Hacker News Reader

TruthElixirXon Go Paperless in 2013

>I like paper, and I don't care if some think it is wasteful.

It isn't wasteful though. Paper is a renewable resource and is mostly biodegradable. Forest growth in the U.S. increases every year due to people using wood for things.

It is good.

TruthElixirXon Why I Quit Being So Accommodating (1922)

If I have time I do it because the person on the other end of the line is probably tired of talking to people who are jerks. I worked in a call center before and it is no fun. These people are just trying to make a living so I try to make their day easier if I have some time to do it.

TruthElixirXon Congress Is Quietly Abandoning the 5th Amendment

>but it has many of the characteristics of one.

And what characteristics are those?

TruthElixirXon Would the Last Blackberry User Please Turn Out the Lights?

I hate on screen keyboards so much. I would love a good smart phone with a slide out keyboard.

TruthElixirXon THQ Humble Bundle ends at $5,097,373 (THQ President contributes $10K)

They tried a CoD clone in Homefront, and it did not do very well.

TruthElixirXon Lester's Time Has Come Today

> I think the goal of the campaign is to plant the seed in the general public that record labels bankrolling capital for artists to produce albums is no longer needed with today's current technology.

It really isn't if you already have somewhat of a following. A band I listen to has funded their past two albums on kick starter and the tours associated with them. The idea they went with is, "Prepay for our music, once it is recorded we will release it for free and not prosecute pirates."

This allowed them to completely avoid worrying about piracy or anything like that. I've linked their previous Kickstarter below. I doubt many here will enjoy their music (Christian noise rock. [note, I'm not Christian.]) but people might be interested in seeing how they operated their Kickstarter and their business model.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/Showbread/showbread-canc...

TruthElixirXon U.S. Students Still Lag Globally in Math and Science, Tests Show

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_calculation_problem

Its a well known problem.

TruthElixirXon Larry Page "providing free flu shots to all San Francisco bay area kids"

>And the purpose of government is to put systems in place that can give help to all the people who need it, as close to all the time as possible.

That is a hefty thing to assert. If you ask some Afghan kid what the purpose of the U.S. government is I think you would get a different answer.

TruthElixirXon Seattle police will not enforce against public marijuana use, only warn verbally

Why is that excellent? Why can't people just grow and sell like they do any other plant?

TruthElixirXon San Francisco can become a world capital. First it needs to get over itself

>I don't buy the taller buildings = more wealth, creativity and energy argument.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skyscraper_Index

The Skyscraper Index is a concept put forward in January 1999[1] by Andrew Lawrence, research director at Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein,[2] which showed that the world's tallest buildings have risen on the eve of economic downturns.[3] Business cycles and skyscraper construction correlate[4] in such a way that investment in skyscrapers peaks when cyclical growth is exhausted and the economy is ready for recession.[5] Mark Thornton's Skyscraper Index Model successfully sent a signal of the Late-2000s financial crisis at the beginning of August 2007.[6][7]

TruthElixirXon San Francisco can become a world capital. First it needs to get over itself

Oh yes, lets look to Bloomberg to show us how to run a city. Shitty rent controls, banning all sorts of things, cops stopping people in the streets for security checks. Brilliant.

TruthElixirXon What Could Have Entered the Public Domain on January 1, 2012?

>What makes you think that you should ever be able to take for free, something that someone else created?

TruthElixirXon Washington voters approve legalized marijuana

Look at my rock. It is a magic rock. It keeps tigers away. I have never been attacked by a tiger while holding this rock. Who knows how many tiger attacks it has defeated.

EDIT:: Also I don't give a shit if 7-11 sells meth. I'll just shop somewhere that doesn't.

TruthElixirXon Washington voters approve legalized marijuana

Has banning people from shooting meth into the webbing of their fingers stopped them?

No. It has only made things worse.

100% legalization for all substances.

TruthElixirXon ‘Creepy Cameraman’ pushes limits of public surveillance

>but by recording sound, isn't he breaking the law

Depends on if it is a one or two party state, and whether or not he constitutes a party. In Oklahoma, for example, if you and I are on the phone I can record the conversation without notifying you. In some states (New Hampshire, I think, off the top of my head) all parties to the conversation must be informed.

If he is partaking in the conversation or within earshot, he might be considered a party, and might be okay.

I am not a lawyer.

TruthElixirXon French Government Seeks To Charge Google 1 Billion Euros in Taxes

Then don't make it freely available. If your content is so valuable, paywall it.

TruthElixirXon French Government Seeks To Charge Google 1 Billion Euros in Taxes

Production of news content is happening without the news papers. It is happening without taxing Google 1 billion Euros.

Who says it is outdated? Do you have stats on that? I get more news content now than ever before. There clearly must be money in it, or enough that people haven't stopped producing content.

Also, who says it is a societal good that we must protect? If society no longer values news and refuses to pay for it, who are you to decide we still should?

There will always be demand for news, it just depends on where the demand is.

TruthElixirXon Why Apple Uses Pentalobe Screws In Its Devices

http://www.amazon.com/Silverhill-Tools-Pentalobe-Screwdriver...

TruthElixirXon Skype Blog: Skype for Windows 8

Why are all of the images 1,680px × 1,050px then scaled down in the image tag?

Also, every version of Skype I use gets progressively worse. Facebook integration! Status updates from your friends! We moved feature A to menu B. Just make my calls not fucking suck.

TruthElixirXon How I Hired Someone On Craigslist And Quadrupled My Productivity

Must be english. What does it mean?

TruthElixirXon U.S. Postal Service To Launch Experimental Same-Day Delivery Service In November

i.e. Tons of unused labor at cheap prices.

TruthElixirXon Gap Year: The Growing Appeal of Not Going Right to College

So the idea is that college is too expensive so the government will help you pay for college by letting you work for them for a year? Government solutions to government created problems. Hooray.

TruthElixirXon Cisco cuts ties to China's ZTE after Iran probe

I'm wondering how this will effect Mozilla since they are planning on releasing a phone with ZTE. Not going to be good to market to corporate users if this is true.

TruthElixirXon ZTE Firefox OS Smartphone Specs Emerge

I really want to switch to this even if it is only 70% as good as Android on my GNex.

I've always been a Windows guy, never cared about free software and such, because it seemed like it was happening without too much fuss, but then, boom. Locked down phones, tablets, etc become the norm. And if our current phones become our future computing devices we are fucked.

TruthElixirXon ZTE Firefox OS Smartphone Specs Emerge

Who is carrying the phone though? Will it be rooted from the get go?

TruthElixirXon ZTE Firefox OS Smartphone Specs Emerge

Is Firefox OS set to be completely open source?

TruthElixirXon Does Apple have a Scott Forstall problem?

I used it three times yesterday.

TruthElixirXon The Pendulum Swings, Again

>I like to see things from the benefit to the consumer. Microsoft stagnated the computing world for 10 years by failing to innovate.

Microsoft accelerated computing by 30 years by making computer hardware a commodity in the 80s and bringing it to the masses.

TruthElixirXon [dead]

"Besides with programs such as GotoMyPC you don't need a Windows device to run your Windows applications. They'll run just fine on a less expensive Android tablet or an iPad. And, of course, you can always use a cloud-based office suite like Google Docs on pretty much any device."

...you do need a Windows device to use GotoMyPC. You need a Windows device to go to.

TruthElixirXon iPhone 5 web teardown: How Apple compresses video using JPEG, JSON, and canvas

I think it was a hyperbole, but there really is a lot of dumb shit in web design.