tb

6 ms·

1.
by tb 12y ago
You do have a sliding scale, in the form of the hosting cost pass through. Your average restaurateur is entirely unqualified to estimate the AWS hosting costs of your software in relation to his/her restaurant, so these costs are compl
2.
by tb 12y ago
This suggestion comes up whenever the topic of self-driving cars arises, but I wonder if access to a fleet of self-driving cars would be more akin to a cheaper taxi service than a replacement for car ownership. I suspect that many people wo
3.
by tb 13y ago
Default risk. The price for a bitcoin that is currently held by Mt.Gox factors in the market's expectation that said bitcoin will be able to be redeemed from Mt.Gox. Analogous to why your bank charges you a higher interest rate on a lo
4.
by tb 13y ago
For anyone who's interested in why this is the case, here is the classic article on this situation: http://philip.greenspun.com/flying/unions-and-airlines
5.
by tb 13y ago
OP uses a fresnel lens and gives instructions on how to focus the HUD at infinity to avoid this problem.
6.
by tb 14y ago
"However, although important for the local economy in Congo, the contribution of coltan mining in Congo to the world supply of tantalum is usually small. The United States Geological Survey reports in its yearbook that this region produced
7.
by tb 14y ago
It's to keep all the railway clocks in sync. You could have one that's running up to 1.5s slow and it will still be able to keep up with all the rest, and they're all resynchronised with each other every minute. This is important when it co
8.
by tb 14y ago
See elsewhere in the thread [1] where I discussed this. [1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4738558
9.
by tb 14y ago
The camera is on the end of the arm at the bottom left in [1]. By comparing that to this picture you can see where part of the arm is in the self-portrait, above and to the left of the front-most wheel. The third-person perspective in the s
10.
by tb 14y ago
Very OT, but why in God's name do some people/countries feel it appropriate to use imperial units rather than metric units? The reasons are the same - historical usage and inertia against change.
11.
by tb 14y ago
> Some other particle may interact with nothing we are familiar with -- and thus we could never study it. Is it even "real" then? Philosophically, this is equivalent to the question of whether other universes, which do not interact with
12.
by tb 14y ago
Most modern cars will have lots of separate controllers. Many of the functions of the car are largely independent and having them on separate boards means they can be physically closer to the things they are controlling, and the number of f
13.
by tb 14y ago
You are referring, of course, to this excellent (and somewhat frightening) article: http://philip.greenspun.com/flying/unions-and-airlines
14.
by tb 14y ago
I absolutely agree. I now have an instinctive reaction to reach for my pocket whenever I'm feeling the slightest bit impatient, and I have caught myself on a couple of occasions reaching for my pocket when I already have my phone out, becau
15.
by tb 15y ago
It's an art piece, not a serious piece of espionage equipment, hence its form reflects its (symbolic) function.
16.
by tb 15y ago
Exactly. You might make 10 for your early prototypes but it's not unusual to make 100 or more for the final test run.
17.
by tb 15y ago
Aha, thank you. As most of my C code has been written for a single compiler and a single platform I was less aware of the pitfalls than I should have been. I will know now to be extra vigilant if I ever have to port that code.
18.
by tb 15y ago
I completely agree with everything you've said except for "any use of bitfields." The comma operator is ok in this circumstance, mixing unsigned and signed is a big no-no, but what have you got against bitfields? They're very useful when it
19.
by tb 15y ago
"Selecting those with most artistic potential" were the exact words I used. The fundamental question is whether "found art" is copyrightable.
20.
by tb 15y ago
I love the small print at the bottom: Text copyright (c) 2004 Scott Nesin. Drawings copyright (c) 2004 Guy Nesin, used with permission. You just know he did actually ask his 4-year-old son for permission to use his drawings on the
21.
by tb 15y ago
The person who took the photos, since that would be the creative act. Sorting through the photos and selecting the good ones is also a creative act, but it is a derivative work because the original images are copyright protected. The differ
22.
by tb 15y ago
The monkeys took many photos, most of which were out of focus or poorly composed. Could not sorting through the essentially random photos that the monkeys took, and selecting those with most artistic potential, and perhaps cropping them to
23.
by tb 16y ago
It's not that simple, because you have to factor in all the negative externalities. That's what got us into this mess in the first place, people aren't paying the full cost of the planetary resources they are using.
24.
by tb 16y ago
It's an introductory post for a new blog. Obviously the author intends to go into much more detail in future posts.
25.
by tb 16y ago
What is a bee if not a miniature flying pollination machine? :)
26.
by tb 16y ago
It's called oversubscription and it's a very common practise. Statistically, not all of the ISP's customers are going to use all of their quota every month, so why should the ISP provide enough bandwidth to allow them to? That just means th
27.
Ask HN: Foreign startup collecting payments from US companies?
6 points by tb 16y ago|3 comments
28.
by tb 16y ago
Looking at the gallery in the OP, most of the features enabled by CHDK are standard in DSLRs anyway - RAW shooting, longer shutter speeds, full manual control, etc. As a DSLR shooter, I was looking through that gallery thinking, "what does
29.
by tb 16y ago
The way I read it, they were betting with free money, so they couldn't lose.
30.
by tb 16y ago
Why should I have to pause the comment auto-updater just so that I can finish reading the article?

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