Hacker News Reader

001skyon Square Prices Its IPO at $9, giving it a $2.7B valuation

what about the common? i think that was the gist of the comment...do the ESOPs pay out in preferred?

edit: below comment mentions using comp rsus

001skyon Times Pulls Article Blaming Encryption in Paris Terror Attack

NYT changes the there story headlines alot these days ...

After Paris Attacks, C.I.A. Director Rekindles Debate Over Surveillance

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/17/us/after-paris-attacks-cia...

Objectively, there is more to it. It might be uncomfortable, but sometimes a little coaching is useful feedback. Take a look at what happened to Ronda Rousey over the weekend. Complete lack of preparation. A cornerfull of yes men..."your doing great"...after round #1 etc. Unknown challenger meanwhile was methodically breaking her down. Point is there is a balance to he had from motivation and positive re-inforcement with some actual feedback...so you don't get blindsided. I think the only real questions is about whether that convo is best in in public vs private. There is some awkward in this essay. Some of it seems un-neccesary, and maybe could have been re-worked to make the points hit home without it.

001skyon We dissent

I'd disagree, completely. Its just shitty english grammer.

The notion that somone might not "fit [a] mold", is a trivial comment. The implication that if someone mis-states this comment as saying someone might not "fit [the] mold" is simply the substitution of the definite for the indefinite article.

Put another way, there is no "literal" truth to the comment. There is not [a] mold; nor are there [any] molds that exist (in the literal sense) at any college. That whole expression is a figue of speech.

TLRD--this whole thing is about a fucking typo in an e-mail.

001skyon Paris Shootings and Explosions Kill Over 100, Police Say

I do appreciate your point and the quote shows its not just yourself arguing the other side of the case. But every act of violence or intimidation is not "an act of terrorism". For god's sake what would you call the USA police vs Black Unarmed people? I mean if that is not worse and more akin instilling intimidation into people I don't know what is.

001skyon Paris Shootings and Explosions Kill Over 100, Police Say

Terrorism is anti civillian warfare. Planting sabatoge devices that kill and maim innocent people is actually terrorism/ Is it just not as effective because it maims more than it it kills? I don't get it with these pedantic aruments.

eg lets say we load a bunch of shrapnel into a tree so it maims or permanenly injures whoever the next logger is...tha is basically the same thing as lobbing hand grenades into the public square. the attacks are meant to target random people, caught unawares, in a way that conveys a persistant threat of continued, scalable future action.

Now lets take some other shady randome violence like the KGB assinating a civilian in London with radioactive isotopes in his tea. Is that terrorism? No, its a specific threat carried out in a limited capacity against a designated target. It might be criminal or a war crime or wahatever bad thing describes it, but its not "anti civilian warfare", in the same way that not all war casualties are "war crimes" in the normal usage.

001skyon Paris Shootings and Explosions Kill Over 100, Police Say

Could you clarify how this would be "terrorism"? Terrorisms is not something targeted like this. Whethor or not it was a war crime or treason or murder or whatever (they plead guilty to manslaughter)...it's not a repeatable or scalable type of situation and was never a threat to the general public.

001skyon Paris Shootings and Explosions Kill Over 100, Police Say

"Live updates: At least 100 dead, multiple sites attacked, France's borders closed"

--LA Times Headline

001skyon Paris Shootings and Explosions Kill Over 100, Police Say

This is being pedantic, but it's the first enforced curfew since WWII...I think we can cut the GP a break, since the all this stuff is part of the state of emergency/emergency measures.

Peace to all.

001skyon Ask HN: Are HN comments automatically downvoted by algorithms?

The verbiage of 'poisoning the well' is a well understood figure of speech.

001skyon Ask HN: Are HN comments automatically downvoted by algorithms?

"Poison" is a rather tendentious way to describe that

NB...The words in my signature didn't come from a random sampling of the dictionary...they were from a screen grab of HN moderation tools...

On the topic of changing subjects, no not really.

Those words are outrageously inflamatory.

001skyon Ask HN: Are HN comments automatically downvoted by algorithms?

HN not only shadow bans commenters, they will also poison placement of comments (algorythmically) in a sub thread based on who writes the comment.

001skyon Why Torture Doesn't Work: The Neuroscience of Interrogation

"O'Mara takes a moral stand against torture (forced retrieval of information from the memories of the unwilling)"

The scope of this is so limited to be a self fulfilling prohpesy...

001skyon American parenting is killing the American marriage (2014)

This shouldn't be downvoted, because its part of the argument. eg, still-born babies tend to have lots of emotional reprecussions. But the OP's point is that doesn;t make much sense. eg, the human female is programmed to reproduce every 28 days or whatever... but herein lies the heart of the issue...biology, rationality, and emotion, ane even culture are all (or may be) at cross purposes when it comes to this situation.

001skyon How the widening urban-rural divide threatens America

If your thesis was correct, it would be evident to the author who is actually time-sharing (taking advantage of all the things you say). But what he describes in his essay is how even he is of a different mindset...this essay is more about context switching. Its impossible to context switch when you never leave the house/office/facy neighborhood. Or to use some data, look at the dismal % of african americans that go to yosemite or even know how to swim. There's lots of racial and historical bias at play in that data, but the empirical point remains--context switching for urbanites is hard. And the poorer you are the harder it is. The reverse is also true--the poorer and more white you are in appalachia, the less likely you are to context switch with the weathy coastal cities. So we have money and culture paying a part as barriers to context switching, notwithstanding the revolutions in transportation (train, plan, auto, jet) and communications (telegraphy, telephone, tv, internet...etc).

001skyon For the future of solar, we’ve got the tech – it’s the economics

costs and revenues don't happen in a vaccuum, thats what your missing. they are relative prices, and only make sense in the context of a menu of choice (or:none). a stone wheel is brilliant technology, just like the bronze or iron age weapon was way back in history. but today its only useful (or not) in the context of current alternatives.

001skyon For the future of solar, we’ve got the tech – it’s the economics

but its not good enough, then

thats like saying a stone wheel would be good enough

if we didn't have pneumatic/michelin tires

anything is good enough when its the only option

001skyon CISA passes Senate

Privacy is a resonably coherent subject, especially in the context of telco/internet regs. It's also a coherent area of constitutional law (bill of rights).

The "tech world" just seems like a straw man and easily falls down, for the obvious reasons.

001skyon Cutting Back Sugar Improves Obese Children's Health in Just 10 Days

"Tom Sanders, professor emeritus of nutrition and dietetics at King’s College London, said the study needed to be viewed “with some scepticism” because it was uncontrolled. It did not compare the children with a similar group who continued to eat a high-sugar diet. The comparison instead was made with their weight and health before the study while on their usual diet. “But it is well known that obese children underestimate and under-report food intake, particularly of soft drinks and snack foods,” said Sanders.

“This is a fundamental flaw in the study. It is likely that the changes in metabolic outcomes observed can be explained by the experimental diet providing fewer calories than the children’s usual intake.”

001skyon Cutting Back Sugar Improves Obese Children's Health in Just 10 Days

ya, the one where placebo (sugar pill) is documented to work in many times in lieu of actual narcotics.

001skyon Cutting Back Sugar Improves Obese Children's Health in Just 10 Days

This is almost surely placebo effect

Given the amount of time wasted on diet/nutrition fads I'm starting to thing the US government should actually do some science on these issues.

001skyon Did Times Underplay Drone Program Leak?

this is a banal truism. it doesn't rebut the strong ties that the obama admin has in the nyt. google the word 'obama' on site: nyt. then ask who is kissing all that ass to get those leaks/scoops/etc.

001skyon What We Know About the 92M Americans Who Aren’t in the Labor Force

This comment is overly reductionist -- 'disabled' is a code word for long-term un-employable.

Just eyball the proportion of working adults in the 50 to 60 year range. It is only ~5x the number of disabled. In other words, that is a huge %--maybe 20%--of potential workers in that age bracket.

Any employment process that disables 20% of its workforce would be normally considered a problem.

But instead we call the un-employable 'diabled', to sweep the data under the rug.

It almost certainly helps keep other people in their jobs, tho (like burecrats and academics).

001skyon CIA Director John Brennan emails

Thanks for this clarifying comment. Open issue IMHO is if CIA's "actual process" is subject to levels of scrutiny/protection beyond the statuatory minimum(s). This being an exec appointment w/ senate confirmation etc.

001skyon CIA Director John Brennan emails

see the last sentence of my comment

001skyon CIA Director John Brennan emails

Most formal document policies cover drafts and works-in-process (ie, so they don't become less classified because they are incomplete or penultimate in version control.)

001skyon CIA Director John Brennan emails

Isn't the problem with publish sf86 more complicated...? This is basically the security clearance application for the CIA director...Aren't these things classified? Why on earth is this in any unsecure e-mail correspondence, if that is so? If that is not so, HR or homeland security has some gaps in their document handling process. Not that they haven't been hacked independently already, but still.

001skyon Computer science is now the top major for women at Stanford University

CS is 214 of an estimated 3500 female student body.

That still seems exceptionally low. Posted this upthread but in 2010 20% of the student body was in Biology (once topical sub-specialties were aggregated).

20% of ~3500 would be closer to `700, which is 3.3x the number of declared comp sci students.

Or maybe my math is wrong? I'm more interested in the actual knowledge being put in and attention being paid out than a critique of the degree naming conventions.

001skyon Computer science is now the top major for women at Stanford University

In all fairness, this is likely a structural data anomaly. ie, it is driven by the number of majors at the school, and their level of abstraction. Here are some historical data points.

Notice the arbitary abstraction of, eg

Bio Sciences Human Biology

1955 1. History 2. Economics 3. Psychology 4. Political Science 5. Bio Sciences

1965 1. History 2. Political Science 3. English 4. Psychology 5. Economics

1975 1. Psychology 2. Bio Sciences 3. Economics 4. History 5. English

1985 1. Economics 2. Human Biology 3. Bio Sciences 4. Electrical Engr 5. English

1995 1. Bio Sciences 2. Human Biology 3. Economics 4. Psychology 5. English

and now we look at 2010 (from quora)

Biological Sciences (1.32%) but Human Biology (12.58%) Biology (5.74%)

=~20% of Standford majors in 2010 are "biology majors" in plain language usage.

Based on data on Bachelor's Degrees conferred in the 2009-2010 school year[1], the top majors are:

    Human Biology (12.58%)
    Economics (8.10%)
    International Relations (6.20%)
    Biology (5.74%)
    Computer Science (4.94%)
    Engineering (4.71%)
    Psychology (4.54%)
    Political Science (4.25%)
    English (3.96%)
    History (3.62%)
    Management Science and Engineering (3.39%)
    Mechanical Engineering (3.10%)
    Science, Technology, and Society (2.30%)
    Communication (2.18%)
    Electrical Engineering (2.07%)
    Mathematics (2.01%)
    Earth Systems (1.84%)
    Physics (1.84%)
    Sociology (1.49%)
    Biological Sciences (1.32%)*

001sky on Mercury Spill

There are alot of dangerous polutants out there, and around the home, but run-of-the-mill motor oil is not really one of them.
http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/stories/1991-04-28/old-motor-oil...