jpatokal

97 ms·

961.
by jpatokal 9y ago
The extra cost here is not the cost of the DB write, but the rent extracted by the owner of the database. For example, access to flight bookings data starts at thousands of dollars/month.
962.
by jpatokal 9y ago
The part where investors fall over themselves to throw vast amounts of money at you? Of course, being a dream, this doesn't happen to the vast majority of startups...
963.
by jpatokal 9y ago
Most of gold's value is indeed a "myth". Silver is the best metallic conductor, it's equally finite and not man made, yet it trades at around 1/50th of gold value, despite having considerable decorative value its
964.
by jpatokal 9y ago
The relevant figure is the proportion of owners to population, not the absolute numbers.
965.
Google makes Cloud Spanner generally available(zdnet.com)
1 points by jpatokal 9y ago|0 comments
966.
by jpatokal 9y ago
It will be interesting to see how long China's frenetic metro expansion lasts. Japan went through a very similar phase after the war, but this slowed down markedly after the Bubble burst. With population growth now strongly negative,
967.
by jpatokal 9y ago
(2012) I also can't think of any startup in the 5 years since that has really taken off by pursuing one of these ideas. (Unless you stretch the definitions enough to consider Snapchat a replacement for email.)
968.
Google Cloud IoT Core(cloud.google.com)
4 points by jpatokal 9y ago|0 comments
969.
by jpatokal 9y ago
Abuse is rampant in Singapore as well though. For example, if a maid becomes pregnant, they have to leave Singapore immediately and the employer gets fined -- so it's common to lock them in the apartment 24/7/365 for however
970.
by jpatokal 9y ago
...and you get a little taste of this when you use the supermarket self checkout. Accidentally scan an item twice and need to cancel one? Approval needed. Scan unknown barcode? Approval needed. Press the wrong button when trying to use a g
971.
by jpatokal 9y ago
Uber has serious competition in India in the form of Ola -- and most drivers seem equally unhappy with both. https://qz.com/908802/uber-and-ola-drivers-in-india-are-now-...
972.
by jpatokal 9y ago
One thing that's particularly absurd about this line: the headway (average time between trains) is 20 minutes , and they don't even publish the schedule! Meanwhile, the existing bus service along the same road will continue to
973.
by jpatokal 9y ago
Err, no, you don't? Most of central Sydney is on ADSL, NBN has been rolled out primarily in new housing developments way out in the boonies.
974.
by jpatokal 9y ago
For HNers wondering who the hell Tony Abbott is, he's basically the Australian equivalent of George Bush (Jr): conservative politician and former prime minister who's, let's say, not known for his grasp of the finer details o
975.
World’s first light rail on a floating bridge: Sound Transit, Seattle(seattletimes.com)
3 points by jpatokal 9y ago|1 comments
976.
Multiocular O(en.wikipedia.org)
2 points by jpatokal 9y ago|0 comments
977.
Google Cloud Platform Launches Northern Virginia Region(cloudplatform.googleblog.com)
119 points by jpatokal 9y ago|30 comments
978.
by jpatokal 9y ago
Why so? California's climate is pretty optimal for solar generation and there's a lot of desert waiting to be covered in solar panels. Solar is not going to have a similar impact on (say) Ireland in the next 30 years.
979.
by jpatokal 9y ago
Is there any reason to believe publicly funded IT security R&D is any better? See eg. Palantir.
980.
by jpatokal 9y ago
This isn't really correct. Short codes are hardcoded routing rules specific to each operator, not just syntactic sugar. They don't map to regular phone numbers (MSISDN) and are generally not available from other networks or overse
981.
by jpatokal 9y ago
Actually, Sydney has been the new Vancouver for quite some time now. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-24/why-chinese-investors-...
982.
by jpatokal 9y ago
No, the main point of a nanny is to enable both partners to work, which is often a financial necessity, not a luxury.
983.
by jpatokal 9y ago
People following you, knocking on your door, speaking Spanish (which I presume you/your ex-employer don't) are both all trademark symptoms and things that a company that fired you is extremely unlikely to do (because why would t
984.
by jpatokal 9y ago
It's difficult to say this in a polite way, but I think you should get an appointment at a psychiatrist and get assessed for schizophrenia. What you describe, particularly the "blatant to surreal" bit, sounds very much lik
985.
by jpatokal 9y ago
That's not called jumping the shark. Jumping the shark is when something formerly cool/great (originally, Fonzie in TV sitcom Happy Days ) does something so blatantly stupid (originally, jumping over a shark on water skis) that
986.
by jpatokal 10y ago
I used to work with Mark (CTO). As you can see from his LinkedIn, he worked on various mapping products, but not self-driving cars. https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-wheeler-081882/
987.
by jpatokal 10y ago
Does your argument still apply if you change "coins" to "cash" and "brokers" to "banks"? I leave my fiat money in banks because I judge that the risk of the bank disappearing and taking my money with
988.
by jpatokal 10y ago
There's a documentary called Workingman's Death about the worst jobs in the world: not in an amusing Mike Rowe way, but jobs that are backbreaking, pay a pittance and regularly kill in horrible ways. And there's no comment
989.
by jpatokal 10y ago
Related anecdote: to this day, in Japan access to the Pill remains limited because of vague "safety" concerns, despite decades of use. However, when Viagra appeared, it was approved in months...
990.
by jpatokal 10y ago
The 457 is not even close to "abolished", they're just rolling out a rebranded version of it. From the Australian equivalent of the Onion: http://www.betootaadvocate.com/entertainment/turnbull-solves...

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