xyzelement

7 ms·

61.
by xyzelement 2mo ago
As a relatively centrist American, I find this reasonable. I live in a very blue state (NY) and still 43% of my neighbors voted for Trump, with immigration cited as a key reason. So changes to immigration policy are to be expected. With reg
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by xyzelement 2mo ago
Duckdb is already an aws offering
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by xyzelement 2mo ago
// I became uncomfortably aware that Mensans, however high their paper IQ might be, were likely to be as irrational as anyone else. This reminds me of Asimov persuading his own children not to have children because he decided that
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by xyzelement 2mo ago
Credit card. I never understood the point of debit cards. It's like for people who don't want points? :)
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by xyzelement 2mo ago
//Edit: a less cynical view is that you are essentially loaning that money to the credit card company and then it pays you back but it keeps the interest It's literally the opposite. The credit card lends you money for free -
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by xyzelement 2mo ago
it is trivial to find a credit card with no fee and 1%-3% percent cash back. Imagine everything you bought in the past 3 decades from grocery to hotel room and air travel. Now imagine having 2% of it in your pocket. that's eaey to unde
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by xyzelement 2mo ago
Literally between posting the above and now, I went to a rural bike ride with my family. Didn't bother to bring cash. Ended up riding past an antique shop and bought my son an old school tractor toy via Google Wallet.
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by xyzelement 2mo ago
// subsidize demand and restrict supply I have never seen anyone articulate this so crisply. The government has created a situation with the student loans thing where basically anyone can borrow 500k to get an obviously useless de
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by xyzelement 2mo ago
This is why people are moving out of the US in droves, the universities are empty and nobody goes to the doctor.
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by xyzelement 2mo ago
Credit cards and cash have their place but the story being told doesn't track with experience. First, businesses are increasingly differentiating pricing between cash and credit card - this is most obvious in gas stations where the pri
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by xyzelement 2mo ago
It's been a few years - and I guess decades - since I read Cliff's book. One thing I recall is his journey from a Berkeley hippie to a man dealing with the military and men in suits and realizing that they are also good and necess
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by xyzelement 2mo ago
That's fine. I am pointing out that the American system works well. Other systems can work too.
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by xyzelement 2mo ago
You are entitled to that opinion. But when you are visiting the US you have to follow our custom and tip.
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by xyzelement 2mo ago
It is the only semi sympathetic reason.
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by xyzelement 2mo ago
Every time tipping comes up there's a vocal contingent of anti tippers, coming from one of these perspectives: European pride, cheap fuckery, or faux labor concerns. It's important to remind that American restaurants work well - w
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by xyzelement 2mo ago
Exactly! Thank you for expressing this so consciley. The fact that some people can't imagine enjoying giving (and receiving) a nice tip is really gross.
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by xyzelement 2mo ago
You're telling on yourself. Most people I know are happy to leave a tip - especially to reward great service as part of a great night, or in cases where you have a long term relationship with an establishment and its staff. I can only
78.
by xyzelement 2mo ago
In general a higher bill is a proxy for a larger meal of more people in a more high-end establishment so it tracks well. I agree if you had the $200 sea food tower by yourself it deviates from that otherwise perfect proxy. But that's
79.
by xyzelement 2mo ago
Just yesterday there was a story on HN about Spain's dying villages and a commenter who I assumed was Spanish attributed theow beth rate to income inequality. Which is it - low gini for talking to a waiter, high gini for starting a fam
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by xyzelement 2mo ago
This is real. But also "pee on the seat" is gross but not the level of damage a diseased homeless dude does to a bathroom.
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by xyzelement 2mo ago
I think bottom quintile refers to the worst people not necessarily the poor or whatever.
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by xyzelement 2mo ago
You don't see how maintaining a bathroom where the worst of society engage in public sex, do drugs, and shit it up in general - is more of a liability than without those things happening?
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by xyzelement 2mo ago
Agreed. However it becomes unstable and a massive liability for society to maintain public restrooms. So yes the 10% fuck it up for everyone unless cracked down on.
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by xyzelement 2mo ago
Thanks for both teaching me and not losing the forest for the trees of my point.
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by xyzelement 2mo ago
Lack of bathrooms has been called tragedy of the commons in this thread, but it's not the "commons" that are the problem. The worst 10% of society determine what we can and can't have. The "commons" aren't
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by xyzelement 2mo ago
// The need for ongoing friction in long-term skill formation. The subtitle of the story tells it all. There are some people who seek out friction. Think about an athlete or a hardcore nerd. The best engineers are ones who were fa
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by xyzelement 2mo ago
EU has a double-whammy problem that the average citizen is old, and the more ambitious youth has moved to London, Switzerland, or the US. So those who remain are statistically too old or non-ambitious to think regulatory friction applies to
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by xyzelement 2mo ago
Leaving something to someone you love is a common human motivation, from a father in building a business that he hopes the son continues to run, to a poor woman who punched pennies her whole life only to leave millions to her grandkids. Ans
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by xyzelement 2mo ago
Why do you think this? Spain has a lower fertility rate than the US and most of western Europe. Does it have greater wealth inequality?
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by xyzelement 2mo ago
Do you think the causes are the same across the regions?

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