Hacker News: 88

New comment by 88 in "London, Paris, Seoul Show Commuting Power of Fast Regional Rail"

88 — Thu, 11 Jul 2024 09:08:43 +0000

Odd to see the Elizabeth Line (Crossrail) presented in such a positive light.

As an engineering project Crossrail became famous for being repeatedly delayed (eventually opening four years late) and many billions over budget.

Since opening the Elizabeth Line has been beset by high numbers of service cancellations and poor punctuality (usually blamed on having to share track outside the central tunnel section with other operators).

New comment by 88 in "The Trouble with Soho"

88 — Mon, 06 May 2024 07:51:31 +0000

Same as those advancing the anti-motorist policies mentioned in the article.

Buy property on the cheap because it’s on a busy road. Campaign to have the road fully/partially blocked to motor traffic, and/or speed limit reduced to something ridiculous (20mph) so motorists end up using other routes to make progress.

If challenged, claim it’s all about the safety of children walking to school. You’d have to be a monster to deny those windfall gains.

New comment by 88 in "Electric cars suffer 'unsustainable' depreciation in secondhand market"

88 — Thu, 18 Jan 2024 10:38:39 +0000

Each to their own but a £13k Vauxhall Corsa doesn’t seem like a bargain to me.

New comment by 88 in "Why Britain doesn’t build"

88 — Mon, 26 Jun 2023 10:51:14 +0000

The average fully-qualified GP has something like 2,300 patients registered to them.

If you assume 2.5 people per household for those new homes, their needs would be met by the addition of a single GP to an existing surgery.

Then consider that the typical buyers of new builds will be younger and healthier than average.

And that of those ~2,500 new residents, some are likely to be doctors themselves who would otherwise be unable to live in the area.

And that GP surgeries are private for-profit businesses.

And you realise the issues are more complex than they might at first seem.

New comment by 88 in "Why Britain doesn’t build"

88 — Mon, 26 Jun 2023 10:09:46 +0000

When you consider there are decades of under supply to make up for, this is still a paltry figure.

New comment by 88 in "Emptying the dishwasher with systems theory"

88 — Mon, 13 Mar 2023 12:30:20 +0000

Presume they mean ajar, not fully opened

New comment by 88 in "Understanding British Money: What's a Quid? A Shilling? (2020)"

88 — Sat, 04 Mar 2023 09:09:00 +0000

For small shop owners it’s a vicious cycle. They don’t want to take in Scottish notes because many customers won’t want them as change. Customers don’t want them as change because a lot of shop owners won’t take them.

As per the article, they’re not legal tender so no one is required to take them as payment.

New comment by 88 in "A pilot scheme to trail the four-day workweek in Britain deemed a success (2022)"

88 — Tue, 21 Feb 2023 08:37:02 +0000

> People aren't always available, so you have to work around or wait.

I would have thought if everyone moved to four-day workweeks, they would all take the same day off, essentially extending the weekend.

New comment by 88 in "Google to reduce workforce by 12k"

88 — Fri, 20 Jan 2023 11:19:36 +0000

Just a theory but in a downturn I could see a lot of companies increasing their ad spend as they lose existing customers and find they need to work harder to acquire new ones.

Obviously this doesn’t apply to advertising which is just gratuitous brand building.

New comment by 88 in "Paul Graham is leaving Twitter for now"

88 — Sun, 18 Dec 2022 20:37:12 +0000

This is beginning to feel like the Freenode takeover drama

New comment by 88 in "NHS waiting lists in England hitting new high of 7.2M people"

88 — Fri, 09 Dec 2022 09:37:33 +0000

What kind of social problems are people seeing GPs about, that they otherwise wouldn’t?

The example usually given is the other way round, that the woeful provision of care by the NHS leads to other public services (notably the police) becoming the backstop, e.g. for those with mental health issues.

New comment by 88 in "Audio CD ripping – optical drive accuracy listing"

88 — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 17:15:30 +0000

That’s a feature. The value of AccurateRip comes from the accuracy of data submitted to it.

Tightly controlling how data can be submitted allows that accuracy to be maintained.

New comment by 88 in "Man overcharged 20 rupees for India train ticket wins 22-year legal battle"

88 — Fri, 12 Aug 2022 15:10:30 +0000

De minimis non curat lex

New comment by 88 in "Hetzner Price Adjustment"

88 — Thu, 11 Aug 2022 13:17:51 +0000

Does your ISP allow you to use their service to host a server? Most expressly prohibit it in their terms and conditions.

New comment by 88 in "What’s going on with Google and Facebook hiring freezes?"

88 — Wed, 03 Aug 2022 18:57:19 +0000

Have you considered that a consultant hired to fix a specific problem, and salaried employees seeking to justify their existence, may have slightly misaligned incentives?

New comment by 88 in "Ask HN: Why has quality of YouTube reduced drastically?"

88 — Wed, 03 Aug 2022 08:30:20 +0000

Successful YouTubers get a good chunk of their income from brand deals.

Doesn’t matter if your video gets monetized if a company has loaned/gifted you a product and paid you to make a video featuring it.

New comment by 88 in "Scotland starts renewed case for independence"

88 — Tue, 14 Jun 2022 12:25:37 +0000

Except the Supreme Court have said they will not consider an appeal.

So it is not illegal.

New comment by 88 in "Scotland starts renewed case for independence"

88 — Tue, 14 Jun 2022 12:17:16 +0000

Corbyn self-identifies as a socialist.

New comment by 88 in "Scotland starts renewed case for independence"

88 — Tue, 14 Jun 2022 12:05:19 +0000

So it’s illegal in your opinion but not in actual fact?

New comment by 88 in "Judge: California’s women on boards law is unconstitutional"

88 — Tue, 17 May 2022 08:43:46 +0000

If it’s widely accepted that placing more women on corporate boards delivers better results for companies, then investors will push companies to do just that.

Those that fail to do so will see their share price lag behind their competitors.