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bobbydavid

193 karma · joined November 6, 2011

Developer. Bass player. Settlers-of-Catan expert.
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bobbydavid··on Show HN: Meetup.com and eventribe alternative to small groups
Otherwise, you have to choose: either you invite one adult from the household, but then the other may be unaware of the event details, or you invite both, but then you must rely on them to discover it to avoid a scenario where they both RSVP for themselves and a partner and a kid, and you end up double counting.
bobbydavid··on N.S.A. Dragnet Included Allies, Aid Groups and Business Elite
and did you see the transparency report Google released with the censored bar on the secret us gov requests? I loved how you could see bits of the graph peeking through :)
bobbydavid··on N.S.A. Dragnet Included Allies, Aid Groups and Business Elite
Somehow I imagine the plan involves Brazil being able to tap the line...
bobbydavid··on N.S.A. Dragnet Included Allies, Aid Groups and Business Elite
Many industries (food, steel, electronics, energy, mining) are considered to have military strategic importance.

For instance, Japan works very hard to grow rice even though it would be much cheaper to import rice from China. It's because not being able to feed your own population is bad in a war. Energy (oil) is the same way.

The line between military and industry is often not very clear.

bobbydavid··on N.S.A. Dragnet Included Allies, Aid Groups and Business Elite
Forgive me for asking, but as there are tons, can someone point the relevant bits out? I've been following the news and I haven't seen any.
bobbydavid··on Inverted totalitarianism
You are clearly a government plant spewing lies!

Naw, just kidding. But that would be a deliciously ironic way to interpret your comment.

bobbydavid··on Tell HN: How we bootstrapped to the #1 rated mattress on Amazon.com
In his post above, he says temperpedic is 1.8 lb. so which is it, 8 or 1.8?
bobbydavid··on Bank of America's Research Report on Bitcoin [pdf]
Okay but stop thinking in extremes for a second.

Imagine I need a car and I hear there is a 30% off sale in January. Yes, I'll wait. Im considering the lost marginal value to me (keeping my shitty car in December) vs marginal gain (saving 30%). That's what deflation feels like.

bobbydavid··on Why I Wrote PGP (1999)
that's fine, its a public key :)
bobbydavid··on When We Lose Antibiotics, Here's Everything Else We'll Lose Too
And don't forget air quality! Cow farts are a leading cause of greenhouse gases.

Seriously.

bobbydavid··on When We Lose Antibiotics, Here's Everything Else We'll Lose Too
I'd say it (the expensive treatment) was a basic need. A need that was not being met. You could tell it was a need because those who needed it but didn't get it would die.
bobbydavid··on When We Lose Antibiotics, Here's Everything Else We'll Lose Too
Can you explain a bit more? I'm interested, but I'm interpreting your post as "helps with DNA copying so its good for cell reproduction means it causes cancer". I'm sure I have it wrong. I mean.... loads of things we eat are good for cell reproduction. It's almost like saying "living makes you more likely to die"
bobbydavid··on When We Lose Antibiotics, Here's Everything Else We'll Lose Too
How can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat?
bobbydavid··on When We Lose Antibiotics, Here's Everything Else We'll Lose Too
Only partially true. You assume beef is an inelastic commodity; that we must consume our beef and will pay any price come hell or high water. True for some people, perhaps :P but other people may eat less meat, eat smaller portions, or switch to being vegetarian. The reality is that a world with expensive beef means less overall consumption of beef.

In short, prohibiting indiscriminate antibiotics would make it easier on farmers who already forgo them, but it could still hurt GP's farmer relatives (assuming they're currently guzzling down antibiotics) because the overall market for beef would shrink.

bobbydavid··on What It's Like to Fail
Thanks for sharing this! I'm curious to hear more. Could you share how (or to what extent) you got over your feeling of being taken advantage of?
bobbydavid··on The United States is isolated in the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations
This brings up an interesting question. what is the BATNA of these countries. That is, what is their recourse if nobody can agree?
bobbydavid··on Dear Googles: Stop asking
I was unpleasantly surprised to see your post deliberately undoing the GP's attempt to obfuscate his number. Is your goal to bully GP into supporting privacy?

It doesn't matter the technical details of whether the number is easier to search, it's the intent I find disturbing about this.

bobbydavid··on Why It's So Hard to Get From Brooklyn to Queens
I live in Brooklyn. They can't officially refuse. But you'd be shocked how many taxis meters stop working about 20 seconds into the journey....
bobbydavid··on Dogescript
it certainly answers your question. It's just not the answer you were looking for ;)
bobbydavid··on Google shares hit $1,000 after strong earnings
Your assertion would be better phrased as a conflict between short term and long term interests of the advertiser. That is, the short term interest of making money at the expense of the long term interest in retaining users. In the long term, consumers and advertisers interests are aligned: consumers want the best service they can find and advertisers want to give it to them.
bobbydavid··on The World Wants to Break Up with America's Internet
Is there any check/balance on the definition of "criminal threat"? Because that's a pretty loose definition a priori.

"We believe a terrorist exists in GB. That constitutes a criminal threat. To catch him or her, we need to run big data analysis on all communications."

bobbydavid··on The World Wants to Break Up with America's Internet
Here's my interpretation of GP: since every governmental org wants to snoop, it is not enough to "break away" from the US* because it doesn't solve the underlying problem: insecure internet. Let's find solutions that presuppose the government is trying to snoop.

*Unless you don't mind being snooped on by your own government.

bobbydavid··on Facebook PHP Source Code from August 2007
This is a straw man, right? Not all bugs are payment security bugs. Not all bugs are harmful to users. And spending more time writing cleaner code does not mean you'll have fewer bugs.
bobbydavid··on Microsoft pays $100K bounty to hacker
I always thought it was like "patient 0". The day-counting started once the exploit was first exploited, meaning the first to exploit it was doing so on the 0th day.
bobbydavid··on Tessel: The end of web development as we know it
If what you say is true, it's a bad sign for the future of hardware. If we fundamentally can't leverage existing libraries, we can't build the standing-on-the-shoulders-of-giants complexity pyramid that allows for such reliable, rapid development in other spaces. It will always remain a niche field.
bobbydavid··on One-electron universe
God no! Please never let the water company switch to AC! Actually, it sounds like something Time Warner would do if they ran a water company....
bobbydavid··on How Tumblr uses \0 in the output of meta tags
Like in cars, firewalls are a safety measure; they provide a sense of security.

What if done program you don't realization is installed opens a port somewhere?

So not strictly necessary for correct operation, but then again security is all about being defensive....

bobbydavid··on The Student Loan Bubble is Starting To Burst
It's no problem for the bank of they can't accurately measure your risk of defaulting, as long as they can assess a group risk. So, say 4% of students fail to repay, the bank would use that number.

Just like car insurance when you first start driving. They don't know (or care) if you're a good driver so they just average beginner drivers and base the price around that average.

bobbydavid··on Infectious disease doesn't care why you're unvaccinated
This is the part most people don't get, on either side. You're vaccinated? Not a magic bullet, you rely on others around you. Not vaccinated? You're putting others in danger, not just yourself.

A vaccine doesn't have to get anywhere near 100% protection to be effective - it just has to drop the viral coefficient below 1.

bobbydavid··on Gut Bacteria From Thin Humans Can Slim Mice Down
I think js2 agrees diet and exercise is a good first course of action, but is responding to the subtle implication, intended or not, that diet and exercise are sufficient; that no further (more drastic) measures are needed. From his post he clearly agrees diet is the preferred course of action if it works on its own (as it does for him).
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