Hacker News Reader

b_tterc_pon Google Employee Writes Memo About ‘The Burden of Being Black at Google’

Does google insurance not provide for mental health care? I know it’s not standard for many corporations but I’d imagine google’s healthcare is very competitive. If so... idk what this person wants.

b_tterc_pon Hong Kong student leaders and their families face anonymous threats

I think people overindex on this. It really isn’t surprising. People are protesting what they perceive as their government betraying them. That’s a huge claim and people are really angry. People are people. And angry people do angry things. If the government doesn’t cooperate with the people, they will get angrier and it will get worse. That is just what happens. The social contract takes both sides, and yes, it’s often random people who don’t deserve the fallout who get hurt as a result of not abiding by the social contract.

But it’s extremely myopic to think that protestors are the ones accountable for all the trouble. To people not immediately affected by the governments decision, it is far too easy to miss the fact that it’s the government throwing not just the first punch but many many more before you see this kind of thing happen

b_tterc_pon Facebook Transcription Opt-In Says Nothing About Human Listeners

Perhaps but I think there’s a difference. I don’t know how refrigerators work, but I can guess and within a few guesses I’ll probably get close.

I don’t know if everyone can guess how comp tech works. I’ve heard comments about how hard it must be to code how software works. Or to understand that so much can happen behind the scenes

b_tterc_pon Decrement carbon: Stripe's negative emissions commitment

I’m no biologist but coral seems incredibly f*ed whenever I hear about it. Is there any chance of us actually saving coral?

b_tterc_pon Watch Out Google, YouTubers Are Unionizing

> The only way I can explain this is there is manipulation of the algorithm to fit a certain perspective.

Unless... the two search terms have different distributions in their raw, unbiased results which seems completely plausible to me.

b_tterc_pon Bill Hader Channels Tom Cruise – DeepFake [video]

I feel like it was just last year when some deep fakes were coming out and people waved them off as having obvious artifacts and too easy to ignore

b_tterc_pon One City Saved $5M by Routing School Buses with an Algorithm

I was overeager

b_tterc_pon One City Saved $5M by Routing School Buses with an Algorithm

Here’s an article about some MIT folks who tried to do this and were shut down by annoying rich people.

My greatest frustration is that they complain about black box algorithms when in fact it is a perfectly clear, ambiguity-free optimization function.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wired.com/story/joi-ito-ai-...

b_tterc_pon Colombia fines Uber more than $629k for obstructing regulatory visit

More like $1B, of which a small portion is likely to have originated from Colombia (not that % of net less makes much sense).

No this isn’t going to hurt Uber but it’s not like there’s a lot of rook to go higher.

b_tterc_pon It Takes More Than Mass Protests to Drive Change

The narrative I understood was that there were basically no leaders

b_tterc_pon The worst sales promotion in history: Hoover's free flight fiasco

95% of movie theater seats go unsold* and much of the profit margin comes from the concession stands. Moviepass wasn’t the right solution as a third party but it was a decent opportunity.

*people don’t perceive this because people only go to popular movies

b_tterc_pon It Takes More Than Mass Protests to Drive Change

Perhaps. But was it wrong? Like, the women’s march when trump was elected. Many many people. Lots of them genuinely angry. Was it a serious protest... ehhh maybe?

b_tterc_pon It Takes More Than Mass Protests to Drive Change

OWS seemed kind of lame to me. There were a lot of people there, but they didn’t seem especially clear on why they were there.

b_tterc_pon It Takes More Than Mass Protests to Drive Change

This really isn’t true. Much of government sponsored education teaches this, especially by teaching about the peaceful side of successful movements without mentioning the violent side. MLK and Gandhi were effective leaders, but there were very large, very violent riots going on from their camps too. The reason why governments negotiate with non violent actors is to avoid the alternative which is the violent actors.

b_tterc_pon Math in Data Science

Hmm decent math proficiency is necessary to understand data science, but I don’t think it’s much of a differentiator.

Communication and critical thinking, not unlike many jobs, are the more important things. IMO many data scientists suck at the former.

b_tterc_pon Denial of H1-B visas to India’s largest IT services exporters at all-time high

Not closed borders. Just specific closed borders. Notably, the ones facing the equator. Awkwardly the ones who will most need to close borders will be the ones against whom borders will be closed in the next wave of emigration.

b_tterc_pon IBM Stops Buybacks to Pay for Red Hat

What if... you don’t let them inside?

b_tterc_pon The Door Problem of Combat Design

I believe most like playing intelligently. The goal of the level design shouldn’t be to make the intelligent move less rewarding, but to make the boring move less intelligent. So I kind of disagree with the offered solutions. A more modern set of solutions might be threats pursuing from the rear that make backtracking riskier than pushing forward, mobility or offensive options that favor aggressive moves over defensive moves, or (and perhaps I may only dream) non Euclidean level design such that moving backwards is actually a different area.

Situational awareness in competitive FPS is very impressive. I want to know what it looks like in non Euclidean space where assumptions about positioning get an order of magnitude more difficult.

b_tterc_pon The Suicides in South Korea, and the Suicide of South Korea

Thanos’ problem was that he never read a book on urban planning. Maybe he would have gotten around to it in his garden time had he not been interrupted.

But I would be totally down to watch a series about economic development during the blip (and after the blip!). If half of all people disappeared, you would probably see a massive surge in wages. But it might not be enough to keep society alive. Assuming they did solve for it, the post blip period would almost certainly result in massive global crises as countries which experienced heavy immigration are now overpopulated and countries which experienced mass emigration now have a lot of people with basically no societal infrastructure anymore.

God save disputes over property rights

b_tterc_pon A Mexican Hospital, an American Surgeon, and a $5k Check

If only someone had thought of that before

b_tterc_pon Climate change: Marine heatwaves kill coral instantly

https://climitigation.org/

This organization’s plan to do carbon capture with olivine sounded impressive to me.

b_tterc_pon Big Pharma is using faux generics to keep drug prices high, critics say

I’m not sure how that follows.

b_tterc_pon Show HN: I'm building a robot that cuts hair, starting with beard trims [video]

Feels like the kind of thing that would slit your throat if you had a poorly place tattoo. But I’m betting it can be made to work well though. I would feel sad however. Most great barbers are small business owners. Barbers are perhaps the one service for which I enjoy tipping culture. I don’t talk much during cuts but I enjoy the process quite a bit.

b_tterc_pon Big Pharma is using faux generics to keep drug prices high, critics say

The insurance part is the most important. The more things cost, the more value insurance provides, which is especially valuable to insurance providers because they pay for things at a discounted cost. The more value it provides, the more they can charge.

The economically rational consumer is best off getting drugs through insurance, but in doing so, builds a system that makes any alternative less affordable.

b_tterc_pon Apple Confirms $1M Reward for Anyone Who Can Hack an iPhone

Worth adding that clean money is worth more than dirty money

b_tterc_pon A Boeing Code Leak Exposes Security Flaws Deep in a 787's Guts

Hmm sounds reasonable but I think not. Management is hard and information is imperfect to all actors. With a god like view you would probably conclude that there’s a variety of people who should be removed from an org for its health and performance. The top may be accountable for things, but I wouldn’t think it’s correct to blame them personally

b_tterc_pon Google Pays Its DeepMind Tech Professionals a Huge Salary

I don’t know much about football but it seems to me that if this is true, then the metrics being tracked on paper are simply subpar. Probably all sports are an equation. Moneyball beinf the obvious example of this. If certain teams consistently win, then it’s not just an equation, but one with a theoretically relatively low variance model.

b_tterc_pon A Boeing Code Leak Exposes Security Flaws Deep in a 787's Guts

Having met a fair number of top executives I don’t feel this is true. People at the top do care quite a bit, and put personal pride into their company being good. But all low level decisions are made downstream, and middle managers are far less personally invested. Reactions to bad press are reactions. Hard to say whether it reflects anyone’s reality.

b_tterc_pon MoviePass Worked Out Great

I don’t care about any one in particular.

I am concerned about the significant scale at which this is happening.