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sdfxon If so many people are stranded, why are planes flying with empty seats?

The models are optimized for the 99% of the cases without any special circumstance. Airlines overbook by x% because they know that a lot of people won't show up, they increase the price over time etc.

I can see that an event like this can throw the whole system out of whack. It's not obvious how the parameters should be altered. Without any data about how many people will buy more than one ticket in a situation like this, predictions are impossible.

sdfxon [dead]

Here is the post from three days ago: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1274655

sdfxon Retailer adds 'immortal soul' clause to sale conditions

>First, this loss has to be covered on the margins - the consumers end up paying anyway, it's just less transparent.

Apart from consumer protection there's an other reason for the government to do this: It's an implicit subsidy of retail stores. By making online shopping more expensive, states are supporting local businesses.

I love strong consumer protection and the benefits that come along with it. But I have never send anything back and have to pay higher prices for some guys who are abusing the system by ordering 10 different products just to send 9 back after they've tried them without even paying for shipping...

sdfxon Drinking Your Way Up the Ladder

The point that surprised me the most was the study about lower salaries for non-drinkers (-12.8% for men and -25.5% for women). While the study is from 1988 I'm curious how much has changed in the meantime. Although I'm in doubt that the sole reason for this discrepancy is the willingness to drink.

Maybe you earn more in the investigated industries if you are an outgoing "people person". And maybe you are more likely to drink if you are outgoing. It's the old causation/correlation thing. But still interesting.

sdfxon Who will buy Palm?

He takes a lot of time explaining why Palm is dead, but his analysis of the assets falls somewhat flat. Sure, Palm is in a terrible position, but a case can be made for Google, RIM or HTC buying them - Google and HTC could be interested in the patents, RIM could see Palm as a step towards a less business oriented audience. I think it's more a question of finding the right price. Maybe you can't find a buyer at the current market cap of $1B, but what about a price that's closer to book value?

It's an interesting view of a former insider, but the arguments why Palm will go bankrupt don't feel conclusive.

sdfxon The hidden dangers of working in IT

It varies from company to company (and country to country) but usually you can take vacation days whenever you like, but they have to be approved by your superior. He makes sure that not everyone takes the same week off or that you don't miss a crucial part of a project etc. Often you are expected to take a certain amount en bloc (e.g. two weeks). At least that is my experience from working in the UK and Germany.

sdfxon It’s time to fix the window controls (ubuntu 10.04)

Whether they had good reason for changing a central UI element or not, it comes across as if they decided on a whim. This change seems so random. It's strange that they didn't anticipate the uproar in the community and at least try to answer the concerns and justify their decision.

sdfxon ManPacks.com - a different kind of startup

I understand that you'd pay a premium for convenience, but if you compare the prices to hanes.com I can't see the additional value. I've compared a sample "Manpack" (8 of each for 120$ per year) with similar items on Hanes (45$ + 10$ shipping, free above 50$). Why don't you buy 3 years worth of stuff in advance and open a new pack every few month? You still have to decide what items to throw away. I get the "stuff gets icky and you'll forget to change" argument for toothbrushes, maybe for razorblades, this one smells more like marketing spin.

sdfxon Keep doing that and you'll go blind

I don't know about the accommodation, but isn't the loss of peripheral vision like looking out of a window? Think of the movie screen as a big window into the world.

Not on the list (I think) but what about head movement of the viewer? If I move my head slightly to one side the picture stays the same while I expect to look behind an object.

sdfxon Keep doing that and you'll go blind

From the article:

The Wikipedia entry on depth perception (an excellent read) lists ten different cues that your brain uses to figure out exactly how far away something is. Parallax is just one of them. Since the various movie and television display technologies only offer parallax-based depth cues, your brain basically has to ignore several other cues while you're immersed in the world of Avatar. This is why the 3D of films doesn't feel quite right.

I agree that 3D films often feel a bit weird, but I'm not 100% sold on his idea of why this should be. The Wikipedia article names many visual cues that are present in 3D movies as well (e.g. relative size, perspective, texture & lighting etc.). It seems conceivable that your brain is "tricked" and has to adapt to the new situation, I just don't know if his reasoning is valid.

sdfxon Live from the Apple 'latest creation' event

I think the biggest wow moment might be the price: "pricing starts at $499" is probably something no one would have expected.

sdfxon The Dumbest Interview Question

This question is not as stupid as it seems. True, your answer will most likely suck if you haven't thought about it previous to the interview, but this is probably true for most of the behavioral part. The interviewer is not looking for a boilerplate answer like "I'm a perfectionist" etc.

You have a good chance to demonstrate that you are self-aware and able to recognize your weaknesses and to show that you are working on them. It's probably not a great idea to name a huge deficit thats core to the job (e.g. "I'm bad at programming"). Something like "I'm bad with names", followed by an example and a list of things you do to remember them might be the way to go.

sdfxon North Korea Changes Currency

legally is a funny word when talking about north korea.

sdfxon Number of Wikipedia editors steadily declining

Thought about that too. I think http://www.openstreetmap.org/ is similar enough in at least one respect: You describe the part of the world that you understand and know best. But maybe contributors concentrate their effords on their own pet project or spend their time on twitter.

sdfxon Number of Wikipedia editors steadily declining

While it is probably true that a more hostile environment is to blame for a big portion of the decline, the maturity of the articles might also be a factor.

Maybe the articles people care most about are sufficiently well written. Many people can't add much valuable information to a lot of the topics and so they don't feel the need to participate. Without this first quick win, there is little incentive to keep editing.

sdfxon Job Interview 2.0: Now With Riddles

The light bulb and the bridge riddle offer little insight into the problem solving skills of the interviewee: you either "get" the solution or not. There is not much room between the exact right answer and no answer at all.

The Boeing question on the other hand (like many other Fermi Problems [1]) might help you understand how the interviewee approaches a problem he doesn't know the answer to and whether or not he is capable of making sane predictions. But even though I think they are not completely useless, I expect a well prepared candidate to score better than some less well prepared, but in other regards superior candidates.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_problem

sdfxon Netherlands To Tax Drivers By the Kilometer

One problem with that is, that you can't increase the tax too much or many people will refuel across the border and evade your tax that way. After all its a small country.

sdfxon ABB’s Super Fast Industrial Robots Impress [Videos]

The videos demonstrating their flex-picker are impressive as well:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHuDvVa7mkw&feature=youtu... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wg8YYuLLoM0&feature=youtu...

sdfxon Hacking a Google Interview - MIT's guide to Google interviews

From their introductory page:

It covers time complexity, hash tables, binary search trees, and some other things you might learn in 6.046. However, most of the time is devoted to topics you won't learn in class, such as crafty bitwise logic and tricks to solving problems.

sdfxon 5 html elements you probably never use but should

Good comments were made on a similar list of underused html elements that was submitted some time ago:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=481067

sdfxon Mathematica vs. Matlab vs. Python

From the main page:

Using mathematical languages to solve real world problems can offer very different experiences. The results will be the same but using the wrong tool can cause undue work. Here I present a table of three different language solutions to the same problem; Calculating and displaying the Singular Value Decomposition of a set of Micoroarray experiments.

sdfxon Open source software only comes in one edition: awesome.

>There's no extra cost to ship out all software with that feature after it's coded

By this logic, Chipmaker should only sell their most powerful processors, because the actual manufacturing-cost is not really the reason for the price difference between a top of the line i7 processor and a different one with lower specs.

You can look at it from a different angle: Let's say you have a powerful program and you are charging 1000$ for it (e.g. Photoshop). Your market research has shown that a lot of "casual user" are looking for a product like the one you are selling, but are not willing to pay the 1000$. So you develop a version without the more advanced functions and sell it for 200$ (e.g. Photoshop Elements).

It's not really about "not confusing the user", but about offering another option. How does this hurt the consumer?

sdfxon Kevin Rose: How to Promote Your Web App

Great how he leaves out the fact that it is his site.

sdfxon Why cheap airlines are so cheap

Average fares are hard to compare. For one, LCCs and regular airlines are using different airports and at least the LCCs in europe are only covering certain high traffic routes. I would love to know where they got their numbers from and whether they include any additional fees (airport, luggage etc.).

sdfxon Free Anonymous BitTorrent Becomes Reality With BitBlinder

This is the post you are talking about: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=526140

sdfxon How Much Should an E-Book Cost?

are there ads in the electronic (kindle) version of the newspaper?

sdfxon How Much Should an E-Book Cost?

So Amazon is paying publishers 3$ more than they make on each book, yet the best deal they are willing to offer to newspapers is 30% of their revenue?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05...

sdfxon NSA offering 'billions' for Skype eavesdrop solution

Heise reported last year that the Austrian police is able to listen in on Skype connections. Neither Austria nor Skype confirmed or denied the story back then.

http://www.heise.de/english/newsticker/news/113353

sdfxon Why Can't Error Messages Be Fun?

I really dislike these cutesy google-style error messages à la "oops something went wrong" and "Aw, snap ..." - Often, their information value is zero: they don't explain to you how to solve the problem or what went wrong (maybe with the exception of the frozen error message). When you are frustrated because something isn't working these messages can get on your nerves fast.

It's great if you can package the information in a funny way, but if you can't I'd take function over form any time.

sdfxon Twitter to begin charging brands for commercial use

According to a recent story on venture beat, twitter has brought in $1m in revenues for Dell.[1]

So there thould be quite a margin, even when Dell's VP of communities says "If it becomes complicated and costly, our instinct would be to move elsewhere."

[1]: http://venturebeat.com/2008/12/15/twitter-has-made-dell-1-mi...