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iaskwhy

1,626 karma · joined February 9, 2010

You can reach me at im.not.pedro@gmail.com
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iaskwhy··on If Prisoners Ran Prisons
Why can't we consider expanding to new non-developed areas in this scenario?

The main reason I'm anti high density areas is it's unhealthy: people are stressed, there's no sense of community, commerce space is scarce and extremely expensive to rent so { banks, supermarkets, estate agents } take all of them making any new commercial idea almost impossible to put through thus less employment too. I don't know much about this though, it's just my thoughts after living in very different areas and cities and how I feel about it.

iaskwhy··on If Prisoners Ran Prisons
I'm getting off-topic here but can you share some resources on how low density developments are much more destructive? I'm usually very pro low density housing (and also very anti high density housing) so I'd like to have some new perspectives on this. Thanks.
iaskwhy··on Ask HN: Will the US electoral voting system ever change?
Not exactly what's being asked but I've seen some people (a lot?) incorrectly implying Clinton got more than half the votes. In reality, at the moment, 52.3% didn't vote for her. This is relevant in the sense that in some voting systems a presidential election in which the winning candidate gets < 50% could allow a second vote (sometimes weeks later like in France; sometimes on the same day, like voting for the London Mayor in the UK). In some cases this could also allow defeated candidates to form a coalition for a new majority aiming to replace the winning candidate.

One thing which is usually not discussed is the advantages of some systems where the most voted candidate or party don't win the election like FPTP in the UK.

iaskwhy··on Some in Silicon Valley wonder if Facebook has grown too influential
I guess that's because in the UK "It's The Sun Wot Won It".[0] Summary: It is believed some media, like The Sun, have a big effect on elections' results, like with the recent Brexit referendum. This led some people to believe it's pretty much impossible to win against sensationalist media in the UK. (But please correct me if I'm wrong, that's my take after living in London for around 6 years.) And so Trump can be thought of as a surprise given his victory against the overall media landscape.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_The_Sun_Wot_Won_It

iaskwhy··on Soylent halts sales of its powder as customers keep getting sick
I thought the biggest problem with blending stuff is the quantity I'll be having compared to having just one unit of something. For example, I wouldn't eat 3 oranges in a row but I would definitely drink them if blended.
iaskwhy··on Search Ads
They could check Hacker News way of handling relevant new entries, seems to work fine for this kind of problem.
iaskwhy··on Most Danish voters oppose government plans to cut the top rate of income tax
Having been to Copenhagen a few times in my life (partner used to live there) I came to realise there might be two extremes in terms of the way you look at tax rates.

Some people might move to Dubai because its income tax is low or even nil - that attracts people who are more interested in their own well being than their communities'.

Now some people - I would include myself here (rightly or wrongly, it doesn't really matter) - look at countries with high taxes and low inequality and enjoy the idea of a country where the well being of the community might came before than yourself getting rich.

It's all a bit utopical (and, knowing Copenhagen, it really feels a bit off reality) but I can't help not thinking about it.

iaskwhy··on This Is What Python Beginners Have to Deal With
Right but the article was about a beginner learning a new language, I don't think a beginner is expected to have audit-proof code for quite some time.
iaskwhy··on This Is What Python Beginners Have to Deal With
Is it really wrong to learn something new with examples and without having to read a full book before typing the first few lines of code? I prefer to learn by trial and error.
iaskwhy··on This Is What Python Beginners Have to Deal With
While I understand the idea of not having user comments, back when I was doing php - and remember this was a time without StackOverflow - checking the docs user comments would get me going very quickly as some particular use cases would always show up there (and with improvements from other users too).
iaskwhy··on iPhone 7
That's a good question as during the presentation of the new features, one of them was called "Wireless" and for a moment I thought "Oh, so that's it, wireless charging too so no need for that strange dongle to charge the phone while listening to music!"
iaskwhy··on iPhone 7
I guess it's because IP67 means it's only "protected against the effect of immersion between 15cm and 1m" so it's not really 100% water resistant (nothing is, I guess).
iaskwhy··on iPhone 7
This is not correct, the 32GB capacity is available for the matte black iPhone 7 - it's gone for the jet black one.
iaskwhy··on iPhone 7
Just my view but I do it daily while at work.
iaskwhy··on Commission says Ireland granted undue tax benefits of up to €13B to Apple
This is not true. There's always the spirit of the law and this is checked by a group of people with that power, the juries.
iaskwhy··on What’s New in C# 7.0
But you can already do almost that, right?

    switch (x)
    {
        case 1:
        {
            /* ... */
        }
        break;
        case 2:
        case 3:
        {
            /* ... */
        }
        break;
    }
iaskwhy··on Curl author asks Microsoft to remove 'curl' and 'wget' aliases from PowerShell
Are other commands also different from shell to shell? It seems like an interesting point, if true.
iaskwhy··on Why do so few humans kill themselves?
Are these available as supplements and, if so, is it safe to take them?
iaskwhy··on Edward Snowden's New Research Aims to Keep Smartphones from Betraying Owners
I'm curious about animals other than humans. Once I was waiting for a call by a window, there was a generous spider on the other side. As I'm very afraid of spiders, I was looking at it while waiting for that call to arrive, it was very calm, barely moving. As soon as the call showed on the screen, silent mode on, no sound or vibration, the spider got completely mad, moving around like crazy so I moved away and the spider stopped moving again. I did experiment moving closer and away repeatedly with the same result. So maybe spiders are sensitive to that frequency?
iaskwhy··on How a Quest by Elites Is Driving ‘Brexit’ and Trump
It might not be helpful but it's not pretending, there was a huge geographical divide: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-36616028

- Some councils in London, Edinburgh, some Belfast, voted ~75% remain; - Some eastern England ares voted ~25% remain.

iaskwhy··on UK scientists dropped from EU projects because of post-Brexit funding fears
Sure, you voted for the PPE and they're free to select the government. How's that for EU democracy working for you?
iaskwhy··on UK scientists dropped from EU projects because of post-Brexit funding fears
Saving you a click: #28 Karolinska Institute, Sweden.

Also: "The Times Higher Education (THE), formerly the Times Higher Education Supplement (THES), is a weekly magazine based in London, reporting specifically on news and issues related to higher education. It is the United Kingdom's leading publication in its field."[0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Times_Higher_Education

iaskwhy··on UK scientists dropped from EU projects because of post-Brexit funding fears
Many things could be said about it but today is a particular bad day to talk about the "EU's retarding democracy" as we, the UK, just got a new prime minister no one voted for...
iaskwhy··on Languages: Why we must save dying tongues (2014)
You might be biased without knowing it because Danish is one of those languages with lots of dialects in such a small region. I only know this because my girlfriend used to live in Copenhagen and couldn't understand most people outside of the capital. Maybe most countries don't share so many dialects, I'm sure mine (Portugal) doesn't, it's pretty easy to understand most people here with the exception of the Azores Islands.
iaskwhy··on Investing Returns on the S&P500
I'm usally more worried about having a long term investment, say for 30 years and on the 25th year another 2008 takes place, I might not have 20 years to wait by then.
iaskwhy··on Coming changes to Apple's App Store
So you get the email after the charge took place? I would appreciate it before the charge happening...
iaskwhy··on Coming changes to Apple's App Store
I can play Carcassonne every day for 3 months in a row, dozens of games a day, but I also had 6 months without playing at all or very rarely. I bought all the extensions too. I don't think I would subscribe, I don't like this anxious urge of needing to do something because I'm paying for it. That's why I don't subscribe to cinemas or services like Netflix. I want to be as free as possible to decide what to do in my free time and having a subscription removes some of this freedom.
iaskwhy··on Coming changes to Apple's App Store
It's a temporary option though. As soon as you need to restore a new device and you don't keep the apps backup, you will get the latest version. If I were to bet, I'd say not many people keep a backup of their current apps' versions.
iaskwhy··on Visual Studio Code 1.2 released
This needs much improvement also given the lack of backward compatibility in the styles' XML of the current VS 2015, essentially forcibly deprecating studiostyl.es...
iaskwhy··on “Ask 'why' five times about every matter”
I just don't think there's a magical number that works for me. Dealing with users/clients is really just dealing with people so I guess it ends up like being in a light therapy session, asking questions until you get a good understanding of the real problem. I'm not good reading people but I think I'm good understanding their issues. Empathy gets you a long way. That's probably half of it, the other half being dealing with their expectations.
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