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bhc

223 karma · joined November 12, 2011

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bhc··on Muse Spark 1.1
Your Meta account profile region has to be in the U.S., and they do Geo IP and SMS verification.
bhc··on NeXT Computer Offices
There's a promotional video of the NeXT factory.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhIwfu73reE

bhc··on Americans increasingly see legal sports betting as a bad thing for society
The gambling industry has funneled a ton of cash into academic researchers producing papers that gave credence to the idea of "addictive personality," which in turn was massaged by PR experts into the notion that some people are just born addicts, and the gambling industry can't help it if they become addicted to gambling too. "Addictive personality" itself is on very shaky grounds statistically, and the derived PR messaging certainly is false. The gambling industry is likely more culpable in this mess than even a typical, generally well-informed person might be aware.
bhc··on I found a 1-click exploit in South Korea's biggest mobile chat app
In case of Kakao Taxi vs Uber, it was Uber's unwillingness to work with existing taxi operators that killed any chance Uber had in the Korean market. Kakao (at least until they became dominant) acted more like an agent that sends additional customers to existing independent taxi drivers while Uber kept trying to find legal loopholes to bypass the taxi licensing system. S Korea is a civil law country, and its courts have no patience for actors whose entire legal strategy is to subvert the intent of the laws, and that was the end for Uber there.
bhc··on Filling Nuclear Power's $5T Hole Is Beyond the Banks
I find it strange these types of articles never mention UAE's Barakah nuclear power plant (which did not source reactors from a nation unfriendly to the U.S.) and experienced only 4 year delay from the originally projected commercial operation start date and relatively limited cost overruns.

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

bhc··on The One Thing I Can’t Stand About Teaching English in Japan (2019)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jouhatsu
bhc··on Apple’s 2½ year old iPhone 12 is 6% faster than the new Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra
Less than 1 percent of Lithium-ion batteries get recycled in the US and EU.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/04/lithium-costs-a-lot-...

bhc··on Qualcomm says ARM to prohibit proximity of CPU and 3rd-party modules in one chip
It's possible that Samsung got a briefing on what's happening with ARM and Qualcomm and negotiated an extended reprieve from the new licensing scheme about a month ago when Masayoshi Son had a high profile meeting with the head of Samsung to discuss "a strategic alliance between Samsung and Arm."

https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/SoftBank2/SoftBank-to-discu...

bhc··on Zero Trust SIM
>But in recent years, nearly every modern phone shipped today has an eSIM

How many phones other than iPhone, Pixel, and (very recent) Galaxy S/Z have eSIM? There aren't that many cellular IoT boards that support swappable eSIM either (some boards say eSIM, but what they mean is that the IoT vendor's SIM is soldered onto the board - thus "embedded SIM"- not that you're allowed to load eSIM of your choice).

bhc··on iPhone 14 Pro comes with dual-frequency GPS
Crowd-sourced list of Android phones that support dual-frequency GPS: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1jXtRCoEnnFNWj6_oFlVW...
bhc··on Why are nuclear power construction costs so high?
The government that was in power from 2017 to 2022 put a moratorium on new reactor construction there and promised a full phase-out, and although the newly-elected government promised to reverse this, it likely has done some damage to S. Korea's civilian nuclear capabilities.
bhc··on Italian CPU – The Genesys B52 MMX
I often hear US investors have a higher risk appetite, but why is that the case? I imagine it can't be just cultural differences.
bhc··on Internet drama in Canada
That's true, but Canada has suburban sprawl just like the U.S. where, in most cities, home internet is just as expensive if not more so. Think how much less wire, amplification/splitter/switching/etc. equipment, and drilling would be required to install new home internet infrastructure to serve the same number of people if the Greater Toronto Area was as dense as the (4x denser) Stockholm metro area. The one of the obstacles (in addition to monopolies and regulatory capture) may be that the built-up area near the U.S. border still aren't dense enough to have infrastructure efficiency comparable to European countries with cheaper and faster home internet like Sweden, Finland, France, etc.
bhc··on Show HN: I built a website to find nearby cafes to work remotely from
There is a cafe chain in Russia that charges by the minute but most drinks are free. They tried to expand to the U.K. in the mid-2010s, but their test cafes failed, and they pulled out after a few years.

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

bhc··on Samsung Electronics cultural issues causing disasters in foundry, LSI, DRAM
Former Samsung head Lee Kun-hee had a heart attack in 2014, and his son Jay Y. Lee took over. I don't know if that had any effect on the alleged culture problems the article talks about.
bhc··on Mobile LTE Coverage Map
It's based ISED's bimonthly CSV data dump of licensed radio transmitters. Heavy concentration of cellular antennas in some blocks might be because ISED's database lists even nano/picocells.

http://sms-sgs.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/sms-sgs-prod.nsf/eng/h_0001...

bhc··on Why Sleep Apnea Patients Rely on a CPAP Machine Hacker
How do people obtain regulated medical devices like CPAP without a prescription? I assume a sleep study is required to get a prescription from a doctor.
bhc··on Stanford scholar gets six-figure settlement from James Joyce Estate (2009)
Shel Silverstein's literary estate is also known to take scholars and biographers to court under some misguided notion of protecting the brand.

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/books/2013/10/my_shel_sil...

bhc··on Apology after Japanese train departs 20 seconds early
Rail companies in Japan turn profit due to these factors: 1. Transportation by road in large Japanese cities is a complete nightmare. People really can't take the bus or drive if they want to arrive on time. 2. JR companies have been privatized in the 80s. They are free to set fares without political interference. 3. JR companies were allowed to shut down unprofitable lines to remote regions or demand the local governments subsidize them if they want to keep the lines running 4. Japanese rail companies own the land the stations sit on and were allowed to develop the stations into massive retail and office properties from which they earn rental income. Some rail companies even have department store subsidiaries.

Even then, JR Hokkaido, which serves the relatively sparsely populated Hokkaido region, has been unprofitable for a long time.

bhc··on Intel and Samsung Gang Up on Qualcomm, Backing FTC Monopoly Suit
Intel and Samsung specifically did that by creating WiMax as a competing standard for LTE, but look what happened.

https://www.theverge.com/2017/1/17/14303910/qualcomm-alleged...

bhc··on Westinghouse Files for Bankruptcy, in Blow to Nuclear Power
Westinghouse only closed Stone & Webster acquisition in late 2015, so it seems like the fraud started while Stone & Webster was still owned by CB&I.

The whole saga is bizarre because CB&I sued Westinghouse claiming it was paid too little for S&W [1] a few months after the sale was finalized, and then a few months later sued Westinghouse again [2] seeking to wipe out their liabilities in the S&W's businesses.

[1] http://www.powermag.com/cbi-sues-westinghouse-over-2b-closin... [2] https://www.bna.com/chicago-bridge-iron-n73014448199/

bhc··on Vancouver plans to tax empty properties 1% of their assessed value
Is a flat rate fine a good idea in this case?

I imagine an investor keeping his or her $30M mansion just as a hedge against RMB depreciation and keeping it empty will think nothing of the $10,000 fine.

bhc··on Include cuts off Y Combinator because Peter Thiel is a part-time investor there
>Pao ruined Reddit

How?

bhc··on Google's “Director of Engineering” Hiring Test
Are they hiring a reference manual or a director of engineering?
bhc··on The ICANN Public Comments on WHOIS Privacy
If you want to submit comment directly to ICANN, you do so here.

https://www.icann.org/public-comments/ppsai-initial-2015-05-...

Scroll down to "Template for Responses (if desired)." (Direct link: https://s.zoomerang.com/s/VTLNGF5 )

The form asks you to comment on a dozen or so specific parts of the report and the working group proposal. I imagine comments submitted this way will have more impact than a plain letter since you will be guided to address all of the contentious parts.

bhc··on Did chip espionage, IP theft give Samsung its 14nm manufacturing lead?
The fact that the article used by ExtremeTech as the source (http://english.cw.com.tw/article.do?action=show&id=14895) refers to Liang, the former TSMC employee, as a "traitor" over and again casts doubts in my mind about the accusations presented.
bhc··on OsmocomBB – Open-Source GSM Baseband
Of the compatible phones, only Sony Ericsson J100a appears to support North American GSM bands, and eBay doesn't have any of it on sale, at least not at the moment.
bhc··on Dark Sky has a new owner
I find SkyMotion's 2 hour precipitation forecast to be superior for the purpose of determining whether I should go out for an walk right now or not.

http://skymotion.com/

bhc··on 23andMe UK
Full health reports have been made available again in Canada for a month now.

http://www.23andme.ca/

bhc··on Yahoo Acquires Photo Startup Cooliris
Can Yahoo and Google please stop shutting down services of start-ups they acquire?
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