ATB · HackerTrans

6 yıl öncediscuss

PrimeVideo.com is the website (in addition to apps on mobile and living room devices like TVs and consoles) where customers outside of the US, UK, Germany, and Japan can watch Prime Video. In the aforementioned four countries, customers can watch Prime Video directly on their amazon.* retail website instead.

ATB

15 yıl öncediscuss

Isn't your own blog's title "brevity is for the weak" ..? ;)

In all seriousness, the post was pretty typical stream-of-consciousness self-discovery stuff. It's wordy by definition.

ATB

15 yıl öncediscuss

> "In general Microsoft doesn't allow free DLC. You can ship bug fixes and there's a tiny amount of title update space you can shove content into, but large amounts of content are meant to be deployed through paid DLC"

That is incorrect - there are free Game Add-Ons (DLC) on Xbox LIVE for a number of games. There are also free Arcade (XBLA) games, by the way.

Here are some examples:

- Some Halo 3 maps/map packs

- Free tracks for Rock Band (several versions)

- Left 4 Dead Survival Pack

- Deadliest Warrior DLC

- Fable 3 free weapons/outfits

.. and a lot more. Disclaimer: I work there.

ATB

16 yıl öncediscuss

Henry F. Carey; East European Quarterly, Vol. 29, 1995, "Irregularities or Rigging: The 1992 Romanian Parliamentary Elections"

ATB

16 yıl öncediscuss

"the Romanian revolution was practically bloodless compared to what could have been"

Compare it to the revolutions in the other Balkan states around 1988-1992. It was by far the most violent. How many died in Hungary? In Bulgaria? In Poland? In Czechoslovakia?

"there were great fears that the Yugoslavian debacle might repeat itself there"

There were? Interesting, given that the Yugoslavian Civil War happened several years AFTER those 1000+ Romanians died. How would that repetition have worked?

"You can bemoan the people that died"

Could there be a more callous response to thousands of casualties? As I've shown above, this didn't happen in ANY of the other countries making the same transition. It was only the multi-ethnic and barely-cohesive artificial country of Yugoslavia that did worse. Several years later.

"Even a dysfunctional country like Romania has been able to claw itself to levels of prosperity no one dreamed about in 1989."

Sure, and this is a great thing. However, as my reply quoted, it was in response to "lacked any sort of violence." 1000+ dead and many more injured is a poor definition of "any sort of violence."

ATB

16 yıl öncediscuss

"Those three countries - along with Romania (and sometimes Slovenia) are the case studies for Eastern Europe. They're where the transition from communism went remarkably well and lacked any sort of violence"

The Romanian revolution was extremely violent: over 1,000 people died and over 3,000 were wounded, and the former dictator and his wife were found guilty in a hasty show trial and executed on the spot. Their former allies then former a post-Communist clique that looted the country for most of the 90s and stole several elections. Romania continues to have one of the highest corruption rates in Eastern Europe.

But yes, aside from that, it went "remarkably well."

This isn't random conspiratorial nonsense, it's well-documented and NPOVed five ways from Sunday: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanian_Revolution_of_1989#Aft...

ATB

16 yıl öncediscuss

This article blames the author for not having a Kindle version of her book.

That is a very simplistic view of what it takes for some authors to be able to sell Kindle editions (I used to work in that exact field) --

* their contract with the publisher may give all digital rights to the pub. This is the case surprisingly often. Depending on the publisher's priority or digital strategy, a kindle edition may take forever.

* Royalties may be different fir digital editions, eg the publisher may want to take a much bigger cut since they don't have to pay for printing, distribution, etc. If the author doesn't like that, it can seriously delay or halt digital publication.

* Agreements with other dist. channels may prevent a Kindle edition. File under either 'digital strategy' as above or 'publisher greed/stupidity.'

ATB

16 yıl öncediscuss

According to that graphic, the previous highest peak of long-term unemployed in the US was in the early 1980s, with around 3m unemployed. The current high peak in 2010, which looks like it may be decreasing now, is just over 6m.

According to the US census, the number of people living in the US at that point was in the low 200ish million, maybe ~230m.

As of right now, in early 2010, it's somewhere around 305-310 million. That number includes a lot of baby boomers (70+ million people, born between 1943 and 1960) who are getting very close to retirement age, especially those whose age and skill set make them unattractive to hire.

Taking into account the nearly 50% increase in US population and the rapid ageing of 70+ million people, many of whom possess skills that aren't necessarily well-suited to the information economy, the chart isn't all that shocking.

ATB

17 yıl öncediscuss

This is a very popular essay which tends to get posted around the web quite often.

Yet it suffers from many not-so-obvious flaws, as analyzed in the popular linguistics blog "Language Log." The commentary is written in a calmly analytical style (interspersed with some judicious jibes) that I think many YC.HN readers will find rather agreeable ("a beautifully written language crime, though it pretends to lay down the law") ---

http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=992

The entire 'Prescriptivist Poppycock' category at Language Log is generally good reading: http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?cat=5

ATB

17 yıl öncediscuss

An intriguing coincidence?

http://www.penny-arcade.com/images/2004/20040319h.jpg

ATB

17 yıl öncediscuss

encoding the type in the filename isn't a bad way of ensuring the type never gets lost

The most likely way of losing the type is surely if a user accidentally (or maliciously) changes the filename extension. That is why Windows pops up an alarmist warning if a user tries to change their file extension. Whereas a largely invisible (but still changeable) attribute is much less likely to 'get lost' due to user intervention.

ATB

17 yıl öncediscuss

DISCLAIMER: I haven't worked at Amazon for some time now.

The author makes a number of unsourced assumptions about the business models involved, as well as his moral rights. You'll have to decide for yourself if those are correct:

"The US Kindle store caps book prices at $9.99 even for hardcovers that normally have a retail price of $23.95 and which would typically cost $16 in dead tree format via Amazon. Amazon gets the books at this price by taking the publishers for a huge [...] discount"

That is a fact, is it? Publishers happily sell their books for much less money so they become Kindle bestsellers, thereby undermining their traditional distribution models and pissing off every bookstore? REALLY?

"and by saying "screw you" to the small fry like me, who are looking for our points on the referral scheme"

Because Amazon has given you a few % off sales coming from your links, you have the moral right to extend this scheme to all future ways in which Amazon will ever sell anything? How is that a "screw you" in any way?

"One nasty suspicion of mine is that Amazon were demanding discounts so ludicrous that publishers would be making a net loss on each book sold after expenses and royalties"

Publishers are just lining up to make heavy losses so they can sell electronic content, i.e. they are just desperate to subsidize Amazon's ebook reader? Think this through for a minute.

"what have I got against Amazon's Kindle?

1) DRM. (It's unethical, immoral, fattening, and a royal pain in the ass"

That's strange, since most of the complains seem to be about the cut from referral fees he's not making anymore. A point that, coincidentally, doesn't appear anywhere in the conclusion anymore.

"4) They're using their monopsony position to fuck over their suppliers (i.e. the publishers) "

You'd think someone from a publisher (horribly leak-happy companies, the lot of them) would've let something on by now. Strange how nobody's done so.

ATB

17 yıl öncediscuss

I think what codyhilton was trying to say (correct me here) is that the 'no scratch on the car + no remote possibility of injury' claim is about accident prevention, not dealing with the actual impact. As the five or so replies show, safety innovation is seen in terms of 'what to do when you hit something or something hits you.' But wouldn't true innovation also look at how avoid getting into that tight spot in the first place?

Some car manufacturers clearly have been working on this. Better lights (showing dangers ahead), improved handling and braking (to avoid hitting stuff), and more innovative things like radar-based warning sounds if the car things you're about to change lanes and hit someone (the one in the BMW 5 series still has some issues, but it's not bad), or automated braking systems like the ones Mercedes-Benz and Volvo are promoting.

Those systems are still in their infancy. But safety innovation is definitely going in the direction of accident prevention. We have done a lot to protect the fragile human body inside the metal cage by cleverly absorbing impacts through deformation zones, airbags, etc. The next big step will be figuring out how to avoid needing to rely on them. One suggestion has been that the regulatory battle will be the hardest challenge: once you take some level of control out of a driver's hands, litigation issues and complicated fault assignment rear their ugly head. And of course, many drivers will dislike the idea of being babied by a 'nanny car' and refuse to give up any level of control over their vehicles, not unlike (tortured analogy ahead) low-level programmers who insist in coding to the bare metal.

ATB

17 yıl öncediscuss

High-speed train competition is a fascinating topic (if you're a.. uh.. trainspotter :))

For about a decade, Germany has been trying to sell the 'Transrapid' mag-lev trains and tech to China. Transrapid was sponsored by various German governments (both federal and state) for well over two decades, with the occasional state PM or federal minister turning it into their pet project (e.g. to link an airport to a city, or to link two big cities), etc. The Transrapid patent is from 1934 and the first test track was completed in Germany in 1987, almost twenty years after planning first started.

Unfortunately (for the Transrapid guys), 'normal' train technology started catching up, and the technological hurdles to implementing long-distance mag-lev trains remain prohibitively expensive, despite vast sums being sunk into it by the German government (not only is the actual technology quite sensitive, but the tranches that need to be built tend to be elevated and very straight - which doesn't work well in densely populated areas like Europe).

In the late 90s and early 00s, the only way forward seemed to be selling it to a place needing fast trains and having no scruples about building the tranches wherever they damn well please. Enter China. A few years ago, a German-Chinese joint venture built a single 19-mile track to connect Shanghai to its airport.

The real kicker? The German companies behind Transrapid continue to allege that the Chinese are stealing the technology and implementation details from the German side of the joint-venture so they can build their own -- much cheaper. Or as China Daily reported, the State Council is 'encouraging engineers to "learn and absorb foreign advanced technologies while making further innovations."'

The cost for the aforementioned 19-mile Transrapid track was $1.4 billion dollars. The cost of 80 high-speed Bombardier trains (running on presumably standard rail lines)? $4 billion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transrapid

ATB

17 yıl öncediscuss

Not to repeat what was said above, but many of us (I suspect) immediately think of THIS when they see someone write "M$" -- http://art.penny-arcade.com/photos/215178115_ExTPi-L-2.jpg

That term simply doesn't come across well in a discussion held - ostensibly - by adults. It has the same effect as someone writing 'MAD LULZ G00G PWNED MS' and ultimately conveys nothing aside from prejudice.

ATB

17 yıl öncediscuss

Perhaps I'm missing something, but the iPhone instructions (http://www.google.com/mobile/products/sync.html#p=apple) tell you to add an Exchange (ActiveSync) account in your iPhone settings, rather than modify your existing Gmail account.

This is fine and dandy, unless you already have an Exchange account configured, e.g. for your work email. When I went to add another Exchange account, my iPhone told me that "Only one Exchange ActiveSync account can be configured."

Maybe there's a way around this, but Google's dire warnings suggest there isn't ("Important! Google Sync uses the Microsoft® Exchange ActiveSync® protocol. When setting up a new Exchange ActiveSync account on your iPhone, existing data may be removed from your phone.")

I'll be Googling for a while, but helpful suggestions are appreciated.. (and no, 'suck it iPhone n00b' is not helpful... :))

ATB

17 yıl öncediscuss

"I find it surprising that so many Hacker News readers are focusing on his (lack) of academic degrees"

The focus of the linked article is not his (lack) of academic degrees, but rather a pattern of lying about his degrees and achievements, later redacted. The article also tries to track his real-world experience, which appears similarly underwhelming based on the data dug up by the author.

ATB

17 yıl öncediscuss

This clone is advertised as costing at least $209. Kindle 2 currently costs $299. As far as I can tell from the sparse details provided, content is added to this via a sim card.

If you've used a Kindle before to get content, it's readily apparent that the killer app is the large library of content you can one-click buy online and instantly appear on your device over its always-on wireless cell connection. Virtually all Kindle books have roughly the first chapter free for download, so you can easily sample everything available pretty much anywhere your Kindle can get a cell connection (you can buy books from the Kindle, no need to use a PC). You can also use the (free) internet access from your Kindle to read webmail, browse, etc.

Given the lack of proper connectivity and presumably no support for Amazon's DRMed books on this clone, it's not really a competitor, per se. At best, it's an e-ink reader, which has an overlapping target market, but lacks pretty much everything that makes Kindle so compelling. And $200 for a 'dumb' reader seems pretty damn steep.

ATB

17 yıl öncediscuss

I worked at Amazon until very recently. Some thoughts on the article:

"Amazon — where workers famously had desks made of wooden doors nailed to two-by-fours in the company’s earlier, money-losing days — remans in some ways as cheap as ever"

Everywhere I went, Amazon still used 'door desks' which are basically doors with legs. They are sturdy, come in various sizes, and are assembled and disassembled easily. There's an award named after them (the "Door Desk Award") that Amazon hands out fairly often, and there's a competition to see how quickly Amazon people can assemble one of them from parts (Jeff Bezos is pretty quick, IIRC).

"Amazon’s frugal ways reflect “more their culture than the immediate economic conditions.”"

Wherever you go, people will casually mention that Amazon "tries to be frugal." The last time I heard this, it was during an office move where I did a lot of the moving myself (instead of relying on the facility staff to do it) after an executive assistant casually mentioned that "we value frugality" so I figured that staff may be put to better use elsewhere. I've been around VPs and never got the impression that they felt comfortable splashing out a lot of cash unless there was a clear need to do so. This culture extends to the very top.

"the company’s relatively modest record of charitable giving has drawn some unfavorable reviews"

Amazon became profitable after many unprofitable years not that long ago (2002). It's probably easier to give a lot to charity if you've been making billions in profits year after year.

ATB

17 yıl öncediscuss

From reading the earlier articles, I believe the player in question was --

* Going to PvP-specific areas only (i.e. areas where 'hero' player characters are meant to fight 'villain' player characters)

* Using 'in-character' communication to indicate he wanted to fight villains, like heroes in that area supposedly do. His character was a hero.

* Using a teleport power to move some nearby villain player characters near non-player-characters, who would then kill the villains.

* Subsequently using 'in-character' communication to cheer about having killed villains.

* This was a major issue because many, many players in those player-vs-player (hero vs villain) areas instead would use the areas for 'farming,' i.e. trying to get experience points (or in-character currency) by killing non-player-characters instead.

* The 'written vs. unwritten rules' that he broke were specifically the customs of what players were actually doing in those areas (farming) vs what the game designers had intended them to do (kill each other).

That conflict between the intended purpose of a game's aspects and how others reacted to it being used that way is the main focus of that professor's article. He seemed to expect for people to suspend their disbelief and remain fully in-character, i.e. following the game's ostensible in-character limitations.

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