Hacker News: tafda

New comment by tafda in "95% of Companies See 'Zero Return' on $30B Generative AI Spend"

tafda — Sat, 23 Aug 2025 04:17:29 +0000

Moral Mazes ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_Mazes ) is a sociology classic along these lines.

Here's a relevant interview with the author, Robert Jackall: https://anso.williams.edu/files/2015/07/Jackall_interview_Ch...

New comment by tafda in "LA wildfires force thousands to evacuate, NASA JPL closed"

tafda — Thu, 09 Jan 2025 08:20:07 +0000

Wind speeds and live fuel moisture level are the critical measures of fire risk in chaparral. Fuel moisture levels have been approaching critical this season in Southern California and, due to lack of rain, didn't follow the seasonal pattern: https://fire.lacounty.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/All-Are...

Some relevant research: https://moritzfirelab.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/denniso...

Drought is a more comprehensive measure that includes snowpack, rainfall, resevoir levels, etc.

California's most neglected group of students: the gifted ones

tafda — Tue, 26 Nov 2024 16:53:35 +0000

Article URL: https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2024-11-18/special-education-schools-gifted

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42247334

Points: 412

# Comments: 526

The Job Drought in Finance and Tech Is Ending

tafda — Sat, 20 Apr 2024 04:51:37 +0000

Article URL: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2024-04-19/the-jobs-drought-in-finance-and-tech-is-ending

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40094911

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

New comment by tafda in "Loneliness in Midlife: A Growing Gap Between US and Europe"

tafda — Tue, 19 Mar 2024 05:43:30 +0000

“Walkable” and “grid” are orthogonal concerns.

London and Tokyo are two examples of very walkable non-grids, which I prefer to American grid-based city planning — the random connections fuel serendipity.

I think the problem in modern suburbs is really fortress-like unconnected developments, which also appear in urban form as overscaled block+ monoliths. The Metreon in San Francisco is a good example, or the ugly “italianate” Geoff Palmer apartment blocks around downtown Los Angeles.

New comment by tafda in "The hottest trend in U.S. cities? Changing zoning rules to allow more housing"

tafda — Sun, 18 Feb 2024 17:18:12 +0000

To prevent a tragedy of the commons in street parking spaces, Japan has an excellent system, the shako shomeisho, though looking at how hard it's been to push through a congestion tax in lower Manhattan, I doubt it'd be politically viable anywhere in the US:

"Under the regulation in Japan... all private owned automobile must have a specific parking space. Parking by the roadside is prohibited. The width and length of the space should be sufficient for your vehicle and must be within 2 km from your registered residence address."

https://www.driveinjapan.com/parking/

https://www.parkingreformatlas.org/parking-reform-cases-1/ja...

New comment by tafda in "Expensive fridges are dying, leading to fraud claims"

tafda — Mon, 22 Jan 2024 23:19:19 +0000

The condenser unit on my Miele heat pump clothes dryer just went out after less than two and a half years. It's a $1500 out of warranty repair on a $2K dryer, and the part will take a month to arrive.

Could be bad luck, though I see a fair number of similar complaints online. I wouldn't buy again.

New comment by tafda in "Half of high school seniors won't apply to colleges costing more than $40k"

tafda — Sun, 31 Dec 2023 23:47:24 +0000

Berkeley’s Hearst Gym at Bancroft & Bowditch

https://www.nollandtam.com/portfolio/hearst-gymnasium-pool

New comment by tafda in "Airlines will make $118B in extra fees"

tafda — Mon, 20 Nov 2023 23:42:51 +0000

Medical evacuation (unrelated to method of travel) is specifically one of the benefits of an Amex Platinum card, as long as you’re more than 100 miles from your address. Maybe worth $700/year, maybe not.

See: https://www.americanexpress.com/us/credit-cards/features-ben...

If Every Brand Is Funny Online, Is Anything Funny?

tafda — Tue, 10 Oct 2023 16:44:17 +0000

Article URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/10/business/media/brands-social-media-tiktok-twitter.html

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37834421

Points: 20

# Comments: 30

New comment by tafda in "America does not have a good food culture"

tafda — Sun, 01 Oct 2023 14:48:00 +0000

" In a recent survey of French restaurants, more than a third fessed up that they serve industrially prepared, and often frozen, food. Fast-food outlets, mind you, weren't even included in that poll, which was conducted by Synhorcat, a French restaurant trade group. "

https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2013/07/08/200106073/fr...

New comment by tafda in "America does not have a good food culture"

tafda — Sun, 01 Oct 2023 06:18:48 +0000

Sure, good example of that is r 3.4 out of 5 on the Japanese restaurant review site Tabelog is miles better as a signal of good food than any number of 5 star yelp reviews in the US.

My larger point was that LA and NYC (and specific communities in other cities —SF, Houston, etc) have a subculture that celebrates true renditions of various cuisines as cooked by an self-sustaining immigrant community large enough to not require external validation by Americans lacking in food culture to stay in business. You have to get lucky in most of the rest of the states.

New comment by tafda in "America does not have a good food culture"

tafda — Sun, 01 Oct 2023 05:40:35 +0000

You need a immigrant community large enough to be cooking for their own palate. Los Angeles, for example, has a population of ~30K Thai, ~180K Japanese, and ~5M Mexican origin (numbers from Pew).

Plenty of options in LA for northern, Isaan, central and southern Thai between Western Ave and Thai Town, and pretty good ramen, soba, and sushi in Sawtelle, Little Tokyo or Torrance. Perhaps not best in the world, but not at all catering to American tastes and could rank above average in the origin country.

New comment by tafda in "Why Ugly Architecture Is Bad for Your Health"

tafda — Sat, 16 Sep 2023 17:49:57 +0000

I don’t agree with the article and its definitions, it seems poorly sourced and to be advocating for English towns as the apex of civilization. That said, the photos provided and the descriptions focus more on the style of the buildings than urban form: “monotonous straight lines of modernist architecture” vs “historical architecture such as ‘Church’, ‘Castle’, ‘Tower’ and ‘Cottage’ made places look more attractive and get better ratings for their beauty.”

Typical Tokyo streetscape is heavy on modern blocky buildings, like this: https://sanpoo.jp/upload/yutenji-sanpo/yutenji_106.jpg