Hacker News Reader

PhileasNietzcheon Playstation removing previously purchased Discovery content

They're not stealing anything. People should read the legal contracts they sign or to which they otherwise agree. Streaming services typically include a clause about the right to remove content for any reason and regardless of who has purchased it. This is exactly why their courtesy notice doesn't include a word about refunds and a perfect example of the serious societal problem of people having a knee-jerk reaction to something merely because they haven't been paying attention and didn't do much (if any) research prior to venting their frustrations to the world.

PhileasNietzcheon Playstation removing previously purchased Discovery content

Unfortunately, this is not the case with physical media that contains licensed material. IF a case were pursued, you would likely pay whatever penalty without any real contest (like 99% of criminals who attempt an insanity plea).

PhileasNietzcheon The Perfect Laptop

It's billed as a gaming laptop, but I'd say that the ROG Flow X13 fits the bill as well as any 13" laptop could in 2023.

PhileasNietzcheon Miyazaki has used the art of animation to study the major problem of adult life

"The Boy and the Heron" couldn't be considered inflammatory to Western audiences plagued by guilt as opposed to presenting them with a question loosely meaning, "how do you live with yourself?".

PhileasNietzcheon Man stabbed by fellow Microsoft employee

To the luck point, there are plenty of places in the head and neck where an injury won't kill a person. The consequences of the wound to his brain might never be apparent to anyone other than those close to him.

PhileasNietzcheon Story Structure 101: Super Basic Shit

The very basics of storytelling. By definition, you need to be following the "very vague" definition here. Don't read too much into it and don't overthink it, because it's the opposite of what the author (a stellar creator of stories, himself) intended. Most stories, when looked at from a very high level, generally follow this formula. You are suffering from "can't see the forest for the trees" syndrome, old chap.

PhileasNietzcheon Musicians wage war against evil robots (2012)

I'm glad I'm not some mook like Sousa was, contributing to the nationalism of a country like the United States of America while harboring the futile wish that evolution would just stop with my preferences.

PhileasNietzcheon Musicians wage war against evil robots (2012)

Yes. It's so terrible what cinema did to music. Why can't we have a symphony in every theater?

Oh wait. It probably has a bit to do with the ridiculous waste of space, not having nearly enough trained musicians to meet the demand of the billions of consumers on this planet, no chance in hell of paying them all a fair wage if there were, etc.

Here is yet another example of wishing for "good old days" that will not be remotely possible to bring into modernity on the same scale without a culling of, oh, 75+% of the population.

PhileasNietzcheon California continues to chase away its population

No. They don't. Florida and Texas are both cheaper and don't typically get remotely as cold as much of the mainland. There could be so many reasons for this, but it was basically just another excuse for a deluded, self-entitled US citizen to use CA as an example of "look how the Dems/progressives/libtards/whatever-the-latest-insult-to-their-fellow-citizens are screwing up everything."

It's just more brain vomit to try convincing others we need to roll back the clock to the "good ol' days" when women and minorities were second/third-class citizens, because the world was so much better... for a single demographic.

Remember, these people are buying cardboard cutouts of the face of a man who dodged military service, likely hasn't done a bit of exercise in the last 30+ years and would end up accidentally killing himself and/or his own children if given an M60 machine gun superimposed onto Sylvester Stallone's body. Nothing they say should be taken seriously.

PhileasNietzcheon Ice not recommended for soft tissue injury treatment (2019)

Yes. Let us put the scientific accuracy of a scientific research paper to the side and focus on the difficulty of a nine-letter acronym.

"Couldn't they have come up with something simpler, since the healing of soft-tissue injuries is so simple?"

PhileasNietzcheon I want an iPhone Mini-sized Android phone

>Sony doesn't produce phones, but remote controls. Their software is nice clean, but their camera is pretty bad, might as well buy Zenfone 8 if you don't mind camera.

I imagine few who have used one would ever be able to say this with a straight face. I never met an iPhone user who believed me when I told them all the photos I was showing them were taken with an Xperia XZc (1 and 2, respectively) and that's with every single one of them. There may be half a dozen compact smartphones that really compare to the XZ2c. Sony just gave up on them because the herd loves their phablets so much.

I am also a current owner of the Zenphone 8 and its camera is also decent. If it's really important that you be able to snap the best photos possible, though, they've been developing these discrete camera things for over a century (and the best of them will likely continue to outperform any general purpose device for the foreseeable future).

PhileasNietzcheon Day trader army loses all the money it made in meme-stock era

There's nothing outstanding about repeatedly handing out thousands of dollars to every taxpayer and increasing unemployment because all the gig economy workers were upset that there was no more gig economy for a few weeks. Just like every time our government bails out organisations like GM, none of that money did any lasting good for the economy and simply served to increase the entitlement rampant among US citizens. Imagine a place where people who deliver disgustingly unhealthy takeout to a population where the majority of morbidity and mortality is directly related to chronically poor lifestyle choices are called "essential." Thanks to all that "stimulus," there is no small number of people who hardly worked the entirety of 2020, if at all.

"I know you took this job because there wasn't really an interview, you don't have a real boss, you work whenever you feel like it, you don't have to do anything you don't already do every day and it's just so hard to find a job in the Great Resignation, but now you want to cry foul because there's no job security due to people not having enough money to stuff their faces full of shit for a few weeks, so here's some extra cash. 'Murika!" "Oh! It wasn't enough that we paused student loans for all of 2020 and 2021, so we're going to keep extending that, even knowing many of you will just bedmaking minimum payments until the remaining balance falls off (I know doctors making six figures who have been doing this since before the most recent pandemic)."

Full disclosure: I was unemployed for about half of 2020, didn't ever take unemployment and survived on my VA disability while actively pursuing employment. I have also currently paid 80% of my student loans after graduating in 2016. We should be teaching the next generation how to survive in this increasingly dysfunctional world, not letting them believe that some person/organisation will always be there to bail us out after every stupid decision. Apparently, you haven't noticed, but the US brand of capitalism and the stupid idea that we'll just keep throwing money at every problem is literally destroying the planet.

PhileasNietzcheon Declassified memo 'confirms' direct connection between Saudi government and 9/11

You're the head of an organization. We'll call it one of the most complex and wide-reaching organisation in the world. You have multiple organisations under your umbrella responsible for evaluating and handling threats to your organisation and personnel. They're staffed by hundreds, if not thousands, of people who have been performing that specific mission since long before you became CEO. Those people present to you a list and make very convincing arguments that these are all threats that must be removed. Like any other CEO, you have dozens of equally-, less- and more-important items on your agenda. I'd forgive even the monumentally-stupid Donald J. Trump for it, glad that I am not the one who has to make that decision.

PhileasNietzcheon Declassified memo 'confirms' direct connection between Saudi government and 9/11

Because the leader of your government at the time was in lockstep with the US?

PhileasNietzcheon Declassified memo 'confirms' direct connection between Saudi government and 9/11

Point? They're just using their knowledge base to excuse the OP's complaint with the typical and weak argument that "everybody does it" while assuming there was some insinuation or belief that oil barons are the only people in the extensive history of humanity guilty of these crimes.

PhileasNietzcheon Americans’ views on the war reveal a striking generational divide

Lest we forget how Joseph Stalin's military treated Russians who refused to fight (poorly armed and equipped, no less).

Just like many of the sportspeople who aren't in the country, even those who have left since the invasion, the majority of people who disagree with it are too afraid of the consequences for saying too much or saying anything against the Kremlin narrative.

As an example, a Nobel-winning journalist was assaulted by pro-Putin Russians in public, when he has even abided by the new laws.

PhileasNietzcheon Americans’ views on the war reveal a striking generational divide

Yes, yes. Calling out the Russians for amassing 100k troops on the border of a single bordering nation was such an egregious escalation. If I was Putin and didn't plan on invading, what leaders up to half a world away were saying about my actions would absolutely make me change my mind and send them all over the border, anyway.

PhileasNietzcheon StarBook 14-inch

I stand corrected. The 2017 XPS 17 retailed at only about $200 cheaper than the 2012 Air (with inflation, I'm being generous with the rounding.

PhileasNietzcheon StarBook 14-inch

https://www.pcmag.com/picks/the-best-laptops?test_uuid=06r4M...

The XPS isn't a great example of the best PC hardware, but it IS a pretty good example of the best laptop performance one can get for the price of an iPhone. ^^

PhileasNietzcheon StarBook 14-inch

Absolutely. Nothing (that is $600+ cheaper) compares to the Apple touchpad (at least to my knowledge).