Hacker News Reader

ben010783on Flood of Oil Is Coming, Complicating Efforts to Fight Global Warming

America's best-selling car in 2018 is the F150 series!

American's are going crazy for SUVs and pickups, but the F150 has been the best-selling vehicle for decades. Pickups have outsold passenger vehicles for a long time.

ben010783on YouTube faces creator backlash

This argument sounds a lot like the ones I heard about why Instagram would never be as big as Flickr. YouTube needs creators and if other platforms keep attracting them, YouTube could have a big problem.

ben010783on A map of the US where city names are replaced by most Wikipedia’ed resident

The map seems like it doesn't specifically stick to municipalities. In New York City it gets granular enough to show that Sylvester Stallone was born in Hell's Kitchen. But for the city of Chicago, it only shows Barack Obama.

ben010783on Why play a music CD? No ads, no privacy terrors, no algorithms

I don't think I've ever seen a longbow in person. I love the art on them though.

ben010783on iPad Pro

I think you're going to have to wait to get an answer on this. The hope is that you can use a standard USB-C card reader to quickly import directly into a Files directory.

I import raw pictures all the time, but it's usually just a few pics. I don't think people realize how long it takes to import a days worth of pics or how you lose all your file names when you import the pictures.

ben010783on What Dropbox dropping Linux support says

That Windows comment didn't make sense to me either. The last few years have been good for Windows.

ben010783on Removing Bad Actors on Facebook

I think the biggest difference is that the disinformation was performed by state actors in Russia while the Steele Dossier was research on the actions and relationships that state actors had. Not to mention the fact that the details of the Dossier did not become public until after the election.

ben010783on Apple releases software fix for MacBook Pro slowdown

People bought them knowing that they were making tradeoffs in performance, but the real problem was that the computers were not even hitting their advertised specs.

ben010783on Elon Musk’s Boring Co. Wins Chicago Airport High-Speed Train Bid

>Second, we already have a perfectly fine train to O'Hare!

I wouldn't say that it's perfectly fine. The Blue Line to O'Hare has become notorious for it's overcrowding. I think the goal is to reduce some of that congestion to O'Hare and get people to stay at hotels in the city. I'm not convinced that it's worth it though.

ben010783on Kim Dotcom wins battle in ongoing fight against U.S. extradition

If you don't have money you take a deal and plead guilty. If you have money, you can drag things out for years.

ben010783on George Soros: Facebook and Google are a menace to society

In the US, those kind of messages are usually more overt and organizations are legally required to disclose some info about the organization that sponsored the ads. You can (could?) kind of get away with influencing people anonymously using Facebook: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/01/us/politics/russia-2016-e...

ben010783on North Korea’s fabric made from stone

I initially skipped the quotes because I'm used to them being repeated.

ben010783on The Decline of Imgur on Reddit and the Rise of Reddit's Native Image Hosting

Comments on images, voting on images and comment, stuff like that. Imager went from a simple image host to being it's own image sharing community.

example: http://imgur.com/gallery/SkAns

ben010783on Investigation finds inmates built computers and hid them in prison ceiling

The United States has federal and state prisons. There are also private companies that run prisons. In the US, there are a mix of prisons that are run by the government and ones that are run by private companies. I know the CIA hacking thing sounds funny, but these guys were doing basic social engineering and identity theft.

ben010783on In the Videogame Industry, Hiring People Is a Last Resort

It is more extreme in the gaming industry because you need so much staff to make a game, and then the needs change drastically after the game is released. From the article:

> Layoffs often hit after a game was released, which was hardest on workers who were let go and damaged morale for those who stayed. “It was like ‘Welcome to the family!’ ” he recalls. “Then we released the game, and it was ‘See you later!’ ” Outsourcing became a solution to the hire-and-fire cycle, says Mr. Hartsman.

ben010783on Banks scramble to fix old systems as IT 'cowboys' ride into sunset

Some people make over $100 an hour for this work, and some only do this part time. It's you're a retired programmer that just spends part of your time doing this, it's not a bad deal.

I'll also throw in the counterpoint that you get taxed heavily on these earnings and you (usually) don't get benefits.

ben010783on Reasons YouTubers keep imploding, from a YouTuber

He certainly does practice a lot. He still talks about bombing on stage in his newest standup. One of my favorite bits is how he talks about Michael Richards imploding on stage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kth0UOU5a_M

ben010783on Nintendo Switch review: pure potential

Nintendo also sold consoles at a loss. The Wii U was sold at a loss, but they specifically didn't want to do that with the Switch (http://venturebeat.com/2016/10/26/nintendo-wont-sell-switch-...). I believe the original Wii was originally sold at a loss, but it wasn't long before Nintendo got the costs down and got profit on hardware sales.

ben010783on A textbook case in workplace discrimination

Women's jackets tend to have small changes, like shorter length and zippers on the left. The small changes make the jacket fit and look better.

ben010783on Trump2cash – A stock trading bot powered by Trump tweets

We've seen recently that it can be checked. Our hope is that those that with the ability to check him continue to do so.

ben010783on America’s system of checks and balances might struggle to contain a despot

I wouldn't assume that. The Kent State shootings (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings) and Bloody Sunday (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selma_to_Montgomery_marches) are enough to convince me that it is possible. Additionally, the current president had strong support in the military and police (estimates have him winning their votes with a margin of over 10%).

ben010783on America’s system of checks and balances might struggle to contain a despot

Can you explain that point on cabinet-level departments? I don't understand where Elizabeth Warren fits into that.

ben010783on Facebook admits it must do more to stop the spread of misinformation

What about just keeping out stories that are patently false? If I did an image search for cars, I wouldn't want a boat in there. If I did a search for news, I wouldn't want a fabricated story.

ben010783on Some in Silicon Valley wonder if Facebook has grown too influential

I can see how rural America might not connect with sources like the Washington Post and the New York times, but there were also recommendations from publications like Birmingham News and Falls Church News-Press. The local papers are more likely to understand their lives. The people going to the internet may actually be doing the opposite by taking in recommendations from national political sites rather than local editorial boards.

I also agree with how populations don't interact with each other, but it may be even worse than you describe. Even in urban areas, those in the suburbs seem to be more disconnected with those in the inner city.

ben010783on Some in Silicon Valley wonder if Facebook has grown too influential

I don't think it is tone deaf. It is a very valid point. People that working politics and research it as their job heavily recommended one candidate over the other. It is getting easier to ignore the opinion of an expert and instead find a source that agrees with how you feel. People are looking for reasons to discredit sources that they don't agree with. Sloppiness and bias will always happen, but at some point you have to realize that a source like The Wall Street Journal is better than Brietbart and that blog posts and opinion pieces should not be given the same weight as investigative journalism.

ben010783on India's demonetisation of Rs. 500 and Rs. 1000 notes

Ha! Took me a minute to get that.

ben010783on iPhone 7

The bulge isn't as noticeable when you have the phone in a case. I think they just considered the 3.5mm jack a waste of space since it's primary use was doing something you could do with the lightning port.

ben010783on Not Saying Winter Is Coming, but Where’s Your Coat?

I think putting them off makes sense because you can start investing early and people tend to earn more as they get older, so it could be less of a financial burden if you have children at an older age.

ben010783on Unable to open links in Safari, Mail or Messages on iOS 9.3

This goes back to Apple not allowing you to replace default apps. Android phones let you define the default web browser, map viewer, etc.

ben010783on Mercedes Boots Robots from the Production Line

The best selling luxury manufacturer in the US is BMW. They're followed by Lexus and Mercedes-Benz, but those two aren't far behind either. Toyota took a similar approach to how AMG cars are created when they made the Lexus LFA. They only built 500 models of the LFA, but those were all custom ordered and buyers had a huge array of options to choose from: http://www.lexus.com/lexus-share/v2/img/models/LFA/explore/L...