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One of the authors, Tanya Leise of UMass Amherst, passed away a few weeks ago. https://amherststudent.com/article/students-mourn-the-loss-o...



Always found it cool that the lab established by Howard Hughes is still quite competitive and does some very cool work.


Interesting point, was not familiar with the Org mentioned above. But am tangentially familiar with HHMI and Janelia research campus. Time to go read up on Howard Hughes


What do you know about the caste system? Do you similarly police posts that say, “he grew up on a nobleman’s estate in England,” or “grew up on a farm in Alabama,” just because those are associated with historical oppression?

This smearing of Hindus and Indians with accusations about caste are ridiculous and par for the course on HN where Indo-phobia is pretty commonplace (see any discussion of US work visas, for example).


This is an ignorant generalization. Not sure if it is worth writing a rebuttal to a generalization that relies on one guy from 1000+ years ago.


On the contrary, the bookshop situation in Bengaluru is exceptional!

The old book shops have been disrupted. Sapna is one that has adapted well, with a publishing house, decent web-presence, and has grown too.

For the best technical books, you now go to Tata Book House (may be others, I am unaware of). Novels, and such, Blossom's on Church Street is one of the best. Then there are cafe-bookshop types like Crossword, etc.

Kannada and other language book stores are also thriving.


Ok thanks, I’ll try those you have suggested :)


In 1999 on MG Road, it was more likely a roadside vendor with pirated books, Higginbotham, or unlikely, Gangarams. Blossom’s (Church St) wasn’t yet open IIRC.

Late 90s and early 2000s, I recall that Intel Inside, Lee Iacocca’s book, Who Moved my Cheese, Seven Habits of Highly Successful People, Jack Welch’s book, etc were commonly sold, in addition to the latest novels. I even remember buying Sylvia Nasar’s A Beautiful Mind (was popular because of the movie then) from a roadside vendor.


wow, I'm just too young to have experienced all this :(


In India, Google search for a pretty specific string, "<nearest hospital's name> ambulance phone number," showed up a bunch of scammy ads. In our distraught state (an elderly relative had just had a fall), we accidentally called the top ad which turned out to be a scam ambulance service.

A beat up van showed up, without any EMT, a sketchy stretcher without straps, and no tracks or fasteners to hold it down inside the van. We were outraged and asked them to leave immediately. They demanded money to leave, and left only when we threatened to call the police on them.

We realized our mistake and scrolled down to the actual results and called the reputed local hospital which sent a properly equipped legit ambulance. Thankfully it was a simple fracture and the lost time did not lead to dangerous complications. But this could have been fatal if the emergency was more serious.

When I returned to the US, I tried searching for ambulances, and Google conspicuously avoids showing ads and suggests calling 9-1-1.


Sounds like India needs a single number for all emergency services instead of the fractured system they have now.


I believe 112 is already the single emergency number. It appears to be a relatively recent thing though.


Tbh, I (and most Indians) don't know how 112 works.

In the US, if you dial 9-1-1 for a medical emergency, in most regions, it is highly likely that an ambulance with EMT/paramedics will arrive in < 10 min.

In my city of Bengaluru, there are, no exaggeration, good hospitals within 2-5 km of any point in the city. Most of these hospitals have ambulance fleets that can get to you fast, within 10-15 minutes. Anecdotally, people prefer calling these hospitals directly for ambulance.

Caveat: I am not recommending hospital ambulances over 112, but just saying that I am not aware of 1-1-2 response time and effectiveness.


That’s totally understandable, I learnt the 100-101-102 numbers I think in school and wasn’t well aware of 112. Thoughtful if I’m not mistaken calling even 911 will redirect you correctly.

> In my city of Bengaluru, there are, no exaggeration, good hospitals within 2-5 km of any point in the city. Most of these hospitals have ambulance fleets that can get to you fast, within 10-15 minutes. Anecdotally, people prefer calling these hospitals directly for ambulance.

Oh yeah certainly, it’s similar here in Mumbai. Having said that fortunately we’ve never had to call one in an emergency.


It also sounds like Google knows to do the right thing when the country government they operate in force them to.


Maybe. But it's easier to say "dial 911" when a country has 911. If India doesn't have something like 911, what is google supposed to recommend? Call 0118 999 881 999 119 725 3!


I don't know, google maps seems to find the phone numbers for places pretty easily. Why is search any different?


Advertisers pay and it's reasonable from financial perspective for Google to turn a blind eye before any complaints.

Their main business is ads, not search.


I guess it's too bad that having a purely financial perspective just isn't reasonable in most cases. I don't understand why people think that's a good excuse to harm and endanger lives, what a wild take


They find phone numbers for places if you are specific enough. If you search, phone number for restaurant, you get a list of restaurants. Google isn't employing someone to curate that list.

Actually, if I google "phone number ambulance" in America, I get a bunch of random ambulance companies and not 911.

If I just google "ambulance" I get stuff about the recent movie.


Thanks, that jingle will be in my head all day...!


Not sure why there no direct replies to this, but 108 is a dedicated line for all emergencies. Interestingly 112 and 911 have also worked for me in the past when butt dialed.


Cell networks have a special "call emergency" code, which doesn't actually call a number at all; phones are required by the (ETSI) standard to translate dialling 112 into the call emergency code, and also to translate the national emergency number in the country they are in. Mostly, they solve this by treating 911 and 999 as the emergency number everywhere.

This is so the cell network can prioritise emergency calls and also will allow them to be made even when other calls are blocked (e.g. if you have no credit, or you only have signal on another network, or even if your phone is blocked by IMEI because it was reported stolen).

Landlines are different, they do treat emergency calls as a call to the emergency number and whether they will reroute another country's emergency number to the one where you are will depend on the specific exchange you are connected to (e.g. in the UK, 999 will work on all landlines; 112 on almost all except the oldest analogue exchanges and 911 on most but missing some older exchanges).


That's a lot of work&time. Until then Google should not allow bullshit advertising.


Yes, because the US and other nations invested in a standarized system with 91 (112 here), in a corrupt nation that wont happen.


New business idea: Mug the fake ambulance drivers.


Long pepper is an exceptional expectorant. Add it to soups when you have sniffles. In fact, in South India long pepper is used more for folk cures for colds and such than as a culinary ingredient.


Even black pepper is good. Drink tea with black pepper. If you have a lot of cough with phlegm, just chew 10-12 black pepper seeds (peppercorns?) - of course it’s hot but it clears up the phlegm quickly.


I am surprised that there is no skepticism here about the cremation numbers.

1. Crematoriums usually have enough capacity to deal with average death rates. Anything above that and it starts to look horrific.

2. What is the definition of "covid protocol" for cremation? Does it mean the patient had covid? I don't see this clearly stated any where.

3. There might be a delay between the two numbers with crematorium numbers being more current. This also contributes to the "10x".

The numbers are bad enough even without unscientific exaggerations.

I am open-minded about this FT article's claims being accurate, but there


Well, science is all about observations, the idea of people being forced into adhoc cremations on the street is quite an observation.


Is it due to space capacity or labor capacity?


Being India, it almost certainly isn't a labor capacity.


That is an really interesting question - if it's labour capacity then maybe there's a conflation due to cross infection.


This is not true because it is a multi-agent problem. There is not just one professor, but there is a competitive pool of professors working in different areas. In some highly productive (or otherwise "hot") areas, some profs place every student in faculty positions. In some areas, this number is almost zero. So it is a competitive field.

The problem of pyramid-scheme, etc. occurs when people don't realize this and enter academia with an expectation of entering the tenure track. I find biomedical academia to be the principal culprit in this academic Ponzi scheme. They require high skilled labor, which they procure in the form of underpaid grad students and permanent post docs. Only a small minority of biomedical faculty care about their students entering the tenure track.

The other set of fields that are bad for post-PhD careers is liberal arts. Mainly because colleges started lots of liberal arts departments to boost enrollment and inflate grades. So the demand is artificial.

On the other extreme is b-school and econ PhDs who almost all enter academia.

Other hard sciences (physics, chemistry, etc.) fall in the middle: it is a struggle, but people end up landing well after PhD. Physics folks get finance, developer, etc. jobs. Chemistry folks are usually absorbed into pharma/chem companies.

Math and engineering academia works pretty well too: almost all engineering PhDs get good R&D/developer jobs that are reasonably high status and pay well. I don't know any super-star PhD in engineering who didn't get a reasonable academic position.

The defense industry is another big employer of math, engineering, and sciences PhDs.


some profs place every student in faculty positions. In some areas, this number is almost zero.

This does not contradict the GP. In field that are stable, the average number of new professors per old professor is 1.


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