snrplfth

10 ms·

31.
by snrplfth 9y ago
> Early tractors didn't do much for underdeveloped nations. Mainframe computers didn't either. The default state of capital-intensive technology is to improve productivity, but not to bring capital and work into underdeveloped
32.
by snrplfth 9y ago
You could say that about basically every labour-saving device though. Tractors, earth-moving equipment, container ships, whatever. And even textiles are almost wholly automated now - lots of textiles are grown or spun, woven, dyed and print
33.
by snrplfth 9y ago
The proportion of fragments that would have their orbits boosted, through multiple collisions, to an orbit higher than the upper atmosphere, is trivial. Nearly every angle of collision between two objects in orbit lowers their periapses
34.
by snrplfth 9y ago
Not how orbits work. A collision can't cause, for example, an object with a circular orbit at 400km (passive reentry regime) to become fragments with a circular orbit at, say, 2000km (non-passive reentry regime.) Like snaily said, all
35.
by snrplfth 9y ago
Firstly, why have any official languages at all? Aside from government documents and the like (which are routinely translated into 10+ languages anyways), why does any language need to be "the official one"? Also, what does it act
36.
by snrplfth 9y ago
To be fair, given the neighbours, Thailand seems pretty mild on the issue of "ridiculous laws wielded for obviously political purposes."
37.
by snrplfth 9y ago
"Eyyy buddy, you wanna buy this car? Classic 1991 Honda Civic, only 100k miles on it, and most of the doors still open. I'll give you a deal, $10 000." "Yeah, I don't think it's worth that much. A hundred dolla
38.
by snrplfth 9y ago
Forget about the Loonie, look at the yen - one US Dollar is worth an incredible 114 yen! Quick everybody, throw all your investment at Japan!
39.
by snrplfth 10y ago
Sure, but the vast majority of the funds from tickets go to the city - that's who it's really a "cash cow" for. And the municipalities are the ones actually making the rules that govern the tickets themselves. Why "
40.
by snrplfth 10y ago
> "And now, turning right on a red light is just a cash cow for the slimy red light camera companies." Hm? I'm pretty sure that revenues from red light camera tickets generally go to municipalities, not the companies that
41.
by snrplfth 10y ago
When trains run in tunnels, or even when on aboveground rights-of-way, the rails are generally spaced very close together. A 3-platform station therefore requires the tracks to turn away from each other to make room for the central platform
42.
by snrplfth 10y ago
It's not as commonly done because it's considerably more expensive to build triple platforms, and the bends required to make it work slow the train down and cause wear. It's good for high-capacity stations though.
43.
by snrplfth 10y ago
It also tends to reduce distance travelled because left turns are often done to get onto faster roads - if you right-turn it all the way, you're often on slower roads, so you're not going as fast, but you're saving actual tra
44.
by snrplfth 10y ago
Okay, I assumed the implication was software "typical" for commercial/delivery/collection vehicle routing. Even a business with a dozen vehicles would generally have this sort of software. Google Maps does not, the last
45.
by snrplfth 10y ago
And in Quebec, you still see people turning right on red lights while looking solely to the right, instead of looking for oncoming traffic from the left.
46.
by snrplfth 10y ago
If your navigation software doesn't permit weighting different turns, it's not really worth using for a business/organization of any substantial size. Usually there's also cost assignment/weighting for things like t
47.
by snrplfth 10y ago
This is an impressive result, but not exactly a UPS exclusive. Pretty much any vehicle routing software worth using has offside-turn-minimization options, usually as one of several 'weighting factors'. For example, almost every ga
48.
by snrplfth 10y ago
Libertarians tend, by and large, to be amenable to taxing externalities like pollution.
49.
by snrplfth 10y ago
That's the trouble with a lot of people who think of themselves as Jacobs fans. They like the sorts of outcomes that she liked, but then they ignore almost the whole of her analysis and basically come up with ideas for Master-Planning
50.
by snrplfth 10y ago
Ironically, David Attenborough is an 'overpopulation' alarmist and misanthrope of the exact type that Hans Rosling was always arguing against.
51.
by snrplfth 10y ago
>Like I said, I don't actually care how rational it all might be in economic terms. I'm not willing to allow rich people to pay for more privileges than they already have, even if we might all be better off as a result. Cool, w
52.
by snrplfth 10y ago
The point is that if you try to prevent pricing of goods, you get a) pricing by other means, often more inflexible, b) underinvestment and underproduction, c) departure of the wealthy through other markets. The problem with road pricing is
53.
by snrplfth 10y ago
I've read it, and it seems to be the same kind of mercantilist thinking that I'm criticizing. It's more of this "take an accounting identity, ignore the effects of one-half of it, bemoan the 'imbalance' of the
54.
by snrplfth 10y ago
The rich just move closer to work, then. Oh hello, San Francisco.
55.
by snrplfth 10y ago
>We have very intense cheating detection, perceived inequality, unfairness or injustice will piss us off. True - although it's often a very mono-directional detector. Anyone higher up on the ladder, or taking advantage of cheats we
56.
by snrplfth 10y ago
Agreed. One of the big problems in perception, I think, is the fact that, since a market economy can support a fairly substantial non-market fraction (socialized housing, roads, etc.) people imagine that you can just indefinitely extend the
57.
by snrplfth 10y ago
Private and public debt bubbles? There's no actual debt or deficit being incurred - it's just using money to pay for goods. We might as well worry that we have a trade deficit with the corner store, or our employer might worry tha
58.
by snrplfth 10y ago
In fact, I think the grocery store has been manipulating their prices down , giving them an unfair advantage. Obviously you should insist that they stop selling such cheap food. Man, we'll be rich in no time if we keep this up.
59.
by snrplfth 10y ago
Trade deficits aren't subsidies. All it means is that there's a greater volume of home-currency-denominated investment in the "deficit" country than there are home-currency-denominated exports. So, in the case of the US,
60.
by snrplfth 10y ago
I think it's actually because the USA has 0.8 cars per person. Why would people carpool or rideshare in a rural area when they've more-than-likely got their own cars?

More ›