wyred's comments

wyred | 11 years ago | on: Real-time lightning map, worldwide

I would guess they have devices that detect light and sound. When the device detects a flash, it will start a timer and wait for the sound, which ends the timer.

Then based on the speed of sound, they can estimate the distance of the strike.

With many of these devices all over the place recording the data, using math, they can pinpoint the location of where the strike was.

wyred | 13 years ago | on: I am depressed ...

You're giving up too easily.

If someone has already implemented your idea and built a business around it, analyze their business and see if you can provide something even better (it's also a good learning process anyway).

There's no rule stating you can't challenge them for a share of the market (or is there?).

wyred | 14 years ago | on: Ask HN: Money management

I'm from Singapore so some of the points below may not apply to you but here's what I do in case it helps.

I bought an iOS app which I use to track my income and expenses. This doesn't help me save money except track how much I've spent on my credit cards so I don't overspend and will have enough money to pay back the banks at the end of every month and not incur any interest.

Credit cards are useful for getting discounts on things. I get a 5% discount when I shop for groceries at a particular store. When the annual fee comes, I call up the bank and ask for a waiver. They usually agree to waive it off.

I have 2 bank accounts. One which is where I use for spending on everyday needs and depositing my salary. The second one is for savings. I setup my first bank account to automatically transfer $500 every month to this savings account. This recurring transfer is also setup on the iOS app I mentioned earlier.

On google docs, I noted down what my regular expenses are, like transport, food, household bills. So I know how much extra I will have after those.

Don't be tricked by discounts that tell you how much you save if you buy that product. You save more money not buying it. It's different if the product is a daily neccessity or you think will be beneficial.

If I were you, I'd build up a substantial amount of savings first before investing. An amount that will allow me to go jobless for a few months.

Or allow me to do things that's beneficial to myself in the long run such as buying a camera to learn about photography. It's what they call "investing in yourself"

wyred | 14 years ago | on: Dropping Prices Again-- EC2, RDS, EMR and ElastiCache

Probably not for the Asia Pacific Singapore region.

Few months ago, the on demand hourly price for a small instance is 0.085, now it's 0.09.

There's definitely a significant decrease for reserved small instances.

Edit: Reserved micro instances also went up.

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