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dba7dba

1,430 karma · joined February 11, 2013

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dba7dba··on The road to riches is this simple: Drive a crappy car (2019)
How about

The road to "staying just barely afloat financially" is this simple: Drive a crappy car

Vast majority of people who drive crappy cars are doing so because they have no other option...

dba7dba··on ADHD, a Lifelong Struggle (2018)
> Back in the 60s or 70s ( I can’t remember what he said) people were starting to notice that kids were having behavioral problems, trouble focusing etc.

Unscientific personal observation, but I wonder if TV has a role in this. Didn't kids start watching a lot of TV around that time?

Also, I feel kids in poor countries with no TV (not that there's much of that left now) have little to no ADHD.

dba7dba··on The Yang Gang and Its Bots
I would not say Yang's campaign is struggling. He literally was an unknown guy right before this election cycle, who made a low millions from selling a test prep company and then ran a non-profit for 7 years. Never even ran for a political office before this. And he's outlasted many senators/governors.

About twitter and Yang, I created a twitter account just to follow him. Did not create any bot. And I also donated to his campaign multiple times. And I'm over 40 yrs old.

dba7dba··on TripAdvisor cuts hundreds of jobs after Google competition bites
Any business without physical inventory that can be automated in a way to sell/buy should really worry about Google. Eventually Google will come for that market as their new crop of managers/execs will want to make the number to get their bonus and move up the ladder.

I know a guy who used to work at tripadvisor years ago. At the time Google was trying to start up their own hotel search business but they didn't have the reviews. So Google was initially using reviews submitted to tripadvisor by tripadvisor's reviews. I believe there had been prior agreement for Google to use tripadvisor's reviews for a fee/beter-search-ranking in return? Anyhow, tripadivisor didn't like what was happening so was in the process of telling google that they will stop the arrangement.

And a google exec in the meeting threatened tripadivisor execs that google will lower tripadivisor in the search results, if tripadvisor did stop the arrangement.

This bit was apparently shared in a regularly scheduled company wide meeting.

dba7dba··on Why Japan is so successful at returning lost property
Yup, I looked up and sure enough 'Winter Sonata' TV series was shown in Japan in 2003.

Irony is that of the 10 richest peeps in Japan, 2 are Korean descent. One owns big chain of pachinko. https://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-pachinko-gambling-ja...

The other is Masayoshi Son

Both were denied the path to a stable salary career life time job at a big firm and so they went on their own way.

dba7dba··on Why Japan is so successful at returning lost property
I loled at that `must have been a Korean` comment.

History of Koreans in Japan has a complicated story. But basically ethnic Koreans are treated as a second class citizen in Japan.

A Korean-American friend told me this story. He worked with a Britain/Ireland born coworker who was working in US at the time. Blond, European. He traveled fair bit to Japan. He knew this guy was Korean-American and in a conversation he asked the Korean-American why Japanese didn't like Koreans.

The EU guy said when he visited Japan in 2000, Japanese told him they didn't like Koreans.

And than in 2005 or so, he heard from Japanese that they liked Koreans.

In what context the Japanese told a blond European guy why they liked or didn't like Koreans is unknown.

This EU born coworker was confused what changed in that 5 year period.

dba7dba··on How an Alzheimer’s ‘cabal’ thwarted progress toward a cure
think that scarce research funding should flow their way because giving any to other possibly-wrong approaches would be wasteful

I heard someone recently tell me how using science to form views on topics (social/psychology/etc) is dangerous, because science is really about funding. AND large donors/entities who can fund science often pick science research projects that sound cool and sexy. They may not be pushing any agenda but do lean toward funding trendy ideas.

So really, science is often biased because of who hold the checkbooks. That really made me think.

dba7dba··on Counterfeits on Amazon cost Warren bird feeder business $1.5M
we find we have this odd situation in which we have a legit company umbrellaring fake/copy sellers and able to profit from such sales and yet appear totally immune from any repercussions.

I've known of many small apparel maker/distributor/seller based out of Los Angeles. Over the years, I heard/read/saw so many Police/Marshall personnel raid these businesses to confiscate fake merchandise as if raiding an illegal drug dealer and treat the owner/workers as if they were drug dealers. Ok, well it doesn't happen every week/month but still a regular occurrence.

They were breaking the law and so yes police was sent in. But these law enforcement resource was basically acting on the behest of large businesses like Nike/Gucci/etc.

And now, we have Amazon (even bigger than all other businesses) basically enabling fake merchandise sellers to sell fake merchandise (hurting other legitimate businesses) while Amazon gets a cut.

But there is no business more powerful than Amazon to force law enforcement to act and raid warehouses and HQ of Amazon.

Isn't capitalism wonderful?

dba7dba··on Veteran executives and financiers helped fuel WeWork’s rise and fall
This comment is downvoted but I have to agree with this. Rarely, very rarely do these people ever get caught or have to pay back the ill gotten money.
dba7dba··on Having Kids
Your story is my story. And I am positive the story of most dads. When you have young kids to take care of, you absolutely have no life.

However as my kids grow older and they need less care for daily basic stuff, I find myself get more motivated. I have to provide for them so I am absolutely motivated to be more productive.

dba7dba··on How to Make Remote a Success
Years ago a place I worked had a team where a manager asked everyone to spend a day documenting stuff. I think it was once every months (??) but they had document stuff all day days.
dba7dba··on A Week in the Life of a McDonald’s Cashier
Your comment has been down voted into invisible state to the point I had to really try to read it. But no, that's now how capitalism works.
dba7dba··on A Week in the Life of a McDonald’s Cashier
Your assumption is that Govt benefit starts coming your way the moment you need or ask for it. From limited personal experience AND from what I read, applying for and getting any kind of government benefit is very time labor intensive and involves long waits.

And many don't get it because they don't meet a threshold. And those who get it, have to not work (aka not make money), in order to keep getting it.

dba7dba··on Young people in U.S. dying at high rates
True, we will always have the rich in our society. HOWEVER, the rich got richer at stupendous rate in the last few decades, while the rest got poorer at increasing rate.
dba7dba··on Young people in U.S. dying at high rates
So I am an older dude living in a coastal city with a high cost of living, and not a teenager who's easily impressionable.

And I cut the cord years ago so most of my screen entertainment is from youtube videos. And I don't even watch the `trending` videos that youtube pushes. I simply watch documentaries, old TV/movie shows, highlights of soccer/baseball (since I don't have cable TV), some game playing videos, and vlogs.

It was the vlogs that got me feel depressed even more. I don't watch vlogs of the pop stars but of normal people who are just going about their life. Like sailing with family, working on their big houses and cars, flying to places in airliners, flying around in private planes for work/pleasure.

These are completely normal/awesome people who I would love to have as friends. But as I watched the vlogs, I realized that I did/do/will NOT have what they have. Yes yes, it's shallow of me to think this way, of material goods.

With scripted TV shows/movies, you knew the nice houses/cars/toys were fantasies. But with vlogs, you know they are real people. It's true that they are often showing just better part of their lives, but still these houses/cars/toys are real in real people's lives.

Watching these youtube videos inevitably lead to introspection.

The other part of internet that get me down is real estate websites. Before internet, you really had to go out of your way to see inside of expensive houses. Now, with a browser, you can see how the others live. As someone who is paying $$ for dumpy/small space in an increasingly expensive coastal city, it surely does depress me. I initially started viewing the sites to look for my own house possibly to buy, and it inevitably leads to viewing more and more expensive houses. Soon enough, you wonder, what have I done with my life.

I've started cutting out vlogs/real estate websites. But I cannot unsee what I have seen.

For anyone who will see this as rantings of a materialistic person, I am pretty sure I am not. I can fit what I use/need in daily life into a suitcase, except for my 24" monitor. What really gets me is I can't provide for my family.

Oh well, maybe I AM a shallow materialistic dude who just doesn't admit to it.

>>> I wonder how we can increase awareness and ethical decision making around our industries actions.

Frankly, not sure what our tech industry can do to address the complaints I laid out...

dba7dba··on Tesla Cybertruck
when the Fukushima disaster happened in 2011 and the surrounding areas became no-go zone, gasoline cars were stuck because no gas tankers were coming in to refill the gas stations.

But electric cars were charging from local solar powered recharging stations just fine.

dba7dba··on Tesla Cybertruck
I've seen Elon say he spends about 1% (or something like it) of his time for marketing/presentation preparation. And I think it included press-interviews/presentation-prep/etc.

And he was planning/hoping to reduce it even more.

From what you say, it seems Elon achieved his goal regarding his time management goal.

And I also remember some saying Apple engineers basically spent their time all year preparing for Jobs' next upcoming presentation. :)

dba7dba··on How NBA executive Jeff David stole $13M from the Sacramento Kings
I spent a few years living near a nationally well known American university with very tight housing. And we had to pay `finder's fee` to apartment managers for the privilege of applying for a rental to the tune of a grand or so. Like 20+ years ago.

So, yah much there's much white collar crime going on, from a grand at a time to a few millions. I'm not surprised.

dba7dba··on Truckers sue California, say new gig economy law would kill 70k jobs
I wonder what makes you think so? Because of low polling #? Just curious.
dba7dba··on A Quick and Easy Guide to Tmux (2015)
I am sure you may know this already but iTerm has a prefenrece setting called "Confirm Quit iTerm2 ... command"

Checking it on has saved me quite a bit of trouble.

dba7dba··on Pedestrian Bridge Collapse over SW 8th Street in Miami [pdf]
And then there's this accidental destruction of the phone of the engineer who stamped the plans for the bridge.

"Denney Pate, who stamped the plans for the bridge, told a judge June 12 that his wife accidentally put his pants with the phone in the pocket into a washing machine, inflicting damage that destroyed any call records or images."

https://www.enr.com/articles/47108-bridge-designer-testifies...

dba7dba··on 'We good now China?' South Park creators issue mock apology
China doesn't really vote with wallet. It's CCP telling/herding/forcing people of China what to do and the populace is going along, because the alternative isn't pretty for them.
dba7dba··on How Much Money Do Parking Lots Make?
Frank McCourt was a really really hated owner of Dodgers for a few years until 2012. When Frank McCourt sold Dodgers to Magic Johnson led group in 2012, he held onto 50% of the Dodger Stadium parking lot.

Yup, a guy sold Dodgers for a few billion bucks, but he still knew to hold onto the parkint log.

https://bleacherreport.com/articles/1120695-dodgers-sale-det...

dba7dba··on 'We good now China?' South Park creators issue mock apology
Who knew CCP would be able to censor the west with, gulp, the might dollar. The irony.
dba7dba··on Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments
Just few days HN had a thread where samsung moved its last phone factory from China to Vietnam.
dba7dba··on TikTok famous: How the app is turning teenagers into celebrities
I mean facebook is large and their apps/software are solid too.
dba7dba··on Show HN: I had issues organizing my favorite recipes, so I built this
Please make it open source if possible. I would love to be able to use it.
dba7dba··on Show HN: I had issues organizing my favorite recipes, so I built this
I have been thinking about building something like this also. I work from home and so I open the fridge throughout the day for 3 meals, snack, lunch for kids etc.

And I noticed how much is thrown out despite attempts to not do so, because different items have different shelf life.

dba7dba··on TikTok famous: How the app is turning teenagers into celebrities
How much was vox paid for this pr piece, I wonder?

Also I wonder how much bloomberg is paid for posting news related videos using tiktok.

It is a new type of marketing I guess.

dba7dba··on Federal Judge Upholds Harvard's Race-Conscious Admissions Process
I am readying stories about legacy admissions. Let me tell you about a little conversation I had about legacy admission to IvyLeague/Stanford.

A family I know (both mom/dad are children of immigrants) had a kid who got into Harvard and/or Stanford. (not specifying which one to protect identity). Both parents went to public college for undergrad and then went to top school for law/medicine.

Their kid went through K-12 in private school.

When their child got into the top college for undergrad, I asked how many from that same high school got into the top Harvard/Stanford.

Mom said 3 got into that college.

And later, dad said 6 from the high school got into same college, and mentioned 3 out of 6 were legacy admissions.

As far as the mom was concerned, the legacy admissions didn't even count as real admittance. :)

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