Hacker News: 9nGQluzmnq3M

New comment by 9nGQluzmnq3M in "Latin in the Voynich Manuscript"

9nGQluzmnq3M — Thu, 10 Sep 2020 16:19:00 +0000

It's difficult if not impossible to transcribe something in an unknown writing system, since you can't even be sure which glyphs are the same. Wikipedia has a few attempts:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voynich_manuscript#Transcripti...

New comment by 9nGQluzmnq3M in "Former NSA chief Keith Alexander has joined Amazon’s board of directors"

9nGQluzmnq3M — Thu, 10 Sep 2020 05:53:47 +0000

Is there a solid source on what was actually collected?

New comment by 9nGQluzmnq3M in "Former NSA chief Keith Alexander has joined Amazon’s board of directors"

9nGQluzmnq3M — Thu, 10 Sep 2020 05:50:00 +0000

Correction: Keyhole became Google Earth. (Fun fact: the K in KML is Keyhole.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Earth#History

Google Maps stems from an Australian company called Where2, which AFAIK was not funded by spooks.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Maps#Acquisitions

New comment by 9nGQluzmnq3M in "The Intricate Translation Process for a Murakami Novel"

9nGQluzmnq3M — Thu, 10 Sep 2020 01:02:30 +0000

Of all Murakami's books, the one that made the biggest impression on me was "Underground", his non-fiction book consisting entirely of interviews with survivors of the Aum Shinrikyo sarin attacks in Tokyo. It's simultaneously fascinating and absolutely horrifying, and it goes into a lot of depth on the lives of the people both before and after the attack.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underground_(Murakami_book)

New comment by 9nGQluzmnq3M in "I'm a Coffin Confessor"

9nGQluzmnq3M — Wed, 09 Sep 2020 23:44:10 +0000

They can be trademarked, which is why you can't use "Harry Potter" without permission.

New comment by 9nGQluzmnq3M in "The 'brushing' scam that's behind mystery parcels"

9nGQluzmnq3M — Wed, 09 Sep 2020 05:54:20 +0000

I've gotten those too. The letters/emails are carefully worded so the subject screams "Pending domain registration!" to make you think it's your actual domain expiring, but the small print says that the service they offer is "registering" your domain in some random "world business directory". This way it's not an outright scam, in that they do render a (completely useless) service in exchange for your money, but of course they hope that the random admin/manager who sees the "bill" won't realize the difference and will pay up.

New comment by 9nGQluzmnq3M in "Gravitricity – Fast, long-life energy storage"

9nGQluzmnq3M — Wed, 09 Sep 2020 01:55:09 +0000

Tungsten costs around $30k/ton, so you'd be looking at a cool $15M for that 500T cube.

Lead goes for around $2k/ton, so this might be a more feasible compromise.

New comment by 9nGQluzmnq3M in "Gravitricity – Fast, long-life energy storage"

9nGQluzmnq3M — Wed, 09 Sep 2020 01:51:18 +0000

This proposal would likely be a lot more economic if they could reuse existing holes, like abandoned mines. However, mines tend not to dig down vertically and the cost of retrofitting and maintenance would be non-trivial.

New comment by 9nGQluzmnq3M in "Tech firms face growing resentment of parent employees during Covid-19"

9nGQluzmnq3M — Wed, 09 Sep 2020 01:28:49 +0000

I've worked for several companies that offered paid time off for volunteering. (With plenty of conditions and limits, of course.)

Flying V long-distance plane makes its first flight as a scale model

9nGQluzmnq3M — Wed, 09 Sep 2020 01:24:34 +0000

Article URL: https://newatlas.com/aircraft/flying-v-long-distance-plane-maiden-flight/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24415699

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

Wikidata and 1,204,986 Votes Decided: What Is the Best Thing?

9nGQluzmnq3M — Tue, 08 Sep 2020 07:44:00 +0000

Article URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALy6e7GbDRQ&feature=youtu.be

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24406096

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

New comment by 9nGQluzmnq3M in "Companies that help people vanish"

9nGQluzmnq3M — Mon, 07 Sep 2020 14:27:31 +0000

Midlife crisis is a thing in itself. One day you realize 20 years have passed, your spouse is no longer the person you married, you don't like your kids, you hate your job and -- here's the crisis part -- it dawns on you that this is it and you'll follow your current trajectory of quiet unhappiness for the rest of your life.

In reaction some people buy a Harley, some seek escape in adultery, some commit suicide... and a few disappear and start a new life.

New comment by 9nGQluzmnq3M in "Companies that help people vanish"

9nGQluzmnq3M — Mon, 07 Sep 2020 14:21:50 +0000

In Japan you need guarantors even for mundane things like renting an apartment. This is particularly difficult for immigrants if they don't know anybody and their employer won't sponsor them.

New comment by 9nGQluzmnq3M in "The older you are, the quicker you count out a minute"

9nGQluzmnq3M — Sat, 05 Sep 2020 06:38:06 +0000

The key insight (that older people count out seconds faster) is based on experimental science. The rest is more speculation.

FWIW, I'm convinced that seconds felt slower when I was a child, and they now tick up faster than they used to. Obviously there's no way to measure this, because this is my perception, not measurable reality.

New comment by 9nGQluzmnq3M in "The Oldest Cookbook in Korean"

9nGQluzmnq3M — Sat, 05 Sep 2020 01:51:08 +0000

The modern Korean writing system (hangul) is unrelated to Chinese.

Also, it's quite common for languages to be written in scripts originally developed for completely unrelated languages. Maltese is related to Arabic but written in the Latin (English) alphabet, Mongolian uses Cyrillic (Russian), Thai/Lao/Khmer derive from South Indian scripts, etc.

New comment by 9nGQluzmnq3M in "Bardcore"

9nGQluzmnq3M — Wed, 02 Sep 2020 23:49:30 +0000

https://ukiyoeheroes.com/

Wizz Air’s Odd Fee for Buying a Ticket While Using an Ad Blocker

9nGQluzmnq3M — Tue, 01 Sep 2020 04:32:35 +0000

Article URL: https://skift.com/2020/08/31/wizz-airs-odd-fee-for-buying-a-ticket-while-using-an-ad-blocker-draws-fire-on-social-media/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24338583

Points: 5

# Comments: 0

New comment by 9nGQluzmnq3M in "How Do You Decode a Hapax? Also, What’s a Hapax? (2017)"

9nGQluzmnq3M — Tue, 01 Sep 2020 01:12:06 +0000

As always, Chinese takes this to the next level, since there are historical characters for which both meaning and pronunciation have been lost.

A famous one is 篪, used exactly once in the Classic of Poetry (1000 BC), whose meaning was unknown until another text surfaced describing it as a type of flute.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hapax_legomenon#Chinese_and_Ja...

New comment by 9nGQluzmnq3M in "The “menu engineers” who optimize restaurant revenue"

9nGQluzmnq3M — Mon, 31 Aug 2020 01:46:21 +0000

Good = tasty! As a random example, Yang's Dumpling http://www.xysjg.com/ sells exactly one thing, shengjianbao dumplings, and all their outlets have lines out the door. Even the holes in the wall with 20+ items tend to focus on a well-defined theme, eg. you might have hand-cut noodles with a variety of toppings but little beyond that.

And yes, higher-end restaurants do tend to have longer menus, because in China these cater mostly to large groups and entertaining businessmen, and a key part of Chinese banquets is to order way too much food -- so much so that there's now an official CCP campaign to stamp out the practice.

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asia/china-food-waste-o...

New comment by 9nGQluzmnq3M in "The “menu engineers” who optimize restaurant revenue"

9nGQluzmnq3M — Mon, 31 Aug 2020 00:28:59 +0000

I presume you're talking about America, since I can assure you that in Asia QR codes are alive and well. In China in particular everything is done with QR.