cloakandswagger

I buy bread from a farmer's market some weekends. It's made by one guy in his home kitchen who isn't accredited or regulated in any way.

By your approximation I should be dead by now. The salient point is that it's my human right to associate with whomever I please.

If you were applying for a security clearance and the government discovered you had massive amounts of debt and lots of questionable history that's ripe for blackmail, you would likely be denied. That's because those things could be used as leverage against you to make you act immorally.

So yes, I'm quite interested in the personal lives of the people running a company about to be ordained as "the objective truth" by Facebook/Google/et al

People greatly underestimate the magnitude of bloodshed that would come with American isolationism.

Because of Pax Americana, most people can't even grasp the concept or seriousness of, say, a neighboring nation dropping bombs on your city just because they want your territory. The US is insulated from such concerns, Europe is rife with them :)

I thought the integrated headphones were a stupid idea when they first announced them, but after using the Rift they are a must-have in my opinion.

It's one less thing you're tethered to, they make jumping into VR faster and they are surprisingly high quality.

Serious post: It's possible you have low testosterone levels. Annual testosterone checks are an important medical precaution for men, as decreased levels can be caused by serious medical conditions.

-The services provided by Google and Facebook have an unassailable majority of market share and are relied on by a huge amount of people.

-They enjoy a de facto monopoly and are protected by the extreme cost, risk and time involved in building competing services.

-Finally, they have a potential for abuse (say, with selective censorship or politically biased algorithms) that could essentially curb the Constitutional rights of individuals

If these points sound familiar it's because they're frequently used when arguing for the nationalization of a private company. Since I think that's (currently) out of reach, I believe regulating Facebook, Google, et al as public utilities to be the next best thing.

Then why do you sound so worried?

>Perhaps that makes me a bad person.

Not bad, merely ignorant. You're celebrating the incarceration of someone you presumably know very little about, all while searching for "true" victims ("perhaps the public?") to fuel your indignation.

Pretty funny if you ask me. They've had a long running and playful "feud" for a while now.

Because it's his drug. He bought it. It's his property.

Can you elaborate? Who did Shkreli hurt here and how?

I agree. My initial perception of Shkreli was the commonly accepted one of revulsion and hatred. After watching the Vice piece, plus a lot of Shkreli's finance talks and live streams, I find him pretty charming and unbelievably intelligent.

Because decentralized organizations like the DAO are only one of a multitude of different things you can implement with Ethereum.

Status prohibited US citizens from participating in their ICO and they still raised $100M.

Anyone tech savvy enough to contribute money to an ICO is tech savvy enough to connect to a non-US VPN before doing it.

Look further then. These comments are abundant, and they aren't intelligent discourse so much as celebrating failures in crypto and mocking its supporters.

Note to other readers: The comment in question only used the term "statist", this poster just implied the usage of the 4chan ad hominems for increased effect.

The vast majority of fiat currency are 1s and 0s stored on computers, the only difference being:

1) Bitcoin is tracked by a global, immutable ledger, whereas you have no idea what kind of potentially krufty, in-house software your bank is tracking your money with.

2) There is a finite number of Bitcoins that can ever exist, whereas 100 trillion new units of your fiat could be created at the push of a button.

Nope, it still seems as hostile as ever. Every top voted comment on a thread concerning crypto will be people cheering its inevitable demise and mocking its naive supporters.

I can only imagine it's a mixture of jealousy and sour grapes from missing out on crypto's rise, but it feels strange that a forum dedicated to tech is so angry and dismissive towards a really interesting new technology.

I think you're underestimating just how big a deal the split was. It could have lead to Bitcoin being split into two distinct currencies, and this was happening on a very short and defined timeline (July 21st and August).

The swings absolutely were caused by anxiety/relief around this event.

Unfortunately it seems that the same smiley, inoffensive, A-for-effort mentality that exists in our school system has fully invaded the corporate world.

I experienced this personally after talking to a report about their absenteeism. Within a day I received a lengthy email from them complaining about my directness. That 30 second exchange was escalated to management; they agreed that my feedback was justified (the employee in question had missed our team's only recurring meeting for the past month) but suggested I adjust my "tone" to avoid embarrassing them.

I can't help but see similarities when I read this article. Speak directly to someone and they'll get their feelings hurt. Sugarcoat it and they'll claim that you weren't clear enough. Casually hint at the issue and they'll claim you were passive aggressive.

Something is fundamentally wrong with an environment where adults can't have honest and direct interaction for fear of hurting someone's feelings.

I would estimate a reasonable amount of prep time prior to interviewing is around 100 hours. This is about how long it will take to brush up on and practice data structures, algorithms, DP, design questions, etc.

This is about 2 months of practicing an average of 2 hours a day, meaning you're still working a day job. I figure this could be reduced to 1 month of prep if you quit your job and have all day to yourself.

>I'd have to register an aircraft if I wanted to fly it in most cases, and I'd have to register myself (get a pilot's license)

There are entire classes of aircraft (ultra-lights most prominently) that require no license or registration to fly.

The relevant law here comes from The FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012, which prevented the FAA from imposing any new regulations on model aircrafts. The FAA classifies drones as model aircrafts, ergo they can't make you register them.

The 2015 rule requiring registration was clear overreach by the FAA, made even more ridiculous because it was labeled an "emergency action"

It only took two minutes for someone to answer a clearly rhetorical question.

You think quality of life is synonymous with quality and competence of government. This is the problem.

Or suing gun manufacturers for shoo--

https://www.rt.com/usa/369036-sandy-hook-gun-manufacturing-l...

..Oh

I think even 3 years is a little problematic. What are you supposed to do, take care of your child until they're 3 years old and then just go back to work?

Every company should be legally obligated to provide 18 years of paid leave for each child a worker has. Anything less is signaling that they value money over the personal and family life of their employees, and it's ridiculous that I still haven't found a country or business that offers this.

You're right, it's a vehicle for speculation now. And when the tech matures and the price steadies, it will be, at the very least, a new store of value for diversifying wealth with, akin to bullion.

That is valuable to me and a lot of other people. Until that time comes, I'm happy to embrace the risk of early adoption and the many thousands of dollars it's made for me already.

Shitting on emergent tech is completely antithetical to the ethos of the "hacker mindset".

A real hacker would recognize these are the early days of a new technology with incredible potential. Its tech is disruptive enough to already grow a marketcap measured in billions, I don't know what is gained from harping on all the early failures.

The original commenter belongs to a very persistent faction of people who openly mock and malign cryptocurrencies despite being completely unaffected by them

My only theory to date is these are sour grapes type folks who are upset that they've missed the bus in terms of crypto's fantastic investment value.

The only comfort these people get is jeering from the sidelines in hopes that an eventual collapse will prove them "right"

The first thing that struck me about this story was the absolutely terrible writing:

>An elegant middle-aged man, in a spotless black jacket, came up to me, hand extended, to say hello, and I was startled. My neighbours in Japan tend to be formal and reticent; few of them are eager to take the initiative. And we were simply standing around an art gallery on Kitayama Street in northern Kyoto, 20 years ago, where a handful of us had gathered to see an exhibition of a friend’s pen-and-ink drawings.

This paragraph is awful from a purely grammatical perspective.

The second thing that becomes apparent is a definable arrogance and pretentiousness from the author. As you said, the "essence of Japan" isn't a trust fund baby selling his poems. If anything it is getting hired on at a zaibatsu, working yourself to death, living alone in a tiny apartment and developing alcoholism by age 30. This image isn't as fantastical as the one Pico presents though.