Recent submissions

Comment · 6 years ago
Treat Facebook like both and apply all the telco and content regulations to them.

One of the key principles in telco regulation is ensuring any-to-any connectivity. It is now established in most jurisdictions that telcos have a monopoly over connecting to their end-customers (i.e. the only was to call a T-mobile customer is for T-mobile to accept the call into their network). Hence regulators not only mandate interconnection, but require it to be done on fair terms and conditions, including a fair wholesale price, which is often set by the regulator.

Comment · 6 years ago
Or like a lot of GPs, she just prescribes whatever medication is top of mind after the last visit from the friendly pharma sales rep.
Comment · 7 years ago
The author has extrapolated their experience in (at most) a handful of airports to the general case.

One of the first projects I was given as a junior engineer was to measure signal strengths of our and competitor mobile networks at the local airport. This was pre September 11, but I was still amazed at the access we got carrying a signal analyser and just flashing our employee badges got us.

For inbound roaming users, absent particular partner network preferences (which were less common back then), the mobile device would select the local network to use based on relative signal strengths when turned on. Capturing those inbound roaming fees was a high priority for the product managers and hence a lot of effort and infrastructure investment went into this.

Comment · 7 years ago
I went through this fairly early in my career. I think the career impact is more severe than a mother taking maternity leave (and without the legal protections). Apart from explaining the gap in employment, there is a disruption to the career momentum that is near impossible to regain.
Comment · 7 years ago
I'll stick with a Torrens Title system over a digitised version of the old chain of title approach.
Comment · 7 years ago
Comment · 7 years ago
I feel that what is currently brewing is a form of social cults, or if you prefer softer phrasing, cultural tribes. With a very strong feedback control loop deriving from social networking.

Aspects we can see emerging (and mentioned in the article) include: submission to and no questioning of the leadership/apostles; there being only one absolute truth; a persecution complex; control of actions through indoctrination and isolation; group think; and cognitive dissonance.

Comment · 7 years ago
The telecoms research company I used to work for has decided to get into the business of writing "white papers" for Huawei that are not far removed from this piece of "tech journalism".

Good for short term revenues, but not good for long term reputation. Part of the reason I am no longer working there.

Comment · 7 years ago
It's a solved issue, in that the cell company "simply" has to spend enough on infrastructure to cover the desired area.

Justifying the business case to cover the low value (i.e. few customers) areas is another story. However, even here, it might be possible to justify it if the rest of the customer base sufficiently values wide coverage to pay a premium. Particularly if the competitors don't have the same level of coverage.

Comment · 7 years ago
From the article, it sounds like the surgeons are already well aware of the risk from improper cleaning, but don't care enough to push for a systemic solution, instead relying on "workarounds" when it is their own family member under the knife.

> Except when an important person or a doctor’s family member is on the table, that is. “They call and say, ‘Dr. Jones’ wife is having surgery,’”

Comment · 7 years ago
We are moving towards a state where technology will allow us to punish every infraction every time, automatically and at low marginal processing cost. I expect that rebalancing the punishments to match the new likelihood of getting caught will lag by at least 5-10 years, causing greater social problems in the interim.
Comment · 7 years ago
This should be solved using public sector housing. Which you can think of as similar to rent control as discussed in the article, except the subsidy is made visible and direct through the tax payer funding, rather than through being obscured.

This also gives better public control of who receives the subsidised housing, usually a combination of needs assessment to qualify and then a queue system.

The important thing we have learned from the 70s/80s (different timing in different countries) is to spread the public housing throughout the community, rather than concentrate it into a single location. That is, rather than have a large apartment building that is purely public housing, have a requirement that a certain percentage of properties of every new development will be made available as government subsidised public housing.

Comment · 7 years ago
This is exactly the problem.

Imagine if every single law on the books is enforced 100% of the time. No leeway, no margin for discretion.

Comment · 7 years ago
Being a doctor also carries much greater social respect (partially linked to the pay aspect). I expect this social respect gap has eroded in SV, but is still very significant in the remainder of the world.

I started in medicine when I went to university (parent pressure), but swapped to a computer science/engineering combination from the second year. The impact on my dating prospects at that time was very significant.

Comment · 7 years ago

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