Hacker News Reader

allyton Garmin Connect team asked to relocate - this is how they declined

The founder (or any employer) has a responsibility to shareholders to pay employees as little as possible. An employee has responsibility to themselves (and their family) to ask for as much pay as possible. Negotiation is about finding a middle ground between those interests. Holding an employer responsible for figuring out what a given employee will be happy with is strange, to say the least.

allyton Apple's Mistake

But it wouldn't be the most bureaucratic thing done by a multinational corporation.

allyton 71 percent of top colleges still have policies that severely restrict speech

It isn't so simple. There are a variety of institutions receiving money under a variety of contracts from "the government" (which, itself, encompasses a large variety of institutions). Not all impose the same restrictions.

allyton 71 percent of top colleges still have policies that severely restrict speech

Public universities are government agencies, and as such, must obey the constitution

IANAL, but I don't think this is true. For example, I imagine the second amendment is quite restricted on most campuses.

allyton Search Baidu for "Tiananmen square massacre" - guess how many results?

If any other country did what China does, there would have been massive sanctions if not war

Wow, calling for war with China, really? Did you support the war in Iraq for the same reasons? Do you also support war with Saudi Arabia, Russia, and Pakistan?

allyton Search Baidu for "Tiananmen square massacre" - guess how many results?

the change has to come from us

Why? Do you have any other historical examples of consumers from one country pressuring another country to reform its government through boycott?

And why China? China has a significantly more organized and helpful government than most countries in the region (say, the ones in which most of your clothes are made, or where some of the raw materials for those gadgets are mined).

But most importantly, why do you feel the need, as an American consumer, to act on the relationship between China and its citizens?

allyton What is Bezos apologizing for?

Ah, we're talking about Jurisprudence! According to wikipedia, the dominant theory there is "legal positivism', where "laws are validly made in accordance with socially accepted rules". See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jurisprudence#Legal_positivists

allyton It feels kind of weird when.. you get rejected and than 5 months later read about.. your idea

OMG! YouTube for games! That was my idea, and you all stole it!

But seriously, this is an idea that's 100% execution, with tons of little things to get right.

allyton Heyzap (YC W09) launches: The forming of Heyzap and some lessons learnt

OMG! I totally had this idea, too!

allyton [dead]

I don't think his idea is to remove points completely - they would still determine where the comment gets placed on a page, they just wouldn't be displayed as prominently.

This would really change the UX of the site, actually - I find myself scanning over just points/names after having read the first few posts in a long thread.

allyton [dead]

Anything that doesn't segregate the users? Has nobody read The Sneetches? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sneetches_and_Other_Stories

I liked neilk's idea a lot better: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=466155

And jacquesm's idea best: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=467573

Why do we need to show points?

allyton TrueMotion's amazing 3D game controller makes the Wii look like a toy

I think that means they will ship for PS and XBox, also, since those controllers are pretty much equivalent to USB.

allyton Amazon's Best-Selling Album Download of 2008 Was Available for Free

I think what this is missing is that for people who know how to use BitTorrent, all the top albums were available for free. Hence, officially releasing it was a sign of good will which only increased their sales.

allyton The other half of "Artists Ship"

I think this can be generalized to say that start-ups have a different cost-benefit analysis - one where losses are capped at the (relatively small) value of the company. On the other hand, large companies have to be risk-averse because the worst-case is several magnitudes worse. When you're working at ConEd or AIG, the "tiny probability/worst-case-loss" factors start to matter, because "worst-case" can include investors losing life savings, federal investigations, and jail time for your boss's boss.

allyton The not to do list: 9 habits to stop now

He DOES NOT CARE how much money he makes. He DOES NOT care about material wealth.

Highly unlikely.