Hacker News: akafred

New comment by akafred in "Ask.com has closed"

akafred — Sat, 02 May 2026 05:47:51 +0000

I pay for kagi on my personal machine, it is always a delight when my cmd-t search is answered kagi and not a list of ads ...

New comment by akafred in "Zoom terms now allow training AI on user content with no opt out"

akafred — Tue, 08 Aug 2023 06:29:59 +0000

"Vanity-URLs" is just a feature, usually a requirement for SSO. I cannot see that that would cause any different treatment of data related to your use.

New comment by akafred in "Unions Did Great Things for the American Working Class"

akafred — Wed, 02 Jan 2019 20:58:50 +0000

I don't like corporations in politics. Successful businesses have done a lot of good, but they need to stay out of politics. (Read: And as long as they are in politics the unions have to be, too.)

New comment by akafred in "Unions Did Great Things for the American Working Class"

akafred — Wed, 02 Jan 2019 20:43:39 +0000

There needs to be a balance between the powers of employers, employees and government (as a regulator and moderator between the other two parties). I think any reasonable comparison of this power balance between the US and other successful democracies would show that employers have more power in the US than most places.

I believe the US system of political clientelism has been especially unfavorable for US workers since the mid-nineties. Globalization has taken away their bargaining power, and politics have been taken over by business interests.

I think this shift in the power structure is the major reason for the continued worsening of inequality-measures (e.g GINI-coefficient) in the US, to a level now only comparable to third world and less democratic countries.

New comment by akafred in "Using two (or more) git/GitHub identities"

akafred — Tue, 24 Apr 2018 12:05:56 +0000

The coolest part is that git supports setting name/email for an entire folder. A new feature in git 2.15 (released late last year).

Using two (or more) git/GitHub identities

akafred — Tue, 24 Apr 2018 10:35:21 +0000

Article URL: https://medium.com/@kjetiljd/using-two-or-more-git-github-identities-78f869adb069

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16911375

Points: 6

# Comments: 1

New comment by akafred in "Japan Now Has More Electric Car Charging Spots Than Gas Stations"

akafred — Thu, 05 May 2016 10:34:34 +0000

Ah, didn't know that. I guess they are mainly running on electricity from coal/oil/gas power plants, then.

New comment by akafred in "Japan Now Has More Electric Car Charging Spots Than Gas Stations"

akafred — Thu, 05 May 2016 06:36:43 +0000

Cool, lots of cars running on nuclear energy, then!

New comment by akafred in "Why Bernie Sanders should have kept talking about the Nordics"

akafred — Sat, 30 Jan 2016 14:43:34 +0000

I have skimmed the book and it presents a skewed picture and is selective about its 'facts'. And some of it is about how the economies are not 'sufficiently' libertarian, which is part of the point.

New comment by akafred in "Why Bernie Sanders should have kept talking about the Nordics"

akafred — Sat, 30 Jan 2016 10:10:05 +0000

The author seems to have predicted an attack from liberalist Brits. However, what the article describes is real and the Nordics run circles around most countries when it comes to work/life balance and gender equality. In sum quality of life for the wast majority is way higher than the average Brit or American. But I guess you are in the top 5% and care less about the 95%?

Why Bernie Sanders should have kept talking about the Nordics

akafred — Sat, 30 Jan 2016 09:37:48 +0000

Article URL: http://www.thenation.com/article/after-i-lived-in-norway-america-felt-backward-heres-why/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11001257

Points: 4

# Comments: 4

New comment by akafred in "Why Childcare Workers Are So Poor, Even Though Childcare Costs So Much"

akafred — Sat, 07 Nov 2015 02:32:11 +0000

In Norway, there is a max price on child care which makes it affordable and the best option for most people. The government subsidizes somewhere around two thirds of the costs. I guess labour costs are 70%+ in most cases. There are both public and privately run child care centers/kindergardens. The privately run are subsidized on more or less equal terms as the publicly run, and the norms for employee density and other minimum quality requirements are the same. About one third of the employees are pre-school teachers (three years of higher ed), the rest are either skilled (there is a child worker professional vocation ed you can take) or unskilled. I don't think there are many cases where employees can not afford to have their own kids in child care. In my municipality parents of all children in child care are surveyed every year and the reports from the survey are public. My guess is that the whole thing is more or less funded by the increased taxes paid by keeping a larger part of the population working. (I could also mention that parents share about a year of paid leave for each birth so most kids are around one year old when they start in child care.)

New comment by akafred in "Norway: photographs taken of the same places separated by long periods of time"

akafred — Wed, 04 Nov 2015 12:39:34 +0000

Land owners can generally chop down trees as they wish; with some exceptions, which mostly don't apply in these photos. I think there are three main reasons for the increase in woodland: 1. Less cultivated land; including less land used for grazing (eg. by sheep). 2. Other sources of heating (mostly electricity, some oil, and still some wood, but usually not taken from just outside the door; there is very little use of gas in Norway). 3. Milder climate has raised the tree line. Which of these is most significant probably varies.

New comment by akafred in "Why Las Vegas has coped well with drought so far"

akafred — Mon, 10 Aug 2015 06:07:49 +0000

I agree, comparing is probably unfair, but still, 5-6 times higher water consumption is quite a lot and I found the numbers interesting. Actually, most poor people living in deserts around the world use a fraction of the water we use in Oslo.

Population is Oslo is increasing, and the city wants to keep the cost of treating waste water down, and one way is to reduce fresh water use.

New comment by akafred in "Why Las Vegas has coped well with drought so far"

akafred — Mon, 10 Aug 2015 05:39:54 +0000

In Oslo, Norway, a city with abundant supply of fresh water, the water use per citizen is about 42 gallons per day. This includes industrial use and leaks from pipes. The city wants to further reduce this to less than 35 gallons per person. These numbers are not particularly low in Europe.

243 gallons is quite a lot in comparison to these numbers.

New comment by akafred in "Microsoft, Google, Others Threaten to Sue Adblock Plus Creator"

akafred — Wed, 10 Dec 2014 22:54:01 +0000

OkCupid has (or had, at least, haven't visited in a while) a pretty decent approach to ad blockers. They detect that you block ads and (after explaining that ads are a big part of the revenue of their service, for which you currently pay nada ...) offer you an option to pay a small sum not to have to see ads (or you can turn ads back on).

New comment by akafred in "Ask HN: I've learned a programming language – how do I solve problems with code?"

akafred — Fri, 28 Nov 2014 23:40:25 +0000

If you want a process that takes you from problem to product I recommend one I have used in developing several real world solutions, described by Freeman & Pryce in the book "Growing Object-Oriented Software - Guided by Tests". Allthough the book uses an object oriented paradigm and Java (none of which I particularly recommend) the process described in the book's first few chapters is solid and makes quality software development more predictable - and less of an art. (For those of you in the know, but who haven't read the book, this is about TDD, London style, (outside-in) with a high level of automation (continuous delivery).)

New comment by akafred in "Congressman Calls To Ban U.S. Dollar In Response To Plea For Bitcoin Ban"

akafred — Wed, 05 Mar 2014 19:49:22 +0000

Only-slightly-OT: In Norway there is a lot of people (40% in a less than completely impartial survey [1]) who thinks cash will be completely replaced by electronic transactions. We have well functioning clearing of even small transactions. Of course the authorities thinks this is a great idea for reducing crime...

1: http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?depth=1&n...