Hacker News Reader

crwalkeron Copyright Office Ruling Imposes Sweeping Right to Repair Reforms

Yeah. More broadly, I think digital devices should be loyal to their owners rather than a 3rd party like the manufacturer or a surveillance/credit/ad agency.

Part of the solution may be legal, but I also think that the architecture of the device will need to change, e.g. to remove the technical ability of the manufacturer to remotely brick it.

crwalkeron Copyright Office Ruling Imposes Sweeping Right to Repair Reforms

This is great! The push by large companies to replace personal asset ownership with perpetual rent is worth fighting against.

crwalkeron Tesla Third Quarter 2018 Update [pdf]

Agree - Tesla had an existential incentive to build chargers, but other car makers would prefer to wait and see (and let someone else build out the commodity chargers).

crwalkeron Tesla Third Quarter 2018 Update [pdf]

How long do you think the current Supercharger network will be a large competitive advantage?

I agree with Benedict Evan's point that electric charging will become a commodity: https://www.ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2018/8/29/tesla-soft...

crwalkeron New law lets you defer capital gains taxes by investing in opportunity zones

When you significantly edit your comments after the conversation has moved on, it's really helpful to include the edits below the original post so that others can view the actual conversation.

-- Edit: like this.

crwalkeron New law lets you defer capital gains taxes by investing in opportunity zones

No, I wouldn't.

I'm not tracking the argument you're making. Between the frequent revisions of your comments, I've gathered that HN users are bad for not visiting Oakland, but once you discover that we've been there, now you want us to stay away? I thought I was preferring gentrification to decay, but now I'm personally kicking people out of their houses?

Life is hard and unfair. I get it. But if you make choices based on a short-sighted compassion for the disadvantaged that entirely neglects long-term consequences, you will make life harder and more unfair. Exhibit A: CA's Prop 13.

crwalkeron New law lets you defer capital gains taxes by investing in opportunity zones

Why is that analogy relevant?

crwalkeron New law lets you defer capital gains taxes by investing in opportunity zones

You are confusing cause and effect.

Gentrification is a consequence of improving economic circumstances. Decay is a consequence of declining economic circumstances.

Public policies can plaster over this fact somewhat, but generally policies like rent control or CA's Prop 13 make things worse rather than better.

I have visited Oakland plenty. It's a terrible place, due at least in part to bad public policy as described above.

crwalkeron New law lets you defer capital gains taxes by investing in opportunity zones

Taking the question in good faith, here a few examples drawn from the example above.

* The neighborhood is mostly burnt down, derelict, or razed: think of the important stories in your life and where they took place, and imagine those places transformed, not into a high-end sushi bar, but cracked sidewalks and rubble.

* A generation of home owners probably lost the majority of their wealth

* The city lost tax revenue and struggles to provide basic services like streetlights or the enforcement of law.

crwalkeron New law lets you defer capital gains taxes by investing in opportunity zones

If you think gentrification is bad, you should see the alternatives. They are real. https://goo.gl/maps/veQSXmD7Z5G2

crwalkeron The Student Loan Debt Crisis Is About to Get Worse

If something can't go on, it won't. This crisis will resolve itself when:

* Many colleges go bankrupt

* We are honest with our kids about the learning and signaling consequences of their choices

* Employers loosen their degree filters out of rational self interest

Universities are not for job training. There are much more effective ways to get job training like apprenticeship.

crwalkeron Digital IDs Are More Dangerous Than Thought

Agree with the article. I think we generally underestimate the privacy-destroying power of the UUID: a single random-looking number can track absolutely anything.

Digital systems should require auth via public-key crypto rather than global IDs but keys can be correlated too. Whenever possible we should build systems with technical and economic incentives to preserve privacy, but I wish we had better ways to do that.

crwalkeron Air India Express 737 Hits ILS, Damages Wall on Departure, Flies for 4 Hours

Pulling back on a car’s steering wheel doesn’t do anything. Also, cars have a very low stall speed.

crwalkeron As fake videos become more realistic, seeing shouldn't always be believing

The default approach to a medium shifting from trust to distrust is a significant change.

crwalkeron The Big Hack: How China Used a Tiny Chip to Infiltrate Amazon and Apple

Stories like these make me think there is a real need for electronic devices made entirely in the US (or your preferred trusted country).

Products like the Yubikey are apparently made in the US / Sweden, but I wonder how many components are actually made elsewhere and just assembled in these countries. Are there any good examples of consumer devices actually made entirely in the US down to the microchip?

crwalkeron Cincinnati Joins the List of Cities Saying ‘No’ to Parking Minimums

Apparently Cincinnati. Great by the measure of livability as demonstrated by many European cities (high density core and mixed land use make cities better suited to walking, biking, community).

crwalkeron Cincinnati Joins the List of Cities Saying ‘No’ to Parking Minimums

I am optimistic that we are relearning how to build great cities in the US.

crwalkeron Beijing’s Three Options: Unemployment, Debt, or Wealth Transfers

If WWII policies seem to be evidence that "tight control of the economy worked just fine to stabilize the system," consider that centralized economic decisions (German war finance, treaty of Versailles, war reparations, Weimar Republic hyperinflation) paved the way for WWII. Early 20th century Europe is an odd example to choose to demonstrate a stable, well-controlled system.

crwalkeron Beijing’s Three Options: Unemployment, Debt, or Wealth Transfers

"...they can take as big hammer as needed to fix it."

If you believe complex economic systems follow simple, well-known control laws, then yes. But I haven't seen much evidence for this.

crwalkeron Launch HN: The Buttermilk Company (YC S18) – Homemade Indian Food in 5 Minutes

I think this is a pretty tractable problem: plenty of non-Indians love Indian food for the spice, and anecdotally, I've had plenty of food like "thai hot" pad thai that's too hot for my Indian coworkers.

Palates will vary, but I'd expect the typical 1-4 pepper scale would give most people a good option. If carrying four variants of every item is too much of a challenge, the meals could include optional spice sub-packets.

crwalkeron Julia v1.0 has been released

I hope so - Julia has been one of the most refreshing software experiences I've tried, and that was only Julia 0.4.

crwalkeron Evolving Floorplans

The concrete in the Pantheon is exposed to max ~20 psi tensile stress, and the concrete can handle about ~200 psi tensile stress.

http://www.romanconcrete.com/docs/chapt01/chapt01.htm

crwalkeron Learning Dexterity

How apropos, if our own jobs are the first to go.

crwalkeron Juggalos figured out how to beat facial recognition

I hope there is a better solution than returning to the bauta.

Venice faced a related challenge (in a small city any passerby has a good chance of facial recognition) and it seems that their masks were sometimes used around the year for anonymity.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnival_of_Venice#Carnival_ma...

crwalkeron After the Fall: Ten Years After the Crash

I appreciate this counterpoint.

It's much easier to see a pattern than to understand why it occurs.

crwalkeron After the Fall: Ten Years After the Crash

The ten-year anniversary is a good moment to look at the Case-Schiller index today and compare it to the peak of the bubble in 2006.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CSUSHPINSA

I think there will be some great deals in real estate by 2021.

crwalkeron Future generations will laugh in horror and derision at the folly of facadism

I believe the Pantheon's floor is still the original - it's my favorite building in the world.

crwalkeron FIU had grand plans for 'signature' bridge. But the design had a key mistake

I hope my philosophy isn't Brutalism, because I find most of those buildings heinous.

I'm not an expert, but it seems that Brutalism requires one to reduce all forms to their mechanical function. I think there are plenty of other good reasons to include a form, e.g. Corinthian columns are modeled after acanthus leaves, and I think that's just great. The form is telling a story about our connection with nature, and nobody is pretending that the column is actually an acanthus.

crwalkeron FIU had grand plans for 'signature' bridge. But the design had a key mistake

I suspect that a lot of our better skyscrapers will be around in 500 years: once a pattern is set, people like to preserve it.

crwalkeron FIU had grand plans for 'signature' bridge. But the design had a key mistake

Yes! Good thing you pushed back on the architect.

I have a similar design philosophy that honesty is more aesthetically pleasing than deception.

When designers resort to faux materials and structures, the truth still tends to peek through, resulting in an 'uncanny valley' of forms. For example: * Brickwork veneers bend in the wrong spots * Faux beams are placed in the wrong locations with the wrong joints, announcing that they can't bear a load

There's certainly a place for decorative elements, just not decorative elements pretending to be something else.

I spent several summers framing houses, so I'm looking forward to an opportunity to design my own house - and maybe 3D printing it.