tomkarlo

62 ms·

631.
by tomkarlo 14y ago
I'd have to take issue with the idea that an influx of well-paid workers "distorts" the housing market. Do they drive housing prices up? Yes. Is that really a "distortion"? It seems like the normal process of supply and demand to me. What I
632.
by tomkarlo 14y ago
Fair enough, although this comment thread was about its quality as journalism. Ultimately, this is a site about news "hence 'hacker news'", so you have to expect that a piece posted will be judged on its factual quality, and by proxy, its j
633.
by tomkarlo 14y ago
Whoops. You're right, my bad.
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by tomkarlo 14y ago
This is a classic urban problem: the people who are already in SF and own places don't want more housing built, because the shortage drives up the value of their own homes (and anything that blocked their view would reduce it.) The best sol
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by tomkarlo 14y ago
Good writing isn't the same as good journalism. If you have one without the other, it has very different implications for the impact of a piece.
636.
by tomkarlo 14y ago
It's worth noting that they're in the process of extending BART to the Caltrain (which is relatively recent itself.) There's a ton of cut-and-cover work going on down 4th street to do this. Why would you see big residential buildings in Men
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by tomkarlo 14y ago
I'm not sure it's right to call this "journalism." It's an individual opinion that doesn't seem to be supported by much actual investigation, or reporting. It's how she sees the world through her eyes and imagines things to be, based on her
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by tomkarlo 14y ago
Seems like a grammatical error in the article. They have 20 now, which is about 18% of their eng team, and I guess they had 4 to start with. This is ~+450% growth but it's off such a negligible base (~5% assuming they also hired some men th
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by tomkarlo 14y ago
Okay, but all routes to that gaming - at least at the institutional level - ran through being able to do it without it impacting credit ratings. Credit ratings and security pricing are very dependent on statistical models for risk, in parti
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by tomkarlo 14y ago
I'm not sure you can get to the financial crisis without faulty models. Risk models, especially on packaged securities, are crucial to setting ratings as a proxy for risk. Those ratings are key to determining pricing, maximum leverage, and
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by tomkarlo 14y ago
Having spent part of my career in finance, the part she saying about modeling in that industry is true for some situations but not others. (Unsurprisingly.) An insurance company is generally going to try to get its own premium pricing model
642.
by tomkarlo 14y ago
Well, that's super-paranoid. Amazon uses major name suppliers like UPS. So it's not their employee to sack. And I doubt UPS would allow Amazon to go around randomly accusing their employees of theft.
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by tomkarlo 14y ago
I suspect that part of what they do is look at your (likely very long) order history, and make the calculation that it's better to just reship rather than risk losing you as a customer. It's the benefit of having so much order activity over
644.
by tomkarlo 14y ago
It's the app equivalent of a "cannonball run" - a race to see who can get from point A to point B as fast as possible. Unless you have some way to ensure participants obey traffic regulations (and I don't think anything exists at present),
645.
by tomkarlo 14y ago
Are you saying that based on any fact, or just a personal bias? Do you have any familiarity with fire laws or lodging regulations?
646.
by tomkarlo 14y ago
As a customer, should I expect less protection and safety because of how often the room is rented when I'm not there? Unfortunately, it's impractical if not impossible to regulate behavior based on _frequency_ unless you're going to continu
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by tomkarlo 14y ago
Yay, child labor.
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by tomkarlo 14y ago
Yeah, but you're also not Larry Page (I assume) nor do you probably have 4.6 million followers on your G+ page. Lots of companies and other organizations give out free or discounted flu shots every year, but they don't get the publicity thi
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by tomkarlo 14y ago
> This is not newsworthy. This is one of the largest tech companies in the US running a media campaign to attack one of the other largest public tech company's products. That alone makes it newsworthy. The fact it was such a lame attemp
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by tomkarlo 14y ago
It's crucial that they made fun of the PC, not PC users. (Remember, it was always "I'm a PC" in the intro.) In doing so, they clearly leveraged some stereotypes about the user base, but they avoided directly mocking the customers of either
651.
by tomkarlo 14y ago
Small operators are generally regulated as well, at least in most places. There were small lodging operators (1-5 rooms) long before there were huge hotels. If you run a bed & breakfast (<10 rooms, generally) you are still subject t
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by tomkarlo 14y ago
Except they do exist in most places, in one form or another. Can you point to some places that don't require hotel operators to submit to some kind of licensing / regulation? These laws aren't new - UK lodging laws go back several hundred y
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by tomkarlo 14y ago
In terms of fire and safety codes for hotels, there's a saying that they're "written in blood" - they often arise in response to a major tragedy or disaster. Generally, the industry fights them tooth and nail, despite what everyone here is
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by tomkarlo 14y ago
It's like if made an navigation app that tells you all the best places to jaywalk (and sold it to you), but failed to tell you that it's likely to eventually cost you $150.
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by tomkarlo 14y ago
There's a security issue as well: Most buildings base their security on the idea that only tenants, or limited guests of tenants, will be allowed through the front door and into the complex. If the next door apartment starts renting to a di
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by tomkarlo 14y ago
Hotels and registered lodging providers (including B&Bs) are subject to a range of safety regulations in terms of occupancy, fire codes, inspections, etc. Things we take for granted, like fire sprinklers, fire alarms, multiple exit rout
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by tomkarlo 14y ago
Show me how commercial fire codes / building codes protect hotels but not consumers. (Edited from "instead of" to "but not", since the original assertion was that they only help hotel owners.)
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by tomkarlo 14y ago
Lodging laws aren't there just to protect hotels. They exist to protect consumers and residents as well by setting standards for safety, etc. and helping pay for the services provided to guests by the municipality. If you take AirBNB to its
659.
by tomkarlo 14y ago
Engineers are hired, and paid, to code and write new functionality. It's unsurprising that they're generally not going to prioritize the quality of documentation, since that effort primarily benefits someone OTHER than the author. While it'
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by tomkarlo 14y ago
In that respect it's no different from the hundreds of security cameras most of us pass by each day. If you're doing something in the presence of someone else's view, and you know they're pointing a camera of any type at you, it's hard to a

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