Hacker News Reader

GHFigson A fake tweet caused a sharp drop in US markets

Figs's Law: Inaccurate information travels faster than accurate information.

GHFigson Bill Watterson's Speech – Kenyon College, 1990

I am reminded of one of Taleb's aphorisms: "You are rich if and only if money you refuse tastes better than money you accept", and of Glenn Gould's interview with himself:

"G.G.: I simply feel that the artist should be granted, both for his sake and for that of his public – and let me get on record right now the fact that I'm not at all happy with words like "public" and "artist"; I'm not happy with the hierarchical implications of that kind of terminology – that he should be granted anonymity. He should be permitted to operate in secret, as it were, unconcerned with – or, better still, unaware of – the presumed demands of the marketplace – which demands, given sufficient indifference on the part of a sufficient number of artists, will simply disappear. And given their disappearance, the artist will then abandon his false sense of "public" responsibility, and his "public" will relinquish its role of servile dependency.

g.g.: And never the twain shall meet, I daresay!

G.G.: No, they'll make contact, but on an altogether more meaningful level than that which relates any stage to its apron."

-- http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/glenngould/028010-4020.07...

GHFigson Ask HN: What are the HN karmic privileges/penalties?

At 400 you get to downvote.

At 401 you get to apologize for accidentally downvoting someone.

At 419 you get lucrative business opportunities.

At 420 you get baked.

At 451 you get [deleted].

At 777 you get lucky.

At 1337 "they" teach you the Secret Handshake Deal Protocol.

At 1999 you have to update a million lines of COBOL in order to advance.

At 2010 you get to complain that Hacker News is turning into Reddit.

At 2600 you get to make free long distance calls.

At 3003 you get your TI-83 taken away and returned to you at the end of class.

At 4352 you get to get to post a jokey self-referential comment without anybody complaining that Hacker News is turning into Reddit.

GHFigson Microsoft just sponsored Daring Fireball

It might be more helpful for this audience to think of it as "just with ten years of work".

GHFigson We are not Consumers, We are the People, as in We The People

I may buy a lot of stuff, but should I only be viewed as “a consumer” in the eyes of the government and my democracy?

Notice that the author is attributing words in a blog post on thehill.com to "the government and my democracy".

GHFigson Breaking News is broken

In practice, attention is credibility. You can look at this as a cultural problem[1], a psychological finding[2], a propaganda tool[3], a business model[4], etc.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Postman [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Availability_heuristic [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Opinion_(book) [4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonah_Peretti

GHFigson 2nd year Comp Sci student that just now figured out I have ADD

The extant differences are not universally thought to be so great as to warrant the dramatically greater public acceptance and promotion that prescription drugs receive in the US. This is not aided by the fact that methamphetamine is itself an FDA-approved treatment for ADHD (http://www.drugs.com/pro/desoxyn.html).

I would agree that "basically just meth" may not be the best way to say describe this, though, as it's only as true as saying they're entirely unlike meth.

GHFigson Richard Stallman response to Boston Police efforts

I think it's disingenuous to bring up the Taliban and then deny you were saying anything about ideology. It was an emotional appeal that buries your true point. You know who else did that? Hitler.

GHFigson Richard Stallman response to Boston Police efforts

That's a weak point. You could just as easily say it makes you "the Northern Alliance", "the French Resistance", "the Black Panthers", or "the Swiss". Weapons do not dictate ideology.

GHFigson Richard Stallman response to Boston Police efforts

I would hesitate to generalize from what you saw on TV. What you see on TV has a lot to do with where the TV crews are set up and where they're allowed to go, which has to be somewhere safe and not in the way of the people with work to do.

GHFigson Could HN stop participating in the witchhunt?

I'll gladly acknowledge that there were plenty of people trying hard to keep things in check, but it can be observed that at some point things went off the rails, e.g. http://www.reddit.com/r/boston/comments/1cn9ga/is_missing_st...

Yes - it seems speculators here got it right this time.

Somebody get OP reddit gold for life.

Reddit was right!

gif of missing brown student & suspect in marathon bombing (subsequently tweeted by Salon, etc.)

Dude...this thread is going to go down in history!

Reddit 1.... news media 0

GHFigson Reddit is currently experiencing a malicious DDoS attack

the Boston police scanners said they were looking for Sunil

Did you hear this yourself, or did you read it? That's really what I'm asking. I know many people were listening, but it's hard to tell what people heard first-hand and what people simply re-tweeted.

For my own peace of mind I'm trying to distinguish between two possibilities: a) that the names were not heard on the scanner at all and whole story was either a mirage or an intentional hoax, b) that someone's erroneous tip to the police was mistaken for its own confirmation.

GHFigson Reddit is currently experiencing a malicious DDoS attack

before name appeared on police scanner

Is there a recording of this? Because it sounds a lot like it never happened.

GHFigson Danny Sullivan's Twitter list about Watertown

Your link points to Reddit, which points to a Twitter user, but when that Twitter user is asked how he knows, he says it was on Reddit.

I'm now completely convinced that story is total fucking bullshit.

GHFigson Shots fired at MIT - report of an active shooter near Bldg. 32 (Stata)

Mentioned by whom, where?

GHFigson Shots fired at MIT - report of an active shooter near Bldg. 32 (Stata)

The article does not use either of those names.

GHFigson Shots fired at MIT - report of an active shooter near Bldg. 32 (Stata)

I would not trust tweets regarding the names going out over the radio.

GHFigson Obama threatens veto of CISPA bill

I definitely understand that view, but on that drawing board are the words "two-thirds majority". It comes down to a choice between an impotent veto and an impotent signing statement.

GHFigson Obama threatens veto of CISPA bill

Most people seem to not understand that that's the same bill. The NDAA is an annual bill specifying the defense budget. The indefinite detention provisions that upset so many people are attached to that bill.

As the President cannot veto part of a bill, vetoing the NDAA over those provisions would literally mean vetoing the entire defense budget.

GHFigson Reddit co-founder calls out Google, Twitter, Facebook over CISPA

You could make the same argument about any law. The point is that makes it a weaker argument, not a stronger one.

GHFigson Teen: I Am Not the Boston Marathon Bomber

Observe that 4chan users did not set up a whole board devoted to the topic and a spreadsheet of suspects. Nor, for that matter, do alleged journalists frequently use 4chan as a primary source.

GHFigson Could Millennials End Salary Secrecy?

Cynically, Millennials can be coaxed into doing anything if they can be convinced it's sticking it to The Man.

GHFigson Could Millennials End Salary Secrecy?

On top of that, most potential employees are shit at negotiating. Most never negotiate at all - they take the offered number or leave it, but they rarely push.

This is why the article sounded so strange to me. It seems like the idea that's really being pushed is that negotiation is bad, which is an easy sell because most people have a strong aversion to it. They're eager to find a reason to not have to do it, even when they suspect they're underpaid.

It's the uncertainty that causes so much angst, not the money in absolute terms, and appeasing that uncertainty by convincing the median earners that it's okay to gossip seems like a great way to get them to never ask for more. They will gladly continue leaving money on the table if only they can be confident that nobody else is taking it.

GHFigson Google Is Forbidding Users From Reselling, Loaning Glass Eyewear

The addendum for the Explorer Edition states: you may not resell, loan, transfer, or give your Device to any other person.

That's what the story is about, because there are no other editions of Glass.

GHFigson Google Is Forbidding Users From Reselling, Loaning Glass Eyewear

A fake identity is less likely to have passed Google's selection process, and may be be difficult to verify when they go to pick up the device in person.

Also, the terms specify that Google is allowed to deactivate the device if they find you've given it to someone else.

GHFigson What happens when you give 4chan images of the Boston Marathon?

Said comments are completely non-skeptical about the provenance of the images or their actual significance. Because Hacker News never gets anything wrong, right? We're smart here, right?

No, actually. We average out to the same kind of mob-prone mooks we like to tut-tut at others for being. Except our mobs are about standing around going "Well, actually..." and that's marginally less puerile than what we see from 4chan mobs.

It might feel like skepticism, but from where I sit it looks a lot like pretentious pseudo-intellectual grandstanding. It's like hanging a somebody's napkin doodle in an art gallery just so you can complain that it's not the Mona Lisa.

GHFigson What happens when you give 4chan images of the Boston Marathon?

Oh, please. It's on the front page of Hacker News because Hacker News is full of credulous idiots, not because talking about pictures is bad or wrong.

GHFigson What happens when you give 4chan images of the Boston Marathon?

They are publicly "accusing" (or putting somebody in a very specific corner) two guys.

FYI: This submission is just some images pulled off a thread of idle speculation that somebody posted to Tumblr. It's not some kind of organized campaign claiming to have found the people responsible.

GHFigson What happens when you give 4chan images of the Boston Marathon?

It's hilarious to see anything from /pol/ show up on Hacker News.

GHFigson Intel Profits Fall as PC Slump Cuts Demand for Chips

It seems like many Ultrabook shoppers are unaware that there is a 13" Retina MacBook Pro. It's obviously not everybody's cup of tea, but surely worth considering.

Typed on an IBM ThinkPad. :)