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> Around iPhone 5 Apple started to put up additional $100 USD to ALL iPhone price in HK, as a way to combat the black market trading,

This post is informative, but can I suggest that we not adopt the "black market" nomenclature for cases where people buy hardware in one location, and then re-sell it?

Companies like Apple may brand this a "black market", but that implies that companies have a right to perform perfect price discrimination across the world.

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

I suggest we reserve the phrase "black market" for cases where contraband is being exchanged, or for cases where items were obtained through crime (e.g. the sale of stolen goods).


I would say "black market" is fair if any part of obtaining and reselling the device is illegal. For example, in the early 80s there were US tariffs on RAM chips from Japan, if I recall correctly (I might have the country wrong). But some companies found they could buy in Japan, move them to another country, and then import them into the US via this other country without the tariff. It was illegal because they were still manufactured in Japan. When the government found out, those importers got in trouble. I would count those as black market since they were being brought into the country illegally.

Is that the case we're talking about here? Buy in HK with no taxes, then sell in another country without paying the taxes? If so, that still sounds "black market" to me. I'd think you'd have to pay the taxes in the country of sale regardless of where you obtained the device. If that's not what we're talking about, then I agree it's probably not fair to label them "black market."


Something makes me think they'll notice all the parens during a code review...


Write a reader macro that treats all [ ], { } and < > as if they were ( ), and the only thing they'll notice is that there's less parens/brackets than there should be in regular Java code...


There have been efforts to do something similar to create more "readable" S-expressions. I did work in Common Lisp for a number of years and didn't have any issues with the syntax but I rather like this idea:

http://readable.sourceforge.net/


The 23 words from the PNAS paper (Table 1):

  Thou
  I
  Not
  That
  We
  To give
  Who
  This
  What
  Man/male
  Ye
  Old
  Mother
  To hear
  Hand
  Fire
  To Pull
  Black
  To flow
  Bark
  Ashes
  To spit
  Worm
http://www.pnas.org/content/110/21/8471/T1.expansion.html


I wonder how many of those would survive multiple hypothesis testing. That is, there are bound to be a number of phonetically similar words that happen to have similar meanings in two different languages. They may not however have common historical roots.


No idea if this list will stand the test of time, but I tried making some minimal ultra-conserved sentences using all of the words. Lots of pronouns, plus some very specific and limited sets of nouns and verbs make it a fun challenge. [Unlisted words bracketed.]

1) "Hear ye! I, [a] man who[se] hand gives this fire [to] bark. What black ashes! Not thou old mother, that pulls the worm and spits. We flow."

2) "We, man [and] old mother, hand-pull black bark. Worm that spits fire, not ashes, flows. This, what I give ye, thou who hear."

3) "Black, old, male mother pulls worm, not spits fire [or] ashes. I give thou who hear what flows [to] ye."


No need to be coy -- what is the university you're talking about?


What's happening in one place is probably happening in more than one place... so everywhere.


I didn't call them out because they aren't doing anything unusual.

Drive around any town. The colleges and hospitals are wrapping up an orgy of construction in most places. The root causes are very similar


I can see it now.

  How many microservices are needed for a CMS webapp?

  a.  17
  b.  34 
  c.  When you do service discovery properly, you don't need to count.


I think I see where you are going, but in the sample quiz the questions all relate to the article, and are very factual: Not "how many micro services are needed?", but "how many micro services does the author think is needed?"


a. "it depends" b. "it doesn't matter the author is WRONG" c. it's better to do it in <approach of the month>


d. N where N is >= 1 and less than 1e9.



One source that really helped me learn advanced git are the extended manual pages here:

https://git-man-page-generator.lokaltog.net/

It describes advanced features like `git-govern-origin` and `git-organize-head` [0].

[0]. https://git-man-page-generator.lokaltog.net/#26463b871524ca4...


In general, USPS does have the infrastructure to do this: Managed Service Points are barcodes placed on mailboxes that can be scanned by the carrier, to establish when he/she reaches certain checkpoints.

https://about.usps.com/strategic-planning/cs02/2f3.htm

It's a more modern version of the mechanical "watchclocks" installed in buildings to ensure that guards make their appointed rounds. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guard_tour_patrol_system https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchclock

I have no idea how regularly USPS examines or audits their MSP data.


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