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hrasyid

366 karma · joined August 21, 2013

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hrasyid··on [dead]
Anyone has insight over what the problem was? It's a pity, it could have been a golden opportunity to showcase an open source chess server, given that so many players (big players as well as casual) registered. I guess it wasn't meant to be.
hrasyid··on Becoming a Chess Grandmaster
so for people who likes chess: What level/rating is a good target for playing chess as a hobby, without trading away your life as would be needed for GM or other high statuses?
hrasyid··on Hierapolis, Turkey's mysterious 'portal to the underworld'
> 80% CO2 doesn't seem very high

Are you a visitor from Venus? :) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Venus

Joke aside, as other posters say the CO2 concentration is more like 0.04% and even an increase for that is considered a contributing factor in global warming.

hrasyid··on Covid: US backs waiver on vaccine intellectual property
Here's an article about the manufacturing process and its challenges: https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2021/02/06/...

The Economist isn't a technical publication but it is known to do its homework and get details like this right.

hrasyid··on Tesla with Autopilot now approaching 10x lower chance of accident than average
> .. batteries kept reigniting. At one point, Herman said, deputies had to call Tesla to ask them how to put out the fire in the battery

FWIW this was what happened when there was a Tesla accident in my area. But for sure, these are only anecdotes. We have to compare the data with how often non-Tesla cars burn

hrasyid··on IRS guidance for thieves, drug dealers, and corrupt officials
I wonder how the "without revealing its precise source" part works. Probably it's this form, https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f1040s1.pdf do you just add it in line 8 with type = "stuff"? What happens if they need to audit you if it's the correct amount, won't you have to reveal the source then?
hrasyid··on Vitamin D deficiency and Covid-19 mortality [pdf]
Is this a peer-reviewed finding? As someone without expertise in the area how do I evaluate its credibility?
hrasyid··on On eve of bankruptcy, US firms shower executives with bonuses
According to the article it's a loophole

> Under a 2005 bankruptcy law, companies are banned, with few exceptions, from paying executives retention bonuses while in bankruptcy. But the firms seized on a loophole by granting payouts before filing.

hrasyid··on Ghoti
Let alone "absent in some varieties", there are sounds that are absent in all varieties but still spelled (e.g. the h in hombre or the u in queso). There was an attempt to regularize that in Latin America but the countries that tried to adopt it reverted back to the old spelling[1] - I guess the same will happen if someone tries to "reform" English

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bello_orthography

hrasyid··on Singapore to Open Source Bluetooth Contact Tracing
> You can only surrender your rights once, the effects of losing those rights will last forever

With an app like tracetogether, you can just uninstall it after the pandemic, right? No need to surrender your rights forever.

hrasyid··on U.S. will suspend all travel from Europe for 30 days
Yeah but they use protections like masks, gloves. I think it's reasonable to assume that a dentist's office likely know better than you about how to minimize the risk. They have motivation in not ruining their business by being a source of local outbreak.
hrasyid··on U.S. will suspend all travel from Europe for 30 days
doesn't mean you can't fly to the US from there.
hrasyid··on U.S. will suspend all travel from Europe for 30 days
You think that should be cancelled?
hrasyid··on U.S. will suspend all travel from Europe for 30 days
Not to mention probably there's only a small use case of going to Europe without needing to return.
hrasyid··on U.S. will suspend all travel from Europe for 30 days
or Britain, or Turkey
hrasyid··on Mastercard investing in technology to identify commuters by gait, heartbeat
the cost of that protection is passed over to the consumers one way or the other, I'm sure
hrasyid··on Tesla Financial Results 2019 Q4
there's a reason the sub is called /r/wallstreetbets I guess?
hrasyid··on Wikipedia now has more than 6M articles in English
See for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikimedia_Foundation about the role of the foundation
hrasyid··on Wikipedia now has more than 6M articles in English
>> The editors and the organization are the same thing. The organization sets policy and culture, and editors do all of the actual work.

I don't think this is correct. Policy and culture are mostly bottom-up from the editors, and the foundation has no hard power except for extreme cases like banning outright harassers.

In addition, withholding money from the foundation does not cause any pressure at all to editors because they never get paid from that money anyway.

>> Diversity and equality don't cost money

Sure, but so far most of the efforts to improve diversity seem to come from the foundation rather than the editors, so punishing the foundation seems like the wrong option.

hrasyid··on Wikipedia now has more than 6M articles in English
So the donation goes to the foundation while its gender bias comes from its editors - who already don't get paid so stopping donations will not matter.

If anything, the Foundation will need to run programs to fix the status quo (e.g. outreach programs to potential authors who come from underrepresented groups or likely to write about underrepresented topic), so donating money (in addition to volunteering for outreach programs or contributing tech support) are some ways to help with that.

hrasyid··on Wikipedia now has more than 6M articles in English
Since this is hackernews... Other than donating please also consider contributing by coding would also be helpful. Editors rely on tools for many tasks (e.g. to detect & fight vandalism, for article evaluation, analytics, to do tedious tasks such as mass edits), and these tools are often open source. Mediawiki (the software on which Wikipedia runs) are always building features and doing bugfixes. Also, while the English Wikipedia is quite endowed with prolific programmers, many of its sister Wikipedias are less so and often lack basic tools, and there's a lot to do there.
hrasyid··on Language Learning with Netflix extension
My point is you need to watch the target language audio with no subtitle in your language.

If the choice is English-audio + Dutch-subtitle vs French-audio only, then of course there is no advantage to the second group. Try restricting the French-speaking kids to watch shows with English audio only.

hrasyid··on Language Learning with Netflix extension
>> I imagine this rules out kids shows for most adults.

Not necessarily. Maybe if you understand everything, they become boring, but to me watching an interesting enough show where you understand 50%-80% of the dialog and try to understand the rest by context is kind of fun.

hrasyid··on Language Learning with Netflix extension
It depends on your level. I'm a big fan of Peppa Pig, because I think it's funny/entertaining enough for adults who understand >50% of what's being said. But before you reach that level, you need to watch something simpler. I'd suggest "Superbeginner" and "Beginner" videos in a YouTube channel called Dreaming Spanish
hrasyid··on Language Learning with Netflix extension
Spanish
hrasyid··on Language Learning with Netflix extension
I think having subtitles in your native language can hurt learning because it tends to be easier to just follow the subtitle than actually trying to understand the target language. You can't read both at the same time.

But I agree that Netflix is a great resource for learning a foreign language. I went from zero to being able to understand a normal TV show in the target language in one year, mostly by watching children's videos in YouTube and Netflix. In my opinion, what's more important is (1) the ability to order/group videos by simplicity after filtering it by target language (even children shows vary a lot in difficulty and for learning it's very important to choose the right difficulty for you) and probably (2) the ability to slow down the playback speed like YouTube.

hrasyid··on Saudi airline cancels $6B Boeing order in favor of Airbus
It is owned by Saudia, which is owned by the government.
hrasyid··on Netflix Pulls the Plug on Feature Designed to Get Kids Addicted to Netflix
Note: The article is from March 2018
hrasyid··on Malaysia seeks $7.5B in reparations from Goldman Sachs
> I find their interpretation of the story to be far more believable

I don't think the Malaysian prosecutors are disputing that the (previous) Malaysian government was corrupt. They arrested Najib Razak (the PM during the 1MDB project), as well as other officials. But they're also saying that GS has a partial responsibility. And given the numbers provided in the news article I don't find it hard to believe.

hrasyid··on International System of Units overhauled in historic vote
Yes, but I suspect they bother to print anything at all is because the US is a big market. Unfortunately, this helps perpetuate those legacy units.
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