Hacker News: amitparikh

New comment by amitparikh in "No reachable chess position with more than 218 moves"

amitparikh — Fri, 26 Sep 2025 09:09:12 +0000

Right, and by "reachable" they mean it is theoretically possible to get to this board position through a normal (albeit obviously methodically chosen) series of moves.

New comment by amitparikh in "Princeton astrophysicists re-imagine world map (2021)"

amitparikh — Wed, 29 May 2024 09:27:59 +0000

The "projection" can be centered on any arbitrary point, actually. See https://vanderbei.princeton.edu/planets_webgl/GottPlanets.ht...

Stripe sets one-year timetable to decide on going public

amitparikh — Thu, 26 Jan 2023 16:18:19 +0000

Article URL: https://www.wsj.com/articles/stripe-sets-one-year-timetable-to-decide-on-going-public-11674749304

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34533710

Points: 179

# Comments: 144

New comment by amitparikh in "Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics"

amitparikh — Fri, 24 Jun 2022 07:49:20 +0000

They already do. Example: https://www.tribpub.com/gdpr/baltimoresun.com/

New comment by amitparikh in "Total Cookie Protection"

amitparikh — Tue, 23 Feb 2021 14:58:51 +0000

For what it's worth, I find third-party logins (e.g. Spotify via Facebook) to be a nice convenience feature that I use quite often.

New comment by amitparikh in "Obscure Charges That Utility Companies Add to Bills"

amitparikh — Fri, 25 Oct 2019 12:48:27 +0000

The real evil here is that the surcharges are "all on top of the price that regulators have agreed customers should pay for their electricity service."

Utilities support basic human necessities. We need power for light and heat. When the base cost for these necessities rises (to subsidize infrastructure projects), the poor are the hardest hit. And the fact that these governments are essentially "hiding" taxes inside of utility payments is outrageous.

New comment by amitparikh in "NASA aims for first manned SpaceX mission in first-quarter 2020"

amitparikh — Fri, 11 Oct 2019 09:42:52 +0000

Why are human missions so much more costly than robotic missions? Answer: Life Support.

If our (very) long-term goal is to stake humanity's claim on other planets/asteroids/etc., then it makes sense to work on improving and expanding Life Support capabilities in harsh environments. I see it as an investment in the future -- it may not seem to have immediate benefits, but these are key milestones and steps for reaching the ultimate goal.

New comment by amitparikh in "Capital One’s breach was inevitable, because we did nothing after Equifax"

amitparikh — Tue, 30 Jul 2019 15:14:34 +0000

Thanks. Another example is the Dutch DigID: https://www.digid.nl/en/about-digid/

New comment by amitparikh in "Norwegian frigate sinking has far-reaching implications"

amitparikh — Wed, 12 Dec 2018 11:10:34 +0000

> "The Sola TS became concerned about the situation. However, because the Ingstad wasn’t showing automatic identification system (AIS) data, initially neither the Sola TS nor the traffic station on shore could identify the frigate to warn it of the imminent danger."

New comment by amitparikh in "Why There Are So Many Thai Restaurants in America"

amitparikh — Mon, 20 Aug 2018 14:42:42 +0000

I will briefly add that Indonesian food is massively popular in the Netherlands ("East Indies" being a former colony). Rijstaffel [1] -- literally, "rice table" -- is a national specialty that is celebrated by the Dutch, although I will admit that the history of the meal is rooted in that former colonialism.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rijsttafel

New comment by amitparikh in "Alexa and Siri Can Hear Hidden Commands"

amitparikh — Thu, 10 May 2018 22:47:55 +0000

They are, it's one of the reasons they [Nielsen] bought Arbitron back in 2013. The PPM devices use low-frequency tones encoded into the audio stream at the time of broadcast.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_People_Meter

New comment by amitparikh in "Killing ants with nuclear weapons"

amitparikh — Thu, 19 Oct 2017 18:11:51 +0000

To add to this (and to refute a specific example brought up in the blog post): "learning ops" is not a way to reduce the complexity of software deployment. In fact, Docker exists specifically to solve that exact problem -- in net, it reduces the complexity and challenges of deployment in distributed systems.

Some complexity is unavoidable due to a project's scope and requirements -- introducing new complexities can oftentimes reduce the overall complexity of the system.

New comment by amitparikh in "Ask HN: How do you evaluate a job offer and the company offering it?"

amitparikh — Tue, 28 Mar 2017 18:00:25 +0000

I'm really happy to see commute time in your list (among the other points). I'm a big believer in increasing quality of life by decreasing commute time, something which is increasingly difficult in the largest metropolitan job centers of America.

New comment by amitparikh in "U.S. government begins asking foreign travelers about social media"

amitparikh — Fri, 23 Dec 2016 14:17:46 +0000

This question is actually on the ESTA form: https://www.quora.com/Why-does-the-US-visa-form-ask-seemingl...

New comment by amitparikh in "Department of Homeland Security Devices on SF Streets"

amitparikh — Mon, 08 Feb 2016 22:11:39 +0000

"The Super Bowl is designated a SEAR (Special Events Assessment Rating) level 1, an event that’s considered of national importance..." [1]

Ultimate authority over law enforcement coordination during such events goes to the Department of Homeland Security.

[1] http://abcnews.go.com/US/law-enforcement-high-alert-super-bo...

New comment by amitparikh in "How a College Student Used Creative Commons to Dominate Political Photography"

amitparikh — Sun, 07 Feb 2016 17:41:40 +0000

If 'good enough' and 'usable' @ a price of 'free' is what's becoming ubiquitous, hasn't Mr. Skidmore just locked in on a new-ish market equilibrium?

New comment by amitparikh in "To predict the future 1/3 of you need to be crazy"

amitparikh — Wed, 16 Dec 2015 19:23:15 +0000

This reminds me a lot of a thesis (sort of) from Peter Thiel's "Zero to One". He calls it The Contrarian Question:

    What important truth do very few people agree with you on?

The question asks us to escape from the mental confines of the past and present to be able to "predict the future" as it were.

New comment by amitparikh in "Search for $1B Stolen from Moldova Leads to Ex-Council Flat in Scotland"

amitparikh — Wed, 07 Oct 2015 14:06:42 +0000

In Delaware, 1209 North Orange Street is the address of over 200,000 businesses including Silicon Valley giants like Google and Apple.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporation_Trust_Center_(CT_C...

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/01/business/how-delaware-thri...

New comment by amitparikh in "YC Fall 2015 College Tour"

amitparikh — Thu, 17 Sep 2015 20:16:09 +0000

At Maryland, both the Hinman CEOs [1] and QUEST Honors [2] programs would provide great reciprocal value for YC.

[1] http://www.hinmanceos.umd.edu/

[2] http://www.rhsmith.umd.edu/programs/undergraduate-programs/a...

New comment by amitparikh in "Research Scientists to Use Network Much Faster Than Internet"

amitparikh — Mon, 03 Aug 2015 18:27:20 +0000

"FedEx is still faster than the Internet" https://what-if.xkcd.com/31/

Of course, the applications here are probably quite different -- this research grant may be more geared toward building a faster network to handle large amounts of streaming input.