ripe

34 ms·

541.
by ripe 5y ago
Have you looked into Hawala systems? Unofficial, trust-based money transfer agents can transfer money with a phone call. Have been doing it for decades in India, for sure, since before computers were common. Still works, and no need to risk
542.
by ripe 5y ago
> the vaccines either aren't working or are working for a very short duration of time Citation needed. That's an extraordinary statement. The vaccines (at least the ones we have in the US) have very high efficacy and are probab
543.
by ripe 5y ago
You're right. I'm trying to distinguish VoLTE as opposed to voice calls on 3G. That's the piece that's missing in the old phone. How would you get at that distinction? Any alternative way to explain that would be useful.
544.
My old phone: Why AT&T sent me a free phone, and what circuit-switched means(robotsinplainenglish.com)
2 points by ripe 5y ago|4 comments
545.
by ripe 5y ago
For over a year now, I've been writing short articles for non-technical people to read. Usually I try to use something in the news as an opportunity to teach some simple concept. This is my latest article. I use the fact that AT&T
546.
by ripe 5y ago
For people who ask, "why use text-only editors like vim or Emacs, when I can use a full GUI IDE?": One of the reasons I haven't seen mentioned much is: I'm a touch typist, and I hate having to switch between mouse and ke
547.
by ripe 5y ago
Sorry, that's like saying that the people of Flint, MI were free to move somewhere else when their water was polluted.[1] No, the university is responsible for providing safe housing for the students, and if they accepted this lunatic&
548.
by ripe 5y ago
Not the kind of show I normally watch, but once I started it I couldn't stop. I was afraid I was going to be watching some woman getting beaten up or worse, but there was very little of that, fortunately. I thought they did a great job
549.
Think Netflix’s Maid Is Hard to Watch? Good: That’s the Point(vanityfair.com)
10 points by ripe 5y ago|2 comments
550.
by ripe 5y ago
I think the poster is referring to: Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surely_You're_Joking,_Mr._Fe... !
551.
by ripe 5y ago
As a hobby, I have been writing little explainers for non-technical people on my blog. I wrote one for this particular incident: https://www.robotsinplainenglish.com/e/2021-10-14-blame-sham... I hope HN readers will (g
552.
by ripe 5y ago
Thank you for writing the post. Newbie question about “nonlocal” from your example: def outer_function(): x = 11 def inner_function(): nonlocal x x = 22 print('Inner x:',
553.
by ripe 5y ago
Sorry, I should have clarified what I meant. (I think a sister comment did clarify, but to expand on it): Mumbai has a reputation as "a city that works". When I was growing up in India, in the 1980s, the entire country was not onl
554.
by ripe 5y ago
I don’t think OP was suggesting merging the two countries. My relatives in India would consider such a suggestion with horror. Pakistan rarely enters their conversations, except when there’s a terror attack. Most of them just want Pakistan
555.
by ripe 5y ago
The consistent problem with most comments about the conflict in Afghanistan is they fail to fully account for the role of the Pakistan Army and ISI in all of this. They are the most important element in the conflict, not the Afghans, not us
556.
by ripe 5y ago
I like your analogy, but just to clarify, which is the human being in your comparison: the sparrow or the F16? A sparrow can take off and land on a branch, and it regularly weaves through thick foliage no wider than its wingspan. So, I assu
557.
by ripe 5y ago
From the article: The real money comes from the illegal movement of ordinary goods, like fuel and consumer imports. In size and sum, the informal economy dwarfs international aid.
558.
Afghanistan’s informal economy is the prize for the Taliban(nytimes.com)
3 points by ripe 5y ago|2 comments
559.
by ripe 5y ago
The author is Niall Ferguson, so I am guessing that the reason is not ignorance, but prejudice in support of the author's agenda, which in this case is an apologia for Britain's empire. Ferguson writes good stories but will often
560.
by ripe 5y ago
This. I grew up with Lisp and Smalltalk, yeah I am that old, but today I love Node to build web apps. It’s a fantastic environment for asynchronous programming. It also has a built-in REPL for a management interface via TCP or Unix sockets.
561.
by ripe 5y ago
Thank you for the link to Alain de Botton's Ted talk AND for summarizing in text! Wish more people did this.
562.
by ripe 6y ago
Oh God, thank you for saying this. I cannot read two pages of Malcolm Gladwell and cannot fathom his popularity. Generalizing from anecdotes in an entertaining way: that’s his whole schtick. Or, maybe I’m an old cranky curmudgeon and should
563.
by ripe 6y ago
In Britain they call people from India Asians all the time. Immigrants from the Indian subcontinent are the biggest nonwhite group, and that’s the word they are known by. In the US, I think people often use “Asian” to euphemistically refer
564.
by ripe 6y ago
You are right that METAFONT allows a font designer to vary the font in a continuous way using parameters while retaining its essence. But this is addressing a different problem. It allows a document designer to adapt the font to the page. I
565.
by ripe 6y ago
A depositor is not the customer banks are chasing. It's the businesses who want loans and financial services like M&A and IPOs. Their competitive advantage is not in their software at all. It's in their relationships. The soft
566.
How Repairable is your phone?(wired.com)
3 points by ripe 6y ago|1 comments
567.
by ripe 6y ago
France now requires makers of certain electronic devices, including smartphones and laptops, to tell consumers how repairable their products are. Manufacturers selling these devices in France must give their products a score, or “repairabil
568.
by ripe 6y ago
Till is a perfectly valid, formal word. I was just having this argument yesterday: Many people assume that till is a misshapen abbreviation of until... However, till is not a shortening of until. It actually predates the longer word. The ab
569.
by ripe 6y ago
I loved this thriller novel: Forty Days Without Shadow, by Olivier Truc. It's about two police detectives in Norway's northern Finnmark county. The book offers a fascinating introduction to the way of life of the Sami people and t
570.
by ripe 6y ago
This discussion confused me until I looked up "torus" and found there are really two different definitions of this word: (a) a SURFACE generated by a circle rotated about a coplanar axis outside the circle. Examples: an inner tube

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