Hacker News Reader

danhakon Mallards ferry fish eggs between waterbodies

I always suspected this was how fish wind up in isolated lakes and ponds but no one could ever tell me for sure.

danhakon Forget Google, time to end the Visa-MasterCard duopoly

I was curious if this was true so I looked it up. AmEx + Discover have 20% - 25% market share depending on the metric you care about. Bing + DDG have 8%

https://wallethub.com/edu/cc/market-share-by-credit-card-net...

https://gs.statcounter.com/search-engine-market-share/all/un...

danhakon E.U. Plans to Bar Most U.S. Travelers When Bloc Reopens

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries

You can click through to get more granular on the country, state, and county levels.

danhakon E.U. Plans to Bar Most U.S. Travelers When Bloc Reopens

> I don't like to use infection as a standard because that depends 100% on how much testing you do

As I pointed out, our infection rate is higher than European countries that have a testing rate >= ours. So that is a fair comparison. I.E. our positivity rate is higher.

danhakon E.U. Plans to Bar Most U.S. Travelers When Bloc Reopens

The U.S. currently ranks #12 out of 200 in terms of infections per capita, far higher than any western democracy--even those that have done significantly more testing per capita. Yes, it is pretty close to the worst response in the world: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries

danhakon E.U. Plans to Bar Most U.S. Travelers When Bloc Reopens

If you want to talk about misleading, you are the one who just changed goalposts from "most infections" to "mortality per capita." I would hope the healthcare system of the most advanced economy on earth would fare better than "middle of the pack" when it comes to mortality.

If you're arguing that figures should be adjusted for population then fine. Let's look at infections per capita, where U.S. is currently 12 out of 200--significantly higher than any other western democracy, even those that have done more testing per capita. Hardly middle of the pack: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries

danhakon California sets Covid-19 daily record, Bay Area cumulative total passes 20k

Of course cases will go up as testing becomes more widespread. As you point out, headlines mention case numbers as those are the high, eye-catching numbers. The more important numbers to watch are positivity and hospitalization, which are starting to tick up after several flat weeks.

danhakon “Today, I submitted my resignation to Facebook”

It's a corporation, not a democracy. Any "voice" employees have is an illusion when the CEO has his mind made up and controls a majority of voting shares.

danhakon SpaceX successfully launches two humans into orbit

There is an eerie echo of history here. The late 60's were the height of civil unrest in modern America. Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. were assassinated as Apollo astronauts were preparing to land on the moon.

danhakon University of California Will Stop Using SAT, ACT

You just used different words to re-state the same assertion that achievement should be shoehorned into a normal distribution regardless of students' actual performance. Why?

> Grade inflation means you have no idea how poorly of well someone is because everyone gets a “participation” score.

As I argued above, a high GPA is not a "participation" score, it is an achievement score. It just happens that achievement at top universities is generally high across the board.

And frankly, giving everyone an A is a far more desirable outcome than pitting students against each other in an artificially competitive and high-stress environment where the alternative is group study and collaboration.

danhakon University of California Will Stop Using SAT, ACT

Why does this make any sense?

Generally speaking, students at top universities are intelligent and hard-working. Their talent is not normally distributed, and this is increasingly the case as admissions becomes hyper-competitive. Not to mention, students self-select into courses to which they are most suited and likely to perform well.

If all students in a particular class master the subject matter, why should some students be forced to receive failing grades?

Should the purpose of higher education be to rank students on increasingly marginal criteria or to...educate?

danhakon Tesla stock plunged after Elon Musk tweeted it was “too high”

The massive plunge in share price coinciding exactly with the timing of the Tweet begs to differ.

danhakon Oil futures drunk-trading incident

You can reduce nearly any action of consequence to sound trivial in this way. "Changing some bits," "writing some words," "rearranging a few atoms." It doesn't add much understanding.

danhakon Ticketmaster changes policy, no longer offering refunds on postponed shows

Yes, I just shared this tidbit as I thought it might be helpful.

For most people, chargebacks are probably the best recourse. I've already initiated one for a festival I was supposed to attend later this spring which was cancelled outright with no refunds offered.

danhakon Ticketmaster changes policy, no longer offering refunds on postponed shows

This policy is against California law:

California BPC 22507: "The ticket price of any event which is canceled, postponed, or rescheduled shall be fully refunded to the purchaser by the ticket seller upon request. Any local jurisdiction may require a ticket seller to provide a bond of not more than fifty thousand dollars ($50,000) to provide for any refunds that may be required by this section." (Added by Stats. 1986, Ch. 378, Sec. 1.)

Ticketmaster is based in California. IANAL and don't know how this law might apply to events that are held elsewhere.

danhakon California, Oregon and Washington announce western states pact

I'm not able to find examples of that. Can you point to any mainstream media outlets "reaming" him over that decision?

danhakon California, Oregon and Washington announce western states pact

Yes, he wanted to dodge responsibility for the unpleasant job of shutting things down. Now he wants to enjoy positive publicity for opening things back up.

danhakon Man who stockpiled hand sanitizer donates it all ahead of investigation

Small-time individuals don’t get the same sorts of deals as major retailers.

danhakon Ask HN: Have you been infected by Covid-19? What is it like?

Would you mind sharing your age?

danhakon Robinhood reports outage as markets rebound

There’s nothing unintentional about the hilarity. That community is totally self-aware and rife with in-jokes and satire.

The folks that post there see their gambling for what it is.

danhakon AB2712 – California Universal Basic Income

Hmmm, how about my right to a fair and speedy trial? That requires the labor of others, doesn’t it?

danhakon Behind Amazon’s HQ2 fiasco

Amazon's mistake was not that they sought government incentives--it was that they did so in an ostentatious, tone-deaf way and turned it into some sort of strange game show.

They did not play the game by the (unspoken) rules.

danhakon Behind Amazon’s HQ2 fiasco

What a beautiful illustration of how ego-driven decision making can be at the highest levels—both Bezos’ decision to solicit incentives to compete with rivals, and local NYC officials’ plan to torpedo the deal out of spite for being left out of the process.

danhakon How housing became the world’s biggest asset class

Start with Prop 13

danhakon Tesla’s European gigafactory will be built in Berlin

The area immediately around major airports is usually not terribly desirable. I don’t know about Berlin, specifically.

Also it has to be close enough to the city to make commuting from the population center reasonable, no?

danhakon Is Inequality Inevitable?

Because capitalism and free enterprise are predicated on fair competition and equal access. In theory, the best and most innovative ideas thrive and lead to economic growth.

Extreme inequality undermines this by allowing those who already have significant wealth to put their finger on the scales (lobbying, anticompetitive practices, etc.)

danhakon Is Inequality Inevitable?

Of course it is...it's a natural consequence of compound interest. One's ability to accumulate additional wealth scales exponentially with their level of existing wealth.

danhakon Tesla Q3 Financial Results

No, Model X will remain as the larger and more expensive SUV. Model Y will be smaller, less expensive and compete in the "luxury crossover" segment (Mercedes GLA, BMW X3 etc)

danhakon Tesla Q3 Financial Results

Highlights:

$143M GAAP Net Income (vs $74M loss expected)

Trial production started at Shanghai Gigafactory

Model Y production moved forward to Summer 2020

danhakon VW’s $50B Bet on an Electric Hatchback

It's worth noting that VW's 2018 target for EV's was 300,000 units. They fell 217,000 units short:

https://www.wired.com/2010/07/vw-300k-evs-annually-2018/

I want the company to succeed at EV's more than anyone but if the rollout of the e-tron is any indication it is not going to be smooth sailing:

https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/19/18508066/audi-etron-delay...