HN user

davelondon

279 karma

github.com/dave

Posts4
Comments65
View on HN

I find it preposterous that we say that nothing can travel faster than light, when clearly that isn't the case.

I'm considering renting a Model Y from Hertz in Calgary for three months, but their pricing model is a complete mess:

23/01 -> 30/04 C$10,952.88 (C$111.76 / day)

... but pick it up a day earlier and it's C$4,000 cheaper:

22/01 -> 30/04 C$6,777.00 (C$68.45 / day)

Also:

13/01 -> 15/02 C$1,747.00 (C$52.94/day)

... but split it into two rentals and it's C$400 cheaper:

13/01 -> 01/02 C$727.00

01/02 -> 15/02 C$619.00

Total: C$1,346.00 (C$40.79/day)

Nothing makes sense.

Also, I need winter tyres. That'll be C$25/day extra... No discount for monthly rental. Doesn't make sense. I'm here with my money Hertz, but there's no way I'd deal with such a cluster-fuck.

Fg = Gm1m2/d^2, you get infinite force when a marble (mass 1) is at the center of a planet (mass2)

A non-point mass only approximates to a point mass when you're not inside it. The gravitational effect of being inside a shell is nothing... so as d tends to zero the mass that's not a shell also tends to zero, so you actually get zero force.

Gemini AI 3 years ago

It's one thing to announce you have the world's best AI. It's another to let people use it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

India is really frustrating for tourists right now... I was there earlier this year, and there were several things I just couldn't do without UPI... Some restaurants just didn't accept cash so I couldn't eat there... Bus tickets had to be booked online with UPI... I think they're moving towards opening it up, but when I was there it was completely impossible for a foreigner to use UPI.

When our BBC crashed with the message "Sideways RAM required" my kid brother tried whacking the side of the case. Didn't work unfortunately.

I was in India earlier this year, and found there was no way (and I spent hours trying) for a foreigner to get access to the UPI system. This meant:

1) There were some cashless fast food outlets that I couldn't eat at

2) There was no way for me to book an intercity bus ticket

I eventually managed to get a bus ticket by sweet-talking someone in a shop to use their personal UPI account in exchange for cash.

I fear there's going to be more problems like this for travellers as communities go cashless around the world.

Organic Maps 3 years ago

My friend is a heavy iOS maps.me user, and has hundreds of bookmarks all over the world. She isn't a fan of the new maps.me, and would love to use Organic Maps.

I've tested the import / export function, and it looks like we can transfer all her bookmarks over and preserve the colour information...

The only thing we're missing is an auto-backup function to store the bookmarks online. She's not a techie, so it has to be free from settings and automatically enabled.

As soon as that feature is added you'll have another user!

It's a nice story but it's actually a load of rubbish...

https://theoutline.com/post/2205/this-38-year-old-study-is-s...

"Despite his claims of a revolutionary breakthrough, Alexander had trouble finding a journal to publish his results. Both Science and Nature rejected the study for publication, likely due to significant problems with the methodology and results. Pharmacology Biochemistry and Behavior published the results in 1981 with little response and the funding for Rat Park was canceled shortly thereafter."

"When scientists tried to replicate the Rat Park study, they got mixed results. In 1996, a study attempted to precisely replicate the conditions in Alexander’s Rat Park, down to the breed of rat. The researchers conducted two experiments to see if they could replicate the Rat Park study’s results. In the first experiment, the happy, social rats consumed slightly more of the morphine liquid, in the second experiment, the isolated rats drank slightly more. Neither experiment reflected the Rat Park’s results, which had the isolated rats drinking up to seven times the amount of the morphine liquid as the social rats."

Earlier this year I took Etsy to the UK small claims court when a seller refused to accept a return (it wasn't a customised item, so returns are mandatory under UK law). I wanted to take the seller to court but Etsy refused to give me the seller's details.

Etsy argued two things in court:

1) I can't sue Etsy because my contract was with the seller.

2) I can't sue Etsy in a UK court because their terms and conditions say I must sue them in Ireland.

The judge agreed with me that it was ludicrous that they could refuse to give me the seller's details, while simultaneously arguing that I should be suing the seller.

The judge thought that #1 was such a serious violation that he disregarded #2.

I won the case.