Hacker News Reader

karthikbon The Poison Pill to End the MMR Is Tylenol

That's why dosing is by weight and for children is a liquid, so the dose can be adjusted easily.

karthikbon Tell HN: Beware confidentiality agreements that act as lifetime non competes

The Traitorous Eight would only have been possible in California, not Washington, because of the position on noncompetes.

karthikbon Figma Slides Is a Beautiful Disaster

> As an FYI, we _do_ use Figma Slides internally for pretty much everything

I think this is part of the issue. How much of the internal use stays within the editor view? Do you have any internal stakeholders who won’t click a Figma link and instead want a PPT or PDF? Because those are normal requests for presentations - but not ones that you’d find with internal use.

For example, there needs to be a way to export to PDF that’s less than several hundred MB. And the PPT export is hopelessly broken - the outputs look like a clipped ransom letter.

karthikbon I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney, who does work for YC and startups. AMA

EEOC is based on national origin not nationality.

karthikbon Laws barring noncompete clauses spreading

> I see no reason to stop them

This sort of a non-compete would almost have certainly resulted in Zoom not being built.

karthikbon Move fast or die: Key startup lessons

> one should also keep in mind that people (especially engineers) are extremely biased and tend to drastically overestimate the cost of mistakes

I've found the opposite to be true, especially with engineers moving from pure software to founding companies in regulated industries such as aerospace or medical devices.

karthikbon Electric vehicles are way more energy-efficient than internal combustion

That article explicitly states that it doesn’t account for the energy or emissions required to produce the fuel.

The lifecycle emissions of an EV depend on how the electricity was generated, and the total emissions of cycling depends on the diet of the cyclist - even though the energy per distance is the same regardless.

karthikbon 'Too many employees, but few work': Pichai, Zuckerberg sound the alarm

> without wasting the time of the people who don't need to be part of it

In my experience, the very people who think these cross-team sync meetings are a waste that they don't need to be a part of are the first to make noise that they weren't consulted or included in a discussion that actually doesn't impact them.

karthikbon Ask HN: Working in tech for climate?

Thanks and fixed!

karthikbon Ask HN: Working in tech for climate?

climatebase.org (edited from .com) - we actively post there along with other amazing climate companies.

karthikbon How trains could replace planes in Europe

It really depends on the airline, but it's fairly common to put newer aircraft with WiFi on more business-heavy routes, and put the older aircraft on more tourist-heavy routes where passengers are more cost conscious and probably won't pay for the WiFi or other amenities either.

karthikbon Show HN: Tuchu – Automatically highlight the important parts of a document

How did Tuchu's highlighting compared to the abstract?

karthikbon Technical debt as a lack of understanding

I use the example of publics works projects in San Francisco. There's a road called Van Ness that is going to have a bus rapid transit lane running down the middle of it. Should be really easy to do. But it's been about a decade and they're just hitting the last steps now. Why? Well, they needed to also upgrade the utilities below. But when they dug they found layer after layer of abandoned utilities, undocumented utilities, etc. So what should have been a simple operation dragged out for years because each action revealed something new.

The city now wants to add bike lanes to Market Street and is anticipating the same issues.

karthikbon Nvidia Uses AI to Slash Bandwidth on Video Calls

Kind of like this?

https://techxplore.com/news/2019-06-intel-eye-contact-video-...

karthikbon UberEats could be underpaying delivery drivers on 21% of trips

> It is a rare company that spends money and resources on verifying from their users' point of view that they're being delivered what was promised -- unless that company actively cares about the user.

I have gotten a check from the CA Treasurer on a few occasions because I didn’t check some box and take a tax deduction that I was entitled to. Not a company, and certainly if I underpaid the state would come after me to be made whole. But some organizations do work both ways.

karthikbon US homebuilding surges as coronavirus sparks flight to suburbs, rural areas

What’s the value of the land and the sweat equity? You may have paid $100k and time but the buyer is paying all in currency for the finished product.

karthikbon British Airways announces immediate retirement of 747 fleet

Side door: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_747-400#747-400_Boeing_...

karthikbon The fall of Quibi: how did a starry $1.75B Netflix rival crash so fast?

Youtube works this way to some extent.

karthikbon Uber Talent Directory

Not surprising in general, but given the reality that SF is the most tech-dense city in the world, it's an interesting observation that people perceive jobs to be scarce enough that the opportunity cost of leaving is worth more immediate employment.

karthikbon Uber is laying off 3,700, as rides plummet due to Covid-19

Yes. That’s why they’re laying people off, and why Uber stock is up in after hours trading. Because of these layoffs, their margins have actually improved. Doesn’t make things any better for the people who find themselves without a job, though.

karthikbon Uber is laying off 3,700, as rides plummet due to Covid-19

This is older analysis [1] but Uber is profitable on each ride in their biggest markets until you deduct the OPEX of the main co. The burn of sales, marketing, engineering, support, their rider safety team, the driver inspection and on boarding centers, leases, etc all continue on with or without riders.

[1] https://benjamintseng.com/2019/04/lyft-vs-uber-a-tale-of-two...

karthikbon Citing revenue declines, Airbnb cuts 25% of workforce

I'm not so sure. Airlines have sent huge numbers of their aircraft to the desert for storage, so quickly spinning up flight supply and then spinning that back down will be expensive.

karthikbon When in doubt: hang up, look up, and call back

> But numbers can change

They could, but I just tried calling the numbers on the back of two cards from merged/acquired banks and they both forwarded to the acquiring bank. Yes it's a small sample size, but I suspect that there's enough money on the line and enough legacy contracts and systems that banks keep their communication channels active for some time.

karthikbon When in doubt: hang up, look up, and call back

I’ve been asked to “call the number printed on the back of [my] card” which would be much harder to spoof.

karthikbon Unicorn layoffs keep piling up

https://www.opentable.com/state-of-industry

Scroll down and click "city" instead of country. SF bookings on OpenTable were consistently down starting the last week of February. Your restaurant might have had different performance for a number of reasons.

karthikbon FCC will require phone carriers to authenticate calls by June 2021 [pdf]

Have the demand letters worked out so far?

karthikbon I'm calling Bullshit on Medtronic's Open Sourcing of a ventilator design

[Follow up]. They just released gerbers, BOMs, and other documents. Some key parts are still unavailable in quantity, unfortunately.

karthikbon I'm calling Bullshit on Medtronic's Open Sourcing of a ventilator design

Exactly.

The press reads as if anyone with access to a factory capable of manufacturing electrical systems with custom enclosures could pull the files, place some orders, and start pumping units out as soon as their tooling was ready.

karthikbon I'm calling Bullshit on Medtronic's Open Sourcing of a ventilator design

Not only are the files incomplete to actually go into production, they’ve picked a model where the components are not readily available on the open market in quantities large enough to have an impact corresponding to effort. IC4 is some variant of the ST10F27 (can’t make out the last digit from the low res pdf they’ve provided), and there are only a few thousand of all variants of that chip available online with quotes lead times of up to 30 weeks.

I was initially pleasantly surprised with this release but tweeted my disappointment pretty quickly. Even with a schematic it can take months to get the layout right and validated on a line, build and setup the test apparatus...

karthikbon You Probably Should Be Wearing a Face Mask If You Can

Apparently, given the recent education push, most people didn’t know how to wash their hands properly either. The answer isn’t to give up, it’s to educate.