llsf

Did you find any occurrences of hidden cameras ?

I had wondered time to time, as a guest, but also as a host (if guest left devices after).

That is fascinating! It would be wild if AI can help make progress in molecular engineering... we could create those micro machines to fix, repair, heal human body.

Very interesting to see the progress in that field.

Maybe out of reach for Joe Public, but a clear identified target for states.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-confirms-weapons-in-space-ch...

Thanks! I don't think I would need to do max hour per day.

I understand, and I could make it clear in the description that AC is capped at 18 degres C minimum (65F), so people who like it very cold could skip my airbnb.

Some AC can go ridiculously low (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/3144803.stm). I do not want to change the temperature remotely, I just want to not have the AC used to extremely cold temperature. I am fine to advertise it to weed of people who like it very cold.

Does anyone know if this could be used to "cap" the AC settings ? It could be useful in an airbnb place, where I want to limit the lowest (e.g. 18 degres Celsius) or hottest (e.g. 22 degres Celsius) the guest can set the AC.

Any good reasons, why not do our first edits around the place you live ? Privacy issue ?

And it is at a smaller scale in the Alpes than in Himalayas. Still devastating:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YisdT5AJobk

France is actively draining some of those glacier lakes to prevent them to build up over time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3B-xmvYe11U

You might be onto something. Maybe the lack of central planning in US, and most reliance on private developers, prevents the introduction of denser housing.

Not to go full Hausmann (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haussmann's_renovation_of_Pari...) and eminent-domain the half of the city and rebuild a 1/5 of the city in higher density buildings, in 15 years. But we could ramp it up and start with the low hanging fruits, with empty buildings, parking lots, gas stations, etc. Show results. Show the building owners that they could building higher on their lot, do the math for them, stream line the permitting, help with financing.

Here is also pace to consider. We are biological creatures, and we only support change at a certain pace, without going fully stressed.

- more traffic: compare to now? or pre-COVID? because now it is already lower than pre-COVID, at least in SF. I have lived here for more than 20 years, and only now I see seeing empty parking spots around my house. I would never see this 10 years ago. So, if we double the population, yes there would be some additional traffic. But how would it compare to 10 years ago ?

- more noise: From traffic? electrification is making transportation quieter than before. From people in the streets? again the streets are way less busy compare to pre-COVID at least in SF. People either do not work, or work from home, get delivered everything from movies (Netflix), to food (UberEats) or shopping (Amazon), etc. foot traffic is WAY lower than pre-COVID. So if we double the population, yes there would be some additional foot traffic. But how would it compare to 10 years ago ?

- more pollution: From traffic? electrification is offsetting some of it. From trash, well those people were trashing elsewhere too.

- more anonymity, crime: That is cultural. Tokyo is fairly dense city, and with fairly low crime compare to US standards.

"The people who benefit most from higher density tend to be young professionals": Go visit a major city in Europe (Paris, Barcelona, etc) that has high density, and you would see lots of different generations, not only young professionals. It is possible to live from cradle to grave in those cities. It does not have to transition spot when you are young, professional and looking at dating. It could be where you go to kindergarten, up to university, work and retire.

I feel like the main thing that NIMBY fear is change, any change. Hausmann, where are you ?

San Francisco has few (French JC Decaux) public toilets (pit stop, etc.), but some are inside other public properties that are not open 24/7 (e.g. rec centers). https://data.sfgov.org/City-Infrastructure/Map-of-Public-Bat...

Similarly, free public bath/shower disappeared in SF. Some wealthy person (forgot his name) built some free public showers in the 1900, but they eventually got all closed. Paris still have about ~20 free public bath/shower running. Wondering if we should also bring those back. This is a basic human need (after restrooms and food).

Oh memories of stacking those, and going to my friend's place to copy the latest games :) Remember how we were drilling holes to doubled the disk's storage capacity (from 720 to 1440) https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=47247

Before the floppy disks we were using cassettes... with our TO7 (circa 1983). It was slow by our current measure, but as kids we had time, I guess. The TO7 had even a lightpen to point at the CRC screen. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomson_TO7

My parents attic has still some of my old floppy disks, and even maybe some cassettes.

No need for maggots, I cannot get unpasteurized cheese of less than 60 days old here in US. So, you cannot have a real raclette here in US because authentic Reblochon cheese is illegal to import to the US because it is not aged long enough. Sure, you can an older Reblochon cheese, but it does not taste the same.

The most basic ingredients in food are not the same in US. For instance, sugar, flour even butter are different in US from Europe. So yes, you would have to import those ingredients (flour, butter, etc.). If you want to get close to the "authentic/original" food you try to replicate here.

I believe that us, Americans are pretty good at bending international food to our limited ingredients, our own favorite chemicals, sweeteners (corn syrup in everything), our flour and butter (good luck to make pastries like in Europe, with our poor flour and butter).

So I get it when Italians get offended by our poor rendering of carbonara... and feel that what we get here is off.

Around 2015, I was working for a company that processed coupons for large retail stores. We had lots of performance issues, mostly due to our centralized database at the time.

I was dreaming at the time to ship a mobile phone at every large store (e.g. Target) to process the data in-situ. It could hold its own database (partitioned for the tenant), it would have its own UPS (battery), and have enough CPU power to serve the POS requests of one store, even the largest ones.

A mobile phone would be our on-prem server.

The OS that would be put on those old phones, would be a bare minimal, stripped down OS. No need for managing screen, audio, radio/GSM/EDGE/3-4-5G.

Not sure about the IO interface, could reuse the USB, but maybe there is some internal (and standard enough) bus to reuse too...

Thinking more on those 10% cap, it would allow scalpers to sell the original ticket to themselves, over and over, to eventually reach the price of the market.

Unless Ticketmaster takes a significant proportional bite at every resell, nothing prevents scalpers to triple the price of the original ticket, but reselling in a loop.

I think that is the right way to give the enough price control to the artists. So, if The Cure wants to keep the ticket price low, they can.

Maybe that is what we need in US too.

Matt Haney is trying to do something with AB 1720 (Resale Price Cap), and Ticketmaster is supporting it. https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml...

I am not sure why a bill would set some magic and arbitrary percentage other than 0%. This has likely be negotiated with the industry.

Agree... and not defending Ticketmaster, but regarding scalpers in general, I am not sure why one would blame only the ticketing system.

If the artists are willing to say sell tickets for $50.00 and the demand is such that some resell to $400.00 the same seat. Is it the fault of the ticketing system ? Who is the victim ? - The artist who could have make more money (but then they could have price it better) - The fans who are basically competing to see that show ?

Scalpers are optimizing the market.

Maybe the solution to mitigate scalpers would be for ticket holders to only be able to resell their tickets through the same platform. Then the artist could decide if the fans can resell to the platform at face value, or for a profit. Then the artist could decide if the ticket can be sold by the platform with a markup or not.

Basically given the power and control to the artist.

There are lots of often overlooked costs to own a home. I have been 15 years in my place, and now I get some advantages e.g. my loan is fixed so the monthly cost is roughly the same as 15 years ago... in a place like San Francisco, it is nice.

The property tax goes up slightly every year, but not faster than inflation.

There are recurring things to maintain (repaint every ~10 years), the roof has been patched about 10 years ago, might need a new coat eventually.

THANK YOU!

This is a treasure trove. And glad you made the whole museum downloadable, so this treasure does not get lost.

I agree... in early 2000, at Colombo (Sri Lanka) airport, they were calling my name, over and over, but never picked it up. I started to pay attention when some dispatched army guys (it was after the 2001 Tamil Tigers attack at the airport) were screening everyone at the airport asking for my name... ops sorry.

Commercial satellites can get 30cm resolution images (military satellites can likely get even more high resolution).

The earth is vast, but once you pinpoint a carrier, a simple software loop should be able to track it for ever (those carrier do not move fast).

I cannot imagine this being remotely difficult for a state to have a constant pin on every large carriers sailing on earth. There even might be some civilian apps for that too.

But again, Strava and other connected + geolocation apps have been an issue for military personnel in general.

Tracking an aircraft carrier should not be difficult for any state (satellite images). The fact that civilians can do it too now is interesting.

It would be another matter if that was tracking a nuclear submarine...

You mean the thing that launched in 2023 and that is still not widely deployed ?

My BoA still prints checks and mail them to the US Bank across the street when I have to pay my HOA. So yes, why not FedNow... BoA and USBank ?

In US also... but here in US, my bank (Bank of America) would print a check, put it in an envelop, send it to the other bank (e.g. US Bank). So, it is not instantaneous, but it is still free.

The drawback is when the US Bank office down the street that hosts the account closed for water damage, it stopped receiving the checks, and it took forever to bounce, so I had no idea that I was not paying my HOA... And this happened in San Francisco, California where the Bank of America and the US Bank are on the same street, a block away...

I cannot wait for FedNow or anything trying to fix this mess.

Well the cap is only on the interchange fee, there are several other fees to add to it... example: https://www.adyen.com/pricing

Processing a Mastercard card is "$0.13 + "Interchange+" + 0.60%" where the "Interchange+" would be 0.30% for EU. So more like €0.10 + 0.90% so for €10.00 product, it would be €1 of fee (1.00%). Much less than here in US, but still not negligible for small businesses that run on thin margins (and 20% VAT).

the "2% cash reward" and "miles" etc. is common here in US because our cards charge the merchants already a lot. So sure we all overpay everything in US because of the credit cards, but we get a small piece back.

Now, would it be nice to not overpay at the first place. Technically we could re-implement the whole thing (instant payout, fraud detection, etc.) like Brazil or India did. It would bring more than $100B back to the US consumers every year, that could be spent elsewhere.

Same holding on the 13 mini, love the form factor.