How to live free, do everything you want and insure you’ll never, ever be happy. | Hacker News Reader

How to live free, do everything you want and insure you’ll never, ever be happy.

rym.waglo.com

28 pointsdhotson19 comments

I never knew insurance companies took on this kind of risk.

Indeed, the title of the original post ensured that someone would point out that bit of misspelling. One does not insure against certainty.

It's not misspelled. Look it up.

http://www.google.com/dictionary?langpair=en|en&q=insure

http://www.google.com/dictionary?langpair=en|en&q=ensure

Historically, they are interchangeable. Insure has come to mean primarily insurance, particularly in the UK, though the first definition given in the OED is still "to make a person sure of a thing" (marked obsolete), but I still see insure with that meaning regularly from Americans.

I like this quote:

http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/assure.html

"Other authorities, however, consider “ensure” and “insure” interchangeable. To please conservatives, make the distinction."

Looks like the Grammar Nazis have won, when we're giving writing advice intended purely to avoid their wrath.

OED ref, though I don't think that's a public link if you're not on a campus with a licence:

http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/50118480?single=1&qu...

It's not being a grammar nazi to point out that something is not misspelled.

Note definition 3. See also ensure.

Gawd. Do you guys read before you vote?

You can vote me down all you want, it's still not misspelled. Or are you planning on voting down English dictionaries as well?

I saw 3000 visits on my post this morning, I thought, wow, lots of spambots last night. But then I notice it was posted here. Fixed the spelling mistake, I usually check for that but sometimes one slips. English is not my primary language. Thanks for your comments.

I fail to see any coherency in these points. Can someone enlighten me as to what unites them?

Most are a portrait of a certain kind of person that one wants to avoid (and especially, avoid being).

Avoid being honest? And what does that have to do with his price point comment? You can be honest and still charge someone more than something costs... I'd say it's almost dishonest not to. It's called charging for your time/work,etc?

This is a fairly pointless post, just a collection of snarky one-liners without much insight. Less of this on HN please.

Wow... I also don't understand why these traits (cognitive biases?) fit together, but somehow they feel like a coherent archetype. Surprisingly insightful.

How is this post voted to the top in HN?. Beats me.

Wear out the reload button on your browser. -what does this mean?

Okay, when reading various blogs (or checking facebook) I always get nervous that the page's owner will analyze the logs and call me out on just how many times and how rapidly i hit refresh waiting for new content to appear or hoping that someone has replied to my comment.

Well, here's one. Hi = )

I'd have to say it would probably be really awkward if people could see what pages I clicked through to on something like facebook and when.

The other one is at work, sometimes explaining why I have something set up the way I do and how I'm using it is awkward.

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