Hacker News Reader

karthikbon Why N95 masks are hard to make

Yes, but dampening demand by spreading disinformation is incredibly dangerous. This latest paper:

https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/196234/covid19-imperial-rese...

Shows that the pandemic and associated social distancing measures may need to go on for months. How does the CDC switch messaging from saying that masks are useless to "well you should wear one now since you're going out..."

karthikbon LA’s new trains have not lessened the time spent stuck in traffic

The traffic break is usually used to scan the road for debris, or to create an opening for emergency services down the road to stage without having to completely shut the road down. Not typically used for flow management - having driven daily in SD, LA, and the Bay Area, I personally see it maybe once every 4-5 years.

karthikbon The spine of San Francisco is now car-free

Yesterday was also the first day. The real question is, will there be enforcement 6 months, 20 months, 90 months from now when it's no longer in the headlines.

karthikbon Amazon to ramp up counterfeit reporting to law enforcement

With their transaction volume, Amazon should be able to detect and properly address these reviews. You're not going to change consumer behavior here, it's on Amazon to adapt.

karthikbon PopSockets CEO calls out Amazon's tactics before House committee

> whether or not you chose to buy the item

Only partially. Vendors will buy more to replace sold stock. If it never sells, the manufacturer will never get another order for production, and the total waste is capped at what's already been created.

karthikbon Researchers have identified 100 mysteriously disappeared stars in the night sky

Take a look here:

https://arxiv.org/search/?query=astronomy+machine+learning&s...

Plenty of ML work being applied to astronomy. Much of the code is open source too so you can dive right in and contribute.

Here's a recent survey you might start with: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1912.02934.pdf

karthikbon Boeing CEO ousted as 737 Max crisis deepens

Yes. Take the SF Bay Area. It would be a lot harder to convince smart engineers from around the world to move here if they had to take a ship whenever they wanted to go visit their parents and relatives back home.

People certainly immigrated before the airplane, but in general those were individuals without many options at home. Skilled immigration really took off during the Jet Age.

karthikbon Why are people getting worse at “The Price Is Right”?

There’s no advantage to a big stash, but it’s easy to overestimate the number of trick-or-treaters, have a ton of candy left on your hands, and just stick it in the closet for next year.

karthikbon Why are people getting worse at “The Price Is Right”?

More likely they were actually stale, lots of people buy a big stash of candy and hand it out over several years until it runs out.

karthikbon ‘We were sold off’: WeWork’s staff face uncertain future as company collapses

I work out of one. Not much has changed, but the coffee mugs are half the size (seriously) and what was regularly fruit water is now usually plain iced water. Not really important in the grand scheme of things. We still get billed monthly, and have access to our workspace.

karthikbon Drones ground water-dropping helicopters at critical moment in Maria fire battle

This particular fire grew to over 4,000 acres in under an hour. "Somewhere in the forest" very quickly becomes "right over the most critical parts of the fire." These fires are dynamic, spotting 1-2 miles ahead of themselves and propelled by winds of 50-80 mph.

There is a key difference between birds and drones. Birds tend to fly away from fires. Drone operators are getting close to the action. The forest may be big, but the chances are high that a drone pilot and helicopter pilot are aiming for the same spots.

Fire services do operate their own drones. But they do it in coordination and under the guidance with the air traffic controllers so the location is known at all times.

karthikbon Boeing is facing fresh crisis after another airline found cracks in a 737 plane

Luckily, they can look at AS post VX merger as a good example of how to integrate A320s into an all 737 fleet. So while they will absolutely have costs, they may be able to bring in folks who've done it before.

karthikbon The best-kept secret of Dutch biking: the Dutch hardly bike at all

Walking speed is 15-20 minutes per mile...a 4.5 mile walk for most people would be closer to 90 minutes.

karthikbon Goodbye, Flash

Just because one can't open the information by default doesn't mean the information doesn't exist - in this case, Flash content is exactly like your paywall and book examples. The searcher can decide if having access to the information is worth the added cost...regardless of it's buying the book, paying for the subscription to bypass the paywall, finding an old computer or setting up a VM to use flash.

karthikbon Alphabet’s Wing begins making commercial drone deliveries in the US

Airbus has a strong team working on this. https://www.airbusutm.com/

karthikbon Uber lays off around 350 more across Eats, self-driving and other departments

Bring engineers in to solve problems you know need to get solved. As they learn the system, its debt, the business, etc., listen to their ideas. For ones that sound good, give them the resources to develop a POC. For the POCs that work, give them the resources to take it all the way.

Larger companies with substantial profits can hire engineers explicitly to come up with POCs one after another.

karthikbon Uber lays off around 350 more across Eats, self-driving and other departments

In general, initiatives tend to be top down while tasks tend to be bottom up. Politics between the "managers" and the "doers" happens at the interface of those two. What actually gets done and delivered ends up being some function of the top down, bottom up, modified by the political battle.

karthikbon Costco gained a cult following by breaking every rule of retail

Oops you’re right - Amex, cash, or debit.

karthikbon Costco gained a cult following by breaking every rule of retail

Until 2016, Costco and Amex had an exclusive partnership. You could pay either in cash or with Amex, usually the Costco Amex tied to your membership card.

Now they take any Visa card, and have converted Costco Amex cards to Costco Citi VISA cards.

karthikbon Pizza robot makes 300 pizzas per hour

If the output is frozen pizza quality, wouldn't it be cheaper to just buy frozen pizzas directly from the pizza factory, and then install ovens instead of a full pizza making machine?

karthikbon French city of Dunkirk tests out free transport

Emeryville does as well, primarily during commute hours.

karthikbon Door blows off Boeing 777X during stress test

Per the FAA (https://www.faa.gov/regulations_policies/advisory_circulars/...), the actual number for "Almost Certain to never happen" is no more than 1 loss of life per 10^9 flight hours. There's a real number behind that term, but not necessarily a stat that's accessible to the average news reader.

karthikbon Tax Policy Gave Us White Claw

What’s new is that brewers now have legal teams to help them figure this out.

karthikbon Let's build houses for people, not cars

The biggest problem with, say, Santa Monica independently implementing a Zurich like system is that the LA region (and most other mega-regions like the SF Bay Area) are effectively a single housing and job market.

karthikbon Recognizing the signs of disruption in our urban habitat

The land value appreciates over time regardless of use. Why worry about setting up a business and trying to make money when you could do nothing and make a lot of money 10 years down the line when you sell?

karthikbon I Miss Microsoft Encarta

>You had lots of curiosity but still limited access to information so you deeply explored stuff.

I was about to write this myself. Wikipedia has so much information that it’s easy to surf page to page, link out, etc, and end up having skimmed 50 articles and still not understand the thing you came to look at.

karthikbon The electric car as a talisman of false hope

>If you could move an entire country from being car dependent to being largely car free, by pushing rapid urbanisation and transit

While these are the “right” solutions, they occur over decades. Planning for any rail line, then constructing, takes over a decade. Even in the environmentalist San Francisco Bay Area. Even bus lines. Try a google of “Van Ness BRT” to get a sense for how slow infrastructure projects work.

You can buy a Tesla or a Leaf or an e-Golf and have significant personal emission reductions today.

karthikbon Domino’s launches e-bike delivery to compete with UberEats, DoorDash

https://www.mystrodriver.com/

Yes

karthikbon When to Shut Down a Startup [video]

Exactly. And if in 2-3 years the company is doing spectacularly well it’s now additional headroom to raise without losing control.

karthikbon When to Shut Down a Startup [video]

They can always sell the shares back for a dollar and do the write off whenever they want.