9nGQluzmnq3M

Once the Kunming-Singapore link opens, you'll be able to ride to rails to the southernmost point in continental Asia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kunming%E2%80%93Singapore_rail...

Despite the name it's actually a series of different routes, and while all of them still have gaps, the Boten-Vientiane link connecting China to Thailand (and hence Singapore) via Laos is scheduled to open in late 2021:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vientiane%E2%80%93Boten_railwa...

Although the corresponding line on the Chinese side also needs to open (ETA 2022):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuxi%E2%80%93Mohan_railway

I have no dog in the fight, but if this comment is actually wrong (as implied by the downvotes), it'd be nice to hear why.

The only person I know who uses Chime works at AWS, and even they hate it.

It was a pretty ballsy bet either way, and I could see it being reposted even if BTC had crashed and burned to $0 like many expected it to.

Meanwhile, we're still waiting for John McAfee to consume his reproductive organs on TV:

http://dickening.com/

He bought in at $3, and as of 2017 he had a 1000x return on his investment. Today that would be circa 3000x.

https://falkvinge.net/2017/06/11/right-money-bitcoin-hits-30...

Interestingly, he was very wrong about the 2nd reason to buy BTC (it hasn't exactly replaced the existing financial system), but the other two -- past performance and "civil liberties" (for drugs, ransomware etc) were close enough.

You do what Singapore does and pass out bulletproof hardware tokens (no charging needed/possible) that do the same job.

https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/10000-seniors-get-fir...

I hate to rain on a good rant, but do you have any actual data to back up all these strong assertions?

Contact tracing (the old fashioned kind) works quite well when it's done aggressively and case counts are low. However, for most of the Western world neither is true, and throwing Bluetooth at the problem isn't going to help. Neither can it magically prevent infections from people who don't know they're contagious, which we've come to realize is a significant feature of how COVID spreads.

The article says this is the 6th new record since Nov 2019.

Running a telco is not that expensive. The problem is that building out the infrastructure in the first place is hugely expensive.

This is why most countries have only a few "real" operators that own and operate infra, and tons of virtual operators (MVNO) that run on top of others' gear.

Unlike, say, HN comments?

There's nothing quite like the Schwebebahn, but there are a few other suspended monorails out there, also known as SAFEGE monorails after the French company that commercialized the technology. The largest is the Chiba Urban Monorail near Tokyo, which is actually a two-line network:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiba_Urban_Monorail

Pro tip: JR trains from Narita Airport to central Tokyo pass through Chiba station, so you can hop off and go for a suspended monorail ride!

Thanks! That's the essay which was expanded into his first book, Kitchen Confidential, so it's likely in both in some form.

> The only problem is that off the cuff remarks can be part of the permanent record now.

I don't think you appreciate the scale of how many headaches this can create for a large company. Previously, A says something mean about B at the watercooler, even if somebody overhears it's all he says, she says. With Slack (or any other group chat/IM system), if A says the same thing, it's broadcast to everybody else on the channel and anybody can take out of context screenshots and run squealing to HR/EEOC/lawyers/whoever. And it's all accessible to anybody with a subpoena on a fishing expedition as well.

And you can't just fix the company or the people: beyond a certain scale, no matter how good your hiring process and training, no matter how awesome your company culture and benefits, you'll get permanently unhappy people, shit-stirring trolls, wackos with extreme views and all the other weird creatures that populate any Internet forum. So eventually you have to converge on reserving chat only for strictly work-related comms and training people to take anything with the mildest whiff of controversy to talking in person/over video.

> “If breast meat is worth two dollars a pound and dark meat is worth one dollar, which would I rather have?”

Western countries are weird about this. Chicken breast, particularly the industrially produced Tyson broilers and their ilk, is bland, dry and tasteless. (There's an Anthony Bourdain quote which I can't find right now about chicken being what people who don't like food order in restaurants.)

In Asian countries "dark" meat is preferred and sells at a premium, because it actually has some texture and taste.

Not as elegant, but way more readable:

if num > max: num = max

if num < min: num = min

That issue is unrelated. This is the correct one: https://status.cloud.google.com/incident/zall/20008

Citation needed. Most research I've seen says that it's the socialization and free play aspects that are important, not the academic content.

Young kids are not great at playing by themselves. Pretty much the only way to get a preschooler who can't read yet out of your hair for an extended period of time is to give them an iPad or TV.

Elementary school in Japan is OK. It kind of goes off the rails after that though, with success in life largely dependent on a few exams, the content of which is not properly taught in school so everybody with the slightest ambition has to go to cram school (juku) to make up for it.

Imgur has stopped allowing (new, explicit) porn:

https://help.imgur.com/hc/en-us/articles/360029648691-Mature...

I don't think you need the /s tag there, that's exactly what I expect to happen.

I really don't understand what Ellison is trying to accomplish here? Aside from making more money, of course, but I'd be hard pressed to think of a less synergistic combo than Oracle's aging dinosaur enterprises and TikTok's fickle teenagers.

There's a FAANG office which also uses 4xx status codes, but as you would expect, 404 is missing, and 403 is permanently locked (spoiler: it's a door mounted on a wall with nothing behind it). 418, on the other hand, is decorated with whimsical teapots.

The thing I don't understand that mandatory fixed service charges (in lieu of tips) are already standard for large groups in many if not most US restaurants, because negotiating tips and who pays what in this situation is even more complex.

Why is it so hard to just extend this existing, well accepted practice to smaller tables?

Minecraft has arguably evolved into its own "platform" with people building and sharing their own worlds (some on Minecraft's own managed Realms, many not) and tons of third-party games built on top of Minecraft accessible to the public. Fortnite may evolve in this direction some day, but it hasn't yet.

Why would even a NIMBY not be in favor of burying power lines? Power lines & poles don't exactly add to property values, and you'd think that underground you would get less electromagnetic 5G corona cancer rays implanting microchip vaccines too. But I guess trying to apply logic here isn't going to work...

> I think HN just has a large pro-google crowd

Really? Google seems to get torn to shreds here quite regularly.

Yup, the actual wording of the bill uses the awkward term "registered news business corporation" specifically for this reason, since ABC/SBS are not "business corporations".

The Australian Competition & Consumer Commission's response: https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/response-to-google-ope...

HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24185374

Hong Kong has an imperfect but subsistence-level dole system (CSSA), coffin house style bad but cheap housing (notably absent in SF), less of a drug problem, and a more functional system for taking care of the mentally ill.

Property is extremely expensive in HK, so it's long been a hell-hole for the poor: https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2017/05/the-coffin-homes-o...

That said, the city does not have visible homeless or crime problems of most large US cities, partly because you can legally get a coffin for $300/month.