splonk

8 ms·

31.
by splonk 3y ago
I have no particular data to support this, but anecdotally, my biggest issue with Cruise testing a couple years ago was that it was excessively cautious - randomly braking for no obvious reason, dithering at intersections trying to yield, t
32.
by splonk 3y ago
I've only been to Olfactory a couple times but as far as I'm concerned it's a massive improvement over Triple Voodoo. I do like Harmonic as well, it's just even farther out of my way than Olfactory. Basically the only
33.
by splonk 3y ago
I believe the distilling operation was separated from the brewing operation when Sapporo acquired it (I think maybe they had to remove the still through the roof with a crane?). I used to drink some with a guy who worked on the distilling
34.
by splonk 3y ago
Anchor actually did have a bunch of more modern beers after the Sapporo acquisition, but they were only available at the taproom. They only had retail distribution for the old reliable flagships (and then had a rebranding that was not well
35.
by splonk 3y ago
The local reports were that Anchor had been slowly losing money for years before the Sapporo acquisition. Supposedly Sapporo was intending to use the Anchor facility to brew Sapporo locally and then eventually found out that the site wasn&
36.
by splonk 3y ago
SeatGuru isn't perfect but it'll be right more often than not with the seat dimensions, especially on popular routes. Realistically I think airlines have figured out that they're mostly competing on price, not seat quality.
37.
by splonk 3y ago
(I used to own a LotR) LotR has three different "main" multiball modes (one for each movie), as well as the Gollum multiball (just 2 balls, normally). The Fellowship multiball is the one that requires hitting essentially every sh
38.
by splonk 3y ago
I just saw this video of Ronnie O'Sullivan falling over due to trying to lean on a virtual snooker table, and I'm almost certain exactly the same thing would happen to me the first time I tried to nudge a VR pinball machine. http
39.
by splonk 3y ago
> Yes, the barcade business model works. Mostly as a bar. Most often the machines are owned and operated by an outside contractor or dedicated hobbyist (who knows how to fix them.) To expand on this a bit, the actual maintainer of the ma
40.
by splonk 3y ago
> They usually show the actual price, or the actual price minus a $2 tourism tax. In my experience this is not true in the US, although God only knows how they segment their customer base for tests. I use booking.com frequently but not e
41.
by splonk 3y ago
I wonder if commissions have dropped a lot in the past ~5 years, or if your hotel just has a better rate. I remember hearing that average commission back then was in the 20% range (less for major chains with negotiating power), and I know
42.
by splonk 3y ago
This is more likely to be the hotel's fault than Booking's. You'd likely have the same issue with any third party aggregator. Many hotels (much like airlines) regularly overbook as a business decision, and third parties don
43.
by splonk 3y ago
Agoda is owned by Booking.
44.
by splonk 3y ago
I rant about the 2.5-10 scale on every Booking thread. It's not totally fake but it's very deceptive. When I had access to a large amount of rating data, the median rating on Booking was 8.1. If you can filter for business travel
45.
by splonk 3y ago
Part of the push for loyalty programs is that Booking (and Expedia) have tried to have a "most favored nation" clause in their agreements with hotels that states that hotels can't advertise a lower price elsewhere...unless th
46.
by splonk 3y ago
I did some work on hotel booking for one of the the "small" players in the space (at the time, a distant third in the EU after Booking/Expedia). The majority of their room availability was sourced through the two big players.
47.
by splonk 4y ago
Previous thread about using GPT3 with Ghidra: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34250872
48.
by splonk 4y ago
Interesting, I stand corrected. I've been on several Amtrak lines across the country in the past couple years, but things have been changing pretty quickly, and I haven't taken that particular line. Hope you enjoyed your Malort.
49.
by splonk 4y ago
Very pleasant travelogue. I enjoy long distance train travel when I have the time for it, and I think is a pretty helpful post for those considering it. > Also, economy does not include meals in the dining car and gets you no access to
50.
by splonk 4y ago
(Too late to edit original post) Just to illustrate how long locksmiths have been a problem, here's an article from 2009 talking about locksmith spam on maps. The techniques have changed but the general reliance on sketchy tactics has
51.
by splonk 4y ago
I used to work in this field (verifying local business listings). Locksmiths are traditionally the spammiest and scammiest industry of them all (along with taxis, before rideshare cut down their ROI). Basically any service area business has
52.
by splonk 4y ago
This is more or less how my office was in ~2014-16. I believe some property developer turned a bunch of apartments near the Caltrain station (1 Bluxome St.) into offices, so the building was a mix of residential and startups (e.g. Goldbell
53.
by splonk 4y ago
BlaBlaCar does this in Europe but I don't know how much uptake they have in the US.
54.
by splonk 4y ago
> many airlines still need to modernize. Most of the travel industry runs on old software that would horrify a lot of people here, especially those who've never worked for a large, 30+ year old company. When I used to interview a lo
55.
by splonk 4y ago
> I'm sure there will be fees. Those fees are going to be in the neighborhood of $40k/year. I couldn't find any good documentation, which I suspect requires going through more of the sales process. However, this page [1]
56.
by splonk 4y ago
People lie about their hands and reasoning at the table all the time. Amateurs are worse at it, but even pros get caught out saying dumb stuff now and then. Normally we just point and laugh at their obvious attempts to save face. At the en
57.
by splonk 4y ago
Former pro and high stakes player here. I don't know the principals involved and as such have no particular strong opinion on whether any cheating occurred, but this particular situation of a ridiculous hero call based on a very speci
58.
by splonk 4y ago
Fagradalsfjall in Iceland in 2021 was more or less a self-guided tourist attraction. I went twice a few weeks apart. Depending on the state of the flow there were different viewpoints and paths. There were a few search and rescue teams a
59.
by splonk 4y ago
The more technical writeup [0] linked at the bottom of the article doesn't specifically mention it, but it sounds like they probably booted off the Live CD to get access to the registry. > You can’t analyze the registry live on a wi
60.
by splonk 4y ago
This is the "most favored nation" pricing clause that major OTAs like Booking and Expedia try to put in their contracts with hotels. Usually the phrasing says something along the lines of how the clause doesn't apply if the

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