brashrat

[informative comment about corporate PR disguised as open source news removed as "off-topic"]

it found nothing for me and I don't do anything pathological

chilling effects need to be kept in perspective; for example, while I'm completely fearless about telling off the govt whenever I wish, no way I'm going to reveal how I feel about Snowden to the HN community: I'd be ostracized!

no slippery slope argument is a fallacy when the underlying process can best be described as a slippery slope. "Slippery slope" is not a fallacy, it's an analogy.

I'm in favor of crypto, privacy and the same things you are... I just don't lie about it: criminals are more interested in crypto than the average citizen, so are kiddy pornographers (for those of you who don't think that's a crime). So are "chinese dissidents", but seriously, there are more criminals out there.

my arrogance comes from my ability to be both smart and honest rather than a propagandist.

Thanks for the compliments.

What I mean by "unprovoked" is, if the Palestinians would stop attempting violence, the Israelis would stop attempting violence.

If the Israelis were to stop their violence... the Palestinians would just keep going; that's actually what's been happening.

I grew up the same way :) ... except he rubs me the wrong way, I think he's not at all interesting or clever, a completely banal failed ironic, with a deep streak of hate inside.

the name may be intended to be ironic, but the irony of the irony is that if you are interested in communicating about conducting one or more felonies, I would in fact urge you to use encryption.

I hate when people hate the "if you have nothing to hide, why do you care?" question because it's a valid question. You can answer, "because I fear the creeping growth of a surveillance state like in 1984", but then again, if you do that you no longer get to claim that other "slippery slope arguments are fallacies".

I've been a bigger privacy freak than all of you since before you were born, google my somewhat unusual name, you won't even find me. But still, I enjoy making fun of the groupthink that infects these types of communities.

| "The less violent side"?

As I said, click around wikipedia for number of rocket attacks, number of terror attacks, etc. initiated by the Palestinians, mostly against civilians. Regardless of how many more Palestinians are getting killed as a result, it's Arabs and Palestinians who rejected every previous set of borders (including "pre-67"), and Arabs and Palestinians (OK, it's not just Arabs and Palestinians, many other Muslim nation states join in with anti-Semitic diatribes) who continue to say right out loud that their intent is to push Israel into the sea, and who continue an armed struggle against Israel's citizens and Israel's right to exist.

Israel today is an advanced, modern, technological country, so yes, they "win" the conflicts with the Palestinians (and Lebanese Shiites) if you measure "winning" in terms of bodycount (which you brought up). But if you measure unprovoked attacks, it is the Arabs by a landslide, and in case where Jewish extremists attack Arabs, Israel follows a policy of prosecuting their own citizens. BTW, Lebanese Christians are Arabs, so are the Druze, and so are the Bedouins, and they largely prefer the Israelis to the vicious treatment they receive from their Muslim neighbors, cooperating in many ways with the Israeli armed forces.

Is Israel perfect? Not by a long shot, but neither is any other people or nation.

but... but... Arabs living in Israel are first class citizens, they are not forced to live on reservations, and they participate in elections and are elected to the Knesset, Israel's parliament.

The occupied West Bank is land that was formerly claimed by--no, not by "Palestine", that wasn't actually a thing--the State of Jordan which also included the territory of Israel in its claimed territory; the state of Jordan gave up its claim to the West Bank when the people living there (according to them, "Jordanians", but people you know as Palestinians) were politically destabilizing to the government of Jordan. To stave off the political threat (look up Black September), the state of Jordan gave up its claim to the West Bank (and to Israel).

Israel only occupied the West Bank when Palestinian lawlessness and terrorist antipathy toward Israel resulted in numerous bloody attacks on the civilian population of Israel. Israel has a much better case for occupation/pacification than Russia does of its occupation and annexation of Ukraine. I (a non Jew) do believe that anti-Semitism is the root cause of so much more anger directed at Israel than is directed at (say) Russia. Think of other disputed territories around the globe. Only in the case of Israel is there so much bitterness by outsiders toward one side, the less violent side, the side that is actually a civilized democracy and obeys rule of law.

And now that I mention it, do you even know what Morocco has been doing for many years in Western Sahara? Look it up, look up Polisario... it's an ethnic conflict. People will read about that and tut-tut and say, wow, that's terrible what the Moroccans have been doing, but quickly return to condemning Israel. And they look at the Hutus and Tutsis and say "well, there is blame to go around on both sides", and now we turn our attention to the tiny state of Israel, largely surrounded by barbarous dictatorships who don't even treat their own citizens well, and low and behold, it's those terrible awful Israelis who are to blame, much moreso than the Russians or Moroccans. Somehow it doesn't seem like there is plenty of blame to go around in this case, eh?

I believe that there are two reasons for bitterness toward Israel.

1) anti Arab racism motivates the belief that "we can't expect Palestinians to behave any better" (hey, maybe we can't, but if you don't want me to accuse you of anti-Semitism, come out and say it)

2) anti Jewish racism motivates the belief that "still, that doesn't justify the way those people are reacting", even though we see plenty of other "peoples" around the world defending themselves.

What are the Israelis defending themselves against? Click around wikipedia for awhile and look at the sheer number of Palestinian attacks directed at Israel month in and month out every year for the past 35 years. Would you put up with that directed at you and yours?

| not any more but damn fess up about the Armenian genocide already

I read PP as talking about the Turks present day treatment of the Kurds, not their previously reprehensible treatment of the Armenians. Are you excusing the way Kurds are treated by Turkey? (and Iraq and Iran and Syria)

| I think what bothers me the most about all of this is how criticism of the national policy of the state of Israel is reworked by certain opponents as anti-Semitic attacks... Why is this?

Let's say extremes from both sides of any issue in general tend to over-exaggerate...

You seriously think that the worst part is unfair propaganda by Zionists that exists to such an extent that it overwhelms any countervailing anti-Semitic reworking of anti-Semitism into slanting of news against Israel? Given the huge size of Arab and Moslem populations around the world compared to Jewish populations, the survey results that show their complete acceptance of anti-Semitism, and given the long long and recent history of anti-Semitism all across Europe... given that, to what do you attribute this "worst part"? Are you alleging that the Jews control the media?

Also, while we are on the subject, what races are "some of you best friends"?

I'm not attempting to attack you personally or accuse you, just trying to shake your intellectual lapels a bit to reconsider your stance, for what I've noticed is that your question comes up in every single discussion of this issue, to the extent that it sounds like a mantra to me. Propaganda itself.

Peace.

definitely interesting topic. Reading their analysis though, led me to believe they didn't control for enough obvious variables.

Let me go through a scenario to give an example: how much was Nokia worth to Microsoft? Their idea that "due diligence" would uncover a value, and MS should signal the due diligence and the value with the pennies in the offer price doesn't reflect the truth of the situation that nobody knew or could know the value.

I'm not talking about a hindsight analysis after the Microsoft's mobile strategy failed; let's say it had succeeded and Microsoft was now equal to Android and iOS in a vicious 3 way competition: how much of that value would you attribute to the parts that came from Nokia? How much of the value would be due to MS's software? whose marketing muscle was it? Since it would now be a threeway competition, profits would be thinner, how much of that could be predicted with "due diligence"?

You don't know, because nobody knows; these types of intangibles are on the balance sheet as Goodwill because it's not possible to put a value on them except immediately post facto an acquisition. Due diligence is to uncover that what they are selling is what you think you buying, not the value you think you can extract from it in combination with your own assets, that's a secret you keep.

3) when you want the liquid smooth feel for your 99% time, why don't you boot Linux and run an MSWin in the VM?

why the pseudo? it seems living rather than pseudo-living. it needs a particular environment, but that's true of a lot of living things.

my definition of "waaayyy too much of their life" in the context of this topic is, people who don't have much going on IRL due to social adjustment impairments and personality disorders discover these online communities and have their emotional needs met by fitting into an online community.

Nothing wrong with all that, some hermit toiling over research into an obscure topic can do great work, but the same sorts of neuroticisms and anti social behaviors that can plague real life can more easily over plague online.

few things grind my gears like hipsters telling me how much THEY care about products being usable LIKE IT'S SOME SORT OF NEW IDEA, like they are the ONLY ONES WHO CARE.

beards and winter hats in summer seem, counter intuitively, to incubate a lot of unique little snowflakes.

Is pumped hydro dependent on geography? I'm no expert and I'm skipping over the research and calculation part, but I'd be somewhat surprised if solar panels on my house could generate enough electricity to pump more water up to a tank on my roof than I could run through for power generation.

That's not actually true in practice in the US: the morphine dosage used to treat pain for advanced cancers is given knowing full well it's a fatal dose. That it hastens death in addition to numbing the pain is something not much talked about outside the medical profession, but that is what is going on.

whoosh! you provided a Tim Cook response to a Steve Jobs comment.

A personality like Steve Jobs's would never tolerate having another Steve Jobs around, so this is what I always assumed. Steve was always laser focused on a small number of elements to create buzz (one button, really thin, it's a cube...) and a small number of products (goodbye old model, here is new model, it's not compatible).

Tim Cook has been adding blur from the first moment.

I also see an odd parallel in another corporate transition... even though it's the same leadership, is the new re/code more than a shadow of the old All Things D?

you can put your hunger to work for you, but you need to remind yourself that, if you carry extra pounds, hunger is what weight loss feels like. That ravenous feeling if you can keep it going, that right there is the success. celebrate it, and stop killing it.

if we're going to quibble, it's "discounted /expected/ future cash flows"

investments in assets result in depreciations which are expenses that reduce profits; you don't write off the asset as a loss all in one year, but it all gets written off across a series of years.

I thought this headline was referring to what I think is a more insidious form of moderation, the type that's practiced here on ycombinator with regard to style, for example, negativity is punished broadly here.

The reason I find it more insidious is that it affects the speech of and acts to silence even moderate people. Extreme speech is easy to spot; but when moderate speech encounters headwinds that divert its path, that's creepy.

I understand the goals here, don't need them explained, just pointing out that slashdot in its heyday was a terrific and informative resource and it did not resort to stifling.

pro-tip: I've seen demonstrated, if you repeatedly whack the bottom of a bottle of wine with the heel of your shoe (or, in a similar manner, smack the bottom of a bottle of wine against a tree trunk) the cork will slowly emerge on its own.

It occurs to me if you get it wrong, glass shards from the bottle could emerge before submerging into your flesh, so perform this trick at your own risk.

ok, sure, the idea of empathy ignores the limits of human psychology... because it's an "idea". human psychology is not an idea, nor is are its constituent parts ideas. so what?

if there is scarcity and competition, no doubt human psychology will kick in. but the idea of empathy would live on anyway.

assume for the sake of argument there is a constant amount of traffic. You can spread it evenly or lump it together. So... Berkeley has a large number of extra-busy boulevards carrying traffic farther than it would ordinarily have to go?

otherwise, what is happening is traffic is being discouraged/encouraged overall which has economic consequences.

TANSTAAFL

you are saying that a large collection of self-reported anecdotes more correctly describes a population than a study; we say "you're wrong," and there is plenty of statistical evidence that proves you are wrong, but of course you don't believe in statistical evidence, instead you'll tell me that you can think of ways you could be right and you can remember some times when you were right and some times when your family members were right.

I'm exaggerating of course, but I think that sums up the discussion here?

an OSS project is not enough to give us any security, chips that are mostly made super cheaply in sketchy countries and that are complex enough to contain whole computers and OS's... If you are successful with your OSS stopping spying or any other mal-MITM, the spies will be further incentivized to move upstream, and then you discover that even more spies live up at the headwaters.

I'm not saying it's hopeless, I'm saying that the problem needs to be stopped at its root and systemically, with random selections and inspections, 3rd party audits, etc. That's not perfect either (as we see from banking regulation) but unless you start in a civilized country with checks and balances, there is no end in sight.

wow, I really do not want to quibble with you about something we agree on, so for the record, "hey everybody, I agree with cyphar!"

However: the GPL2 says that you can impose no restrictions on what what people can implement with free software so long as they it is only redistributed as free software, so it seems to me that while DRM'ed software is not free, DRM software itself could be free. Hey, if a DRM scheme could be designed to ensure software freedom, it might even be embraced; we already have GPL clickwrap license clicks which a narrow reading of the GPL might suggest you can't have (it's an "additional restriction" that the original software you licensed may not have had; for instance, if clickwraps are covered by law that the GPL is not covered by, you are forcing additional terms)

I know that the GPL3 had some fine tuning with regard to TiVoization and web servers, but I'm not aware that it would bar DRM software itself; but perhaps.

OK, I found it here for GPL3. You are partially correct that the GPL3 contains some anti-DRM measures but not in the sense you describe:

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/quick-guide-gplv3.en.html "It's always possible to use GPLed code to write software that implements DRM. However, if someone does that with code protected by GPLv3, section 3 says that the system will not count as an effective technological "protection" measure. This means that if you break the DRM, you'll be free to distribute your own software that does that, and you won't be threatened by the DMCA or similar laws."

I thought one aspect of the GPL (copyleft being a clever copyright hack) is that the license applies only to the code you are licensing, and not to other copyrighted works you may have authored, but in a certain sense it does. I'm sure RMS and Moglen and FSF have thought harder about this than I have, so it's quite likely I'm missing something; however they do have broader agendas as well.