has a very high tax compliance rate because most of our income is reported through 3rd parties (w2, 1099, etc.). For income that is not reported through a 3rd party, we have low compliance rates as well. For income subject to littl
223.
What is differential privacy?(johndcook.com)
1 points by hardtke 8y ago|0 comments
224.
by hardtke 8y ago
There is an economics research paper that shows that ticket auctions on Ticketmaster can reduce the arbitrage profits of scalpers ( https://faculty.chicagobooth.edu/eric.budish/research/Ticket... ) They compared th
225.
by hardtke 8y ago
Article misses best new feature: You can close apps on the iPhone X by swiping up from the app switcher, rather than holding down in a very small area to bring the red x forward.
226.
by hardtke 8y ago
A friend has an independent Mercedes/Porsche repair place in SF and told me that most of his business is repairing doors/windows and other issues like that. These repairs tend to be insanely expensive compared to what you think t
227.
by hardtke 8y ago
Owning stuff is essential at times of peak demand. It is essentially impossible to rent a nice ski house during Christmas week. Uber is not be trusted when it comes to getting home from a large event. The app was failing for me on Saturda
228.
Workplace Wellness Programs Don’t Work Well. Why Some Studies Show Otherwise(nytimes.com)
2 points by hardtke 8y ago|1 comments
229.
by hardtke 8y ago
Reverse mortgages are fine, but I think a lot of people are cashing out their equity earlier with no means to make their mortgage payments once their income is reduced.
230.
by hardtke 8y ago
One worrisome trend is the fact that more homeowners are retiring with large mortgages. The days of the mortgage burning party are over. Banks seem happy to do cash out refis on homeowners soon to retire.
231.
by hardtke 8y ago
This will be hosted at either Brookhaven National Lab (NY) or Jefferson Lab (Virginia). Unfortunately, National Labs need to find new large construction projects to justify their continued existence, and there aren't enough big scienc
232.
Origin of Mystery Space Radiation Finally Found(nationalgeographic.com)
1 points by hardtke 8y ago|0 comments
233.
by hardtke 8y ago
The three largest OTT providers (Sling, YouTube TV and DirectTV Now) all raised their prices by $5 recently. This seems similar to how airlines all manage to raise their fares at the same time without explicit coordination (one airline does
234.
How to Untangle Quark and Gluon Jets Using Topic Modeling(physics.aps.org)
3 points by hardtke 8y ago|0 comments
235.
by hardtke 8y ago
Search ads do not require the collection of user data beyond the search query to be profitable. it can be argued that they don’t violate user privacy.
236.
by hardtke 8y ago
“Will the last person leaving Seattle turns out the lights?” billboard went up after the founding of Microsoft.
237.
by hardtke 8y ago
To be fair, the people who have massive housing equity generally bought their houses when interest rates were sky high. In the 1970's, when you could buy a decent house in Palo Alto for $50,000, the interests rates were 15-20%. As ra
238.
Is Google Using GDPR as an Excuse to Restrict Advertiser and Publisher Choices?(adexchanger.com)
1 points by hardtke 8y ago|0 comments
239.
by hardtke 9y ago
That would likely be a violation of the contracts signed with the data aggregation companies.
240.
by hardtke 9y ago
Another goal of particle and nuclear physics funding from the 60's through 90's was to produce a steady stream of highly qualified people to work at the defense labs (Los Alamos, Livermore, Lincoln Labs, etc). My colleagues would

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