Hacker News Reader

ComteDeLaFereon Silicon Valley Stumbles in World Beyond Software

And I'm pretty sure Lockheed Martin is still right next to Moffett, as well as the SV campus of Carnegie Mellon. I think there might be too much going on in this little strip of land to completely discount aerospace.

ComteDeLaFereon “They Went to Sea in a Sieve, They Did”

I read The Strange Last Voyage of Donald Crowhurst in high school, and can recommend that as well.

ComteDeLaFereon Mark Zuckerberg Is in Denial

And is Google guilty as well? The story below is currently at the top of the World section of Google News -

Nuclear War Alert: US Prepares For North Korea Missile Launch

http://www.morningnewsusa.com/nuclear-war-alert-us-prepares-...

I have no idea what this "news" site is, but I'm pretty sure that the US is not currently rushing to prepare for a North Korean nuclear missile launch.

ComteDeLaFereon How We Make Money at Stack Overflow

How do they employ almost 300 people on $11 mil / year?

Also, why are these posts getting downvoted? The title of this article is "How We Make Money at Stack Overflow".

ComteDeLaFereon Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]

No they don't.

Hillary Clinton lost the election but is winning the popular vote

http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/09/politics/donald-trump-hillary-...

ComteDeLaFereon DDoS attack halts heating in Finland amidst winter

Yeah, that's kind of the problem.

ComteDeLaFereon DDoS attack halts heating in Finland amidst winter

Not sure why this is controversial. Boilers have an on/off switch, and when your company manages a large number of buildings, you automate and centralize on/off for efficiency's sake, no?

ComteDeLaFereon Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]

Doesn't he mean executive orders? I believe those are considered law, while executive actions are simply directional.

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2014/11/20/365467914/...

EDIT: Never mind, he said ...cancel every unconstitutional executive action, memorandum and order issued by President Obama.

ComteDeLaFereon Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]

Does anyone know if this -

Enacts new ethics reforms to drain the swamp and reduce the corrupting influence of special interests on our politics.

...means overturning Citizens United? Because if it doesn't, then this is just propaganda.

ComteDeLaFereon Google Trends Electionland

Burlington, PA has been the biggest red dot on the map for the past 20 minutes or so. That's another story I'd like to learn about.

ComteDeLaFereon On Wall Street, a high-ranking few still avoid email

-> I mean, come on. Everyone uses email.

Not actually. I've been a consultant for a few years now, and have worked with executives who have their assistants print out their email for them in order to review. It isn't limited to Wall Street.

Though it's probably something we'll see less and less of as the years go by.

ComteDeLaFereon Eric Schmidt's 2014 plan for Hillary's campaign via Wikileaks

Actually, they sound like the people that GOOG/FB currently hire.

ComteDeLaFereon PM2.5 exposure possibly leads to 1.37M people’s premature death in China

-> I'm not very excited about China's nuclear power program, I don't have confidence that they aren't going to cut corners

Then hopefully you don't live in the UK, where China is developing new designs for reactors -

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/09/15/china-to-buil...

ComteDeLaFereon Computer Simulations Suggest War Drove the Rise of Civilisations (2013)

-> They stagnated basically because there was little to no fighting.

A fair assessment, but now I realize that another way to say this is -

They stagnated because there was little to drive innovation.

Stated this way, it at least makes us consider that there might be an alternative to constant warfare as a driver of progress. Maybe recognition of this is some kind of societal turning point as well?

ComteDeLaFereon Computer Simulations Suggest War Drove the Rise of Civilisations (2013)

“It seems warfare created intense pressure that drove these societies.”

This seems backwards. Wouldn't the intense pressure of societies bumping up against each other drive warfare, and not the other way around?

ComteDeLaFereon I Was Wrong About Offline

And for you game devs (since we're on the subject), not providing an offline experience shuts down 5 mil+ NYC subway riders from your game every day. Not sure about other cities, but it's a significant use case.

ComteDeLaFereon Silicon Valley Cozies Up to Washington, Outspending Wall Street 2-1

Since I live a few blocks from Zuccatti Park and was present for most of the Occupy rise and fall, I'm pretty sure I know what it was about, but feel free to share. And yes, I personally feel that a clear parallel is shaping up.

ComteDeLaFereon Silicon Valley Cozies Up to Washington, Outspending Wall Street 2-1

Wow. Considering this, and the fact that tech will undoubtedly get blamed for designing many jobs out of existence, how long before we see an Occupy Sand Hill Road?

Asked with some humor, but... not really.

ComteDeLaFereon Analysis Shows Hotels Are Not Losing Share to Airbnb

Simple common sense pretty much negates this headline and its premise.

To be honest, I can't say that I have a compelling interest in protecting hotel market share. As a resident of NYC, however, I do have an interest in protecting my relatively cheap (but in-the-real-world-expensive-as-hell) rent. I see more and more people with suitcases leaving and entering buildings in the neighborhood, and I have to wonder what that is doing to rent prices.

It's still a gut thing right now, but the case feels like it's getting more compelling.

ComteDeLaFereon Wikileaks: Julian Assange's internet access 'cut'

You just proved my point. How does he know it's a "state actor"?

ComteDeLaFereon Wikileaks: Julian Assange's internet access 'cut'

From the article -

"There was no way to immediately verify if he had been knocked offline, and if so, how a state actor was suspected."

As far as I can tell, no one has verified any of this. Given JA's recent bizarre state of mind, I'm not sure where all of this breathless HN commentary is coming from.

ComteDeLaFereon Why Are Politicians So Obsessed with Manufacturing?

That's interesting. Would it be correct to say that $1 spent on importing goods to the US would still generate the additional 81 cents of additional value in that country?

And if that's the case, would we still get the 81 cents in additional value if, due to global competition, we were able to import those same goods at 50 cents?

Or am I overthinking this?

ComteDeLaFereon Zuck’s photos from Facebook’s futuristic Arctic data center

Not really. The third slide is titled "A Ghost Data Center" because so few people are needed to run it.

ComteDeLaFereon Figma 1.0 – Collaborative interface design tool

Yes, the demo on their site just made me tense. Do other designers enjoy working together in real time like that? I haven't seen that one before.

ComteDeLaFereon How Beige Took Over American Homes

This (and painting everything beige) has been the advice of real estate agents for many decades, so I'm not sure I buy into the author's assertion that the rise of cable TV created it.

When I was a carpenter's helper in high school (early 90's), every house that was being flipped had to have beige walls, tile and accessories, though the appliances were stainless, so not much has changed.

ComteDeLaFereon The $50,000 San Francisco Home

I feel like that may be a problem everywhere in the country except for Silicon Valley.

ComteDeLaFereon The $50,000 San Francisco Home

You could build 40k of them, it's been done and it's called Silicon Valley. Take a look at the place with Google Earth, it's a perfect example of 50's - 60's dense Western-style suburban development. Even if you could do that, however, I think the cost of land there would be prohibitive, which I don't think was factored into the original post.