Hacker News: jplrssn

New comment by jplrssn in "All praise to the lunch ladies"

jplrssn — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 22:15:41 +0000

"can't afford" in this case is a choice to spend the absolute minimum possible on school lunches.

New comment by jplrssn in "Reminder to passengers ahead of move to 100% digital boarding passes"

jplrssn — Mon, 10 Nov 2025 19:53:55 +0000

The one advantage Ryanair has over non-budget airlines is that none of their seats recline.

New comment by jplrssn in "Apple reports fourth quarter results"

jplrssn — Sat, 01 Nov 2025 04:54:04 +0000

The more you concentrate taxation via capital gains, the more you incentivise the type of tax strategy where people just leave the state/country before cashing out. Countering that with exit taxes and such is hard.

Taxing company profits directly may be less efficient from an economics point of view but it's much more politically palatable.

New comment by jplrssn in "Death rates rose in hospital ERs after private equity firms took over"

jplrssn — Thu, 25 Sep 2025 15:05:32 +0000

> competition always leads to lower prices

I don't see how this could be true for emergency visits. Would an ambulance drive you to the cheapest hospital within some fixed radius?

New comment by jplrssn in "Why, as a responsible adult, SimCity 2000 hits differently"

jplrssn — Sun, 21 Sep 2025 17:40:09 +0000

Comparing the total size of countries like this never made much sense to me.

It's not like Americans need to drive coast-to-coast to buy groceries or drop their kids off at school.

New comment by jplrssn in "Ships are sailing with fake insurance from the Norwegian Ro Marine"

jplrssn — Fri, 12 Sep 2025 14:19:17 +0000

> What is “fake insurance?”

Do you believe Ro Marine would have paid out claims related to their "insured" vessels?

New comment by jplrssn in "How can England possibly be running out of water?"

jplrssn — Tue, 09 Sep 2025 13:03:46 +0000

It’s ironic that after British Rail was privatized, many UK rail services ended up being run by subsidiaries of other European state railways: French SNCF, Dutch NS, Italian Trenitalia, and so on. Turns out the state knows something about running trains after all.

New comment by jplrssn in "Candle Flame Oscillations as a Clock"

jplrssn — Tue, 19 Aug 2025 19:08:17 +0000

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

New comment by jplrssn in "Is air travel getting worse?"

jplrssn — Fri, 15 Aug 2025 18:43:58 +0000

This strategy would save them having to issue food vouchers at the airport, but not delay compensation per se which is based on arrival time at the destination gate.

New comment by jplrssn in "LG ordered to pay £150k after phone defect caused Scotland house fire"

jplrssn — Thu, 07 Aug 2025 14:58:04 +0000

I'd be curious to hear LG's defence. Presumably they must have taken the line that they weren't liable for their product self-combusting in the middle of the night.

New comment by jplrssn in "Live coding interviews measure stress, not coding skills"

jplrssn — Fri, 01 Aug 2025 13:51:07 +0000

Are you a software engineer? I'm curious about what your interviews were like.

I've done a fair amount of interviews and they all featured some amount of coding in front of an audience.

New comment by jplrssn in "My 2.5 year old laptop can write Space Invaders in JavaScript now (GLM-4.5 Air)"

jplrssn — Tue, 29 Jul 2025 14:02:26 +0000

I also wouldn't be surprised if labs were starting to mix in a few pelican SVGs into their training data.

New comment by jplrssn in "A list of changes to make it easier to build beautiful and walkable places"

jplrssn — Thu, 24 Jul 2025 16:32:55 +0000

Walking around in platform shoes as a substitute for driving around in a lifted truck, maybe?

New comment by jplrssn in "Apple introduces AppleCare One"

jplrssn — Wed, 23 Jul 2025 14:49:18 +0000

> Insurance is always more expensive than the expected expense without

This depends on how likely you are to make a claim, no? I imagine some clumsy/unlucky people get good value out of their Apple Care plans.

New comment by jplrssn in "Beyond Meat fights for survival"

jplrssn — Sun, 20 Jul 2025 12:54:13 +0000

How much soy does it take to raise 1kg of beef compared with producing 1kg of beyond meat?

New comment by jplrssn in "Hyatt Hotels are using algorithmic Rest “smoking detectors”"

jplrssn — Sat, 19 Jul 2025 19:00:01 +0000

Interesting! Thanks.

New comment by jplrssn in "Hyatt Hotels are using algorithmic Rest “smoking detectors”"

jplrssn — Sat, 19 Jul 2025 18:05:56 +0000

> I have no idea what “mail” is

Not a native speaker. How do you refer to the pieces of paper that the Royal Mail sometimes drop through your letterbox?

New comment by jplrssn in "Hyatt Hotels are using algorithmic Rest “smoking detectors”"

jplrssn — Sat, 19 Jul 2025 18:02:31 +0000

I'm sure you are right, but that didn't stop the landlord from trying their luck. Your observation about serving notice is on point, because in the end the deposit was returned only after my friend filed a small claims case against them.

New comment by jplrssn in "Hyatt Hotels are using algorithmic Rest “smoking detectors”"

jplrssn — Sat, 19 Jul 2025 14:14:40 +0000

They absolutely prey on people not being having the time/resources to fight back.

A friend in the UK had his deposit withheld as "mail charges" by his landlord upon moving out. Turned out the fine print in his lease said that he wasn't allowed to receive mail at the house he was legally renting.

New comment by jplrssn in "Travelers to the U.S. must pay a new $250 'visa integrity fee' – what to know"

jplrssn — Fri, 18 Jul 2025 15:16:31 +0000

For someone intending to overstay their visa, is the loss of $250 really going to serve as much of a deterrent?