Here in the Netherlands the bus companies are required to buy by tender which has led to the purchase of lots of cheap Byd busses.
While they are fast enough and silent they are not that great: there are software problems, heaters don't work, doors won't close and the seats are so bad the (already scarce) drivers are getting back problems.
As a general rule, in transport fleets, unless the old thing is actually basically at the point where it needs to be scrapped right now, the new thing always has more downtime than the old thing, because the old thing has had its kinks ironed out, and the maintainers are used to maintaining it.
Of course, the trouble is, sometimes the new thing is just bad. A commuter/metro train system in my city operates mostly on 40 year old rolling stock. In 2000, some new trainsets were introduced, from two different manufacturers. One model never really worked properly, and was scrapped in 2008; the other survived. The whole thing is now due to be replaced with shiny new trains, starting this year... hopefully these ones work.
Yup (the scrapped Alstom DARTs). But it happens everywhere; for a start we weren't the only users of that problematic Alstom model. You see a lot of old train rolling stock around, but there's a hell of a survivorship bias; a really alarming number of train models last less than a decade in service in any given operator.
You'd _think_ this wouldn't happen, because reliability is absolutely the number one thing that operators care about, and they're usually willing to pay a premium to get it (the alternative being to pay to keep their reliable 40 year old units in service). But the industry's surprisingly bad at delivering it.
Was about to say this. Though less useful, because Partiful doesn't require an app so can be used by anyone.
I wonder how much the network effect may be leveraged for apps like these, to the benefit or detriment of apps like Partiful in comparison with Invites.
I know Facebook's last useful feature appears to be events in many circles.
Jews have a higher proportion of very smart people than other ethnicities. It's something that is "complicated" to talk about (we don't like all the implications of such a possibility), but it's pretty much indisputable.
You dont need intelligence to have a startup that succeeds. I bet that within this thread, there are users who have ideas that can become mutltimillion companies. All it would take is someone who knows how to navigate the business space to set up funding and talk to the right people in the right way to make sales.
Success in startup space is more about motivation in terms of pushing harder than others, and support system that gives you a higher chance to make correct decisions.
> You dont need intelligence to have a startup that succeeds
Not necessarily genius-level but being smart I'm sure helps. You might not need it, in the sense that there certainly are counter-examples, but yeah, on the big numbers it's pretty obvious that it's an advantage.
Usually it's the far left that use the oppressor/oppressed way of thinking to demonize their enemies. But when it comes to Jews, Nazis and many other extreme right wingers do the same.
Hitler saw the Jews as an existential threat, not as objectively inferior to "Aryans". In fact, this is why he hated them so much above anyone else; he thought that they were the only "Race" that had the potential to out-compete his "Aryans".
> Hitler saw the Jews ... not as objectively inferior to "Aryans". ... he thought that they were the only "Race" that had the potential to out-compete his "Aryans"
We're veering terribly off topic, but I'm pretty sure this is not historically true.
Frankly, when you start attributing racial attributes to me - even positive ones - and telling me you got these ideas reading Mein Kampf, I get very, very wary.
I understand what you mean, and this is one of the many reasons we all feign great surprise at this news and others. However, an undesirable or uncomfortable reality doesn't make it any less real.
And, even if you take the popular position that objectively extraordinary Jewish achievements are all due to education- see for example here: [1] - the bottom line doesn't change- there are more higher achievers in the Jewish population.
Nitpick: note that I'm not attributing anything to you, that would surely be racist. Every individual is different and needs to be judged on his or her own merits. Also, the Mein Kampf guy is the other one :)
Interesting link. I specifically noticed this part:
And the argument could be made that this is nothing to do with genes but instead a response to handicaps placed on our people since time immemorial by those who want us to fail.
This is interesting, because it's precisely such handicaps that could explain a genetic component to Jewish performance. And the Ashkenazi in particular.
If a population is banned, for hundreds of years, from owning land and working as farmers, that creates a very significant selection pressure for finding other ways to survive. Those not able to do so either died off or converted to Christianity.
And it just happened to be that most other livelihoods available to them required more mental capacity than farming.
Also, as you say, this is at the population level. It's perfectly possible for Jews to have average or below intelligence. It's simply a lot more likely for an Ashkenazi Jew to have an IQ of 160 than for other Europeans (or other Jewish groups).
Grass is faster, meaning for any given shot over the net you have less time to respond. This encourages attacking behaviour.
Clay is slower, meaning even off fast, angled, difficult-to-reach shots the ball bounces higher and slower, meaning you have time to get to it, thus prolonging rallies and points.
But beyond that, it's not just that players choose to play more aggressive on grass - a given shot is more aggressive on grass.
This is why the serve is more powerful on grass - you open the point with a powerful shot, and on grass that's harder to return.
Note Rafa has also won wimbeldon on grass, against Federer at his unbelievable peak (in the midst of winning it 8 times), in 5 sets, in the final, finishing in the dark. And won again 2 years later to put those trophies with his 14 French Open titles.
Anyone working in this field is likely to be aware how woeful current actuators and power sources can be in a machine designed solely for one purpose, let alone how they might be in a machine designed for every single purpose.
