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blang

764 karma · joined May 2, 2008

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blang··on Road Tripping Around Europe in a Tesla Is Less Fun Than You’d Think
Or if you buy a ticket for cash at a train station from a vending machine, it gives you back change usually in dollar coins.
blang··on Designing an audio adblocker
>I've never bought anything from an ad

Do you mean any ad ever, or just a podcast ad? If it's the former that is a pretty bold claim.

blang··on WeWork Gets a Visit from Financial Reality
>Uber doesn't buy and own the car, which means it requires much less capital.

I don't think this is true with one of the major things they have been selling investors for years: self-driving cars. That certainly requires a lot of capital to pull off, and I think they plan is they would own those cars.

blang··on The Best Skin-Care Trick: Be Rich
> None of them mentioned Mzia Shiman, who tends to the skin-care needs of Victoria’s Secret models. The facials at her New York spa start at $200, and more advanced services offer tightening and plumping via LED light bed or electric microcurrent.

How sure are we that these $200 treatments do anything and aren't just snake oil? I feel that the reason why Victoria's secret models skin looks great has a lot to do with when you see them. You see them in professional photos most often. These photos benefit from:

1) Skilled photographers 2) Skilled make up artists 3) Perfect lighting 4) Photoshop

blang··on Peddling the ‘Secrets’ to Getting Rich on Amazon
I feel they glossed over how these guys and others of their ilk, spam the Apple podcast charts to get in the top 100.
blang··on The impact of homelessness and the opioid crisis on San Francisco streets
I read comments like this frequently (also about Seattle, where I live), but have never seen data to back it up, do you have any?
blang··on Blue Apron becomes a penny stock, trading under $1 for the first time
Like this: https://myedmondsnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/MVIMG_2...
blang··on An open letter to FB, Twitter, Instagram regarding algorithms and my son's birth
> Or if the answer is technological: How come we accept the tyranny of advertisers on our most personal devices?

On the side of the user: because we don't like paying for services with money.

On the side of the company: hockey stick growth gets big pay outs, growth can happen much quicker if you give a service away and pay with advertiser.

blang··on Harvard Quietly Amasses California Vineyards and the Water Underneath
Non-STEM too for Harvard and Yale, I have friends who are art history PhDs at both places.

However, it's a long slog without a big money payoff after graduation, in fact it is better to be a student in most cases.

blang··on Thieves boosting signal from key fobs inside homes to steal vehicles
This article gets written fairly often:

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/16/style/keeping-your-car-sa...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17733870

https://abc7news.com/archive/9079852/

https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2018/02/23/58...

blang··on Overdose Deaths Set a Record Last Year
I'm not an expert but, psychedelics wouldn't help treat the withdrawal part of addiction. Increased access to suboxone would be helpful for that.
blang··on 30,000 empty homes and nowhere to live: inside Dublin’s housing crisis
Piggybacking on this, I believe it would mean things like decreasing "Environmental Review Process" and "Comment Periods" as well as density restrictions.
blang··on Farm bankruptcies on the rise according to new Fed report
Interestingly farm land prices are stable and rising slightly (in Iowa, 2017 numbers)

http://dreamdirt.com/blog/iowa-farm-land-land-values-up-2-in...

blang··on The Homeless Crisis Is Getting Worse in America’s Richest Cities
I think you have hit many things amazingly well with Seattle homelessness.

I think one of the reasons why we get very "every person for themselves" when the price tag comes up is it's hard to think of the single mother living in her car while working every day because the most visible members are the addicts sitting in the alley passed out in their own feces next to your stolen bicycle. Also it's hard to get data on who is the more representative group.

blang··on I Found the Best Burger Place in America, Then I Killed It
They could also make it reservations only, and control their price and speed.
blang··on Doctors Are Fed Up with Being Turned into Debt Collectors
You will notice with most (probably all) things medically billable the amount the insurance company pays is lower that the billing amount, that is the insurance company's negotiated rate, setting that price is one of the central things insurance companies do.
blang··on Wayne Gretzky and the Mysteries of Athletic Greatness
Rule changes to level the playing field because either someone found an exploit or just got too good is moderately common across multiple sports.

1) In basketball they have widened the lane twice because of talented big men[1] 2) They also made goal tending illegal because of talented big men[1] 3) For a short period of time dunking was illegal in the NCAA[1] 4) Bob Gibson was so good at pitching that they lowered the mound 5) David Berkoff was so good a swimming underwater that Fina made swimmers come up at 15 meters (he would do 40 sometimes)

[1] https://www.school-for-champions.com/sports/basketball_playe...

blang··on ‘I Don’t Really Want to Work for Facebook.’ Say Some Computer Science Students
This isn't new to STEM jobs and ethics Mechanical Engineers - Defense contractors Chemical Engineers - Chemical companies Geological Engineers - Oil and gas companies
blang··on Why Sleep Apnea Patients Rely on a CPAP Machine Hacker
And at the risk of being down voted, weight loss: https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/weight-loss-breathing-de...
blang··on Thermometer Tells Your Temperature, Then Tells Firms Where to Advertise
I'm failing to see the value add of this device.
blang··on Focals by North
I'm glad you have the option and whatever keeps you running is a good thing, but I love exercising with as little as possible. It gives me a good time to truly unplug and be alone with my thoughts, I also think it lets my body set the pace.
blang··on Former Groupon CEO Andrew Mason on what the roller-coaster ride felt like
This article is written by Alex Blumberg and has embedded links to that podcast.

I actual wonder how that works, did gimlet pay for this placement in nymag?

blang··on Tesla Is Doing Much Better Than Headlines Suggest
I've never seen that number before, any source?
blang··on The Cryptocurrency Industry Is 'On the Brink of an Implosion', Research Says
Not the parent, but I imagine what they are talking about is the Herbalife depends more on recruiting new members than they are from selling product. I would link but just googling "bill ackman herbalife" will lead you down infinite rabbit holes.
blang··on Facebook Isn’t Sorry, It Just Wants Your Data
Like target figuring out your daughter is pregnant: https://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/magazine/shopping-habits....
blang··on Facebook Isn’t Sorry, It Just Wants Your Data
All advertising is targeted. Billboard ads change based on the neighborhood you are in. Magazine/Newspaper ads are different from magazine demographic to magazine demographic. TV ads vary dramatically based on channel, time of day, and program.
blang··on Netflix Is Forcing Hollywood into a Talent War
I wish Netflix had the equivalent of Prime's x-ray.

I'm also very surprised that X-ray does not hi-lite items on the screen that you could click to buy on Amazon (I assume someone is working on this), not saying I want it, just surprised the feature doesn't exist.

blang··on Ask HN: What are some of the best documentaries you've seen?
A movie about the wine industry and fraud, Sour Grapes: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/sour_grapes_2016/

If you want to do long dives anything by Ken Burns, baseball is a classic: http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/baseball/

A documentary about Napster directed by not Keanu of Bill and Ted's Excellent adventure, Downloaded: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2033981/

blang··on Old Concept Cars
Saw a mid 90s car that looked like that at a car show this summer:

http://car-from-uk.com/sale.php?id=102913&country=uk

blang··on All the plastic you can and cannot recycle
Interestingly it looks like the Michigan bottle bill was enacted in 1978 when $.10 was more like $.40 today
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