Hacker News Reader

davidon Sister of Python Hacker arrested for protest - His essay on protest and change

Well if you ever have some time to kill, check out some of those links, they provide a way out that isn't easy, and is probably mulitgenerational.It seems pretty solid to me and would get rid of the ability to commit atrocities not by a new form of organization, but rather by curing individuals.

davidon Sister of Python Hacker arrested for protest - His essay on protest and change

So your theory is that no matter how people organize themselves they will always commit mass atrocities? I can agree with this on some level, there is a lot of psychological disturbance among human beings and has been throughout history.

I'm wondering if you are aware that there is ample evidence in the work of Adorno and his collegues (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authoritarian_personality), Lloyd deMause and the Institute for Psychohistory (http://www.psychohistory.com/) and Alice Miller (http://www.alice-miller.com/index_en.php) that political and military disasters are not linked to something intrinsic and inevitable in human nature, but rather to childhood and even prenatal experiences that can be avoided?

If you haven't, you might take a look at Lloyd deMause's book "The Emotional Life of Nations" (readable online: http://www.geocities.com/kidhistory/childhod/chindex.htm), which I think traces this ability of humans to murder and pillage to it's source and provides a plan for how it can be eliminated in the future.

davidon Sister of Python Hacker arrested for protest - His essay on protest and change

Who has committed more murders and violence in the past century? Random individuals/groups, or Governments? If you support nonviolence, why support an organization that threatens violence if you do not follow rules have no moral basis (ie, not "don't murder" and "don't steal") that you never agreed to follow?

davidon Ask HN: Favorite websites for intelligent discussion?

http://freedomainradio.com/board/

davidon Web Development as Tag Soup

Right, IIRC UCW is (was?) using both components with either html templates or html generation.

davidon Using your browser URL history to estimate gender

Likelihood of you being FEMALE is 99% Likelihood of you being MALE is 1%

davidon Swotti: a semantic-web based, opinions aggregator

It wasn't working for my first few searches, but I tried "Cybershot" and got some results, I could see how this would be useful in looking for reviews.

I'm not sure what to say about the use of a cartoon dog in a search tool, however...

davidon Webgen - How Zed Shaw managed to be slashdotted/reddited/yc.newsed and survive

Wasn't "webgen" an early name for Viaweb?

davidon 15 Great Examples of Web Typography

Come on, you could have at least said Helvetica.

They're showcasing these sites for much more than the typefaces used though. There's a lot of great macro typography and grid design here, along with just pushing the typesetting details beyond what HTML/CSS makes easy.

davidon Ask YC: favorite books

- What the Dormouse Said, John Markoff

- Alongside Night, J Neil Schulman,

- Prometheus Rising, Robert Anton Wilson

- Anything by Doug Rushkoff, Get Back in the Box is a good one for business/entrepreneurship

- The Dubliners, James Joyce

- The Elements of Typographic Style, by Robert Bringhurst

davidon Hackers' screen shots

http://webdever.net/screen.png

I could use a bigger screen...

davidon Are we domesticating human beings?

Thanks.

davidon Are we domesticating human beings?

That pretty much makes sense. Know any good sources on either of these topics?

davidon The age of mass innovation

If modern art is any indication, it would be mostly a joke/counter-productive, with a few successes.

davidon Do Not Name Drop To VCs

"Do not drop VCs", I doubt it would leave a very good impression.

davidon Damn you, Bobby Tables.

Complete with people complaining every time a link they don't like gets on the front page for a while.

davidon How old are you and what is your education level?

17 in second year of community college.

davidon Hacker Music?

Mostly progressive rock, jazz, power metal. Favorite artists: Spock's Beard, Savatage, The Strawbs, The Tangent, Gentle Giant, Herbie Hancock, Thelonious Monk, Stratovarius, Rhapsody, Dream Theater, Sonata Arctica.

davidon Computer Science: Smart People Have Weird Hangups

I run it on a powerbook. The only problem is there are no drivers for the nvidia video card, so no acceleration and suspend to ram doesn't work. Theres no flash support either, but I don't think that applies to Intel MacBooks.

davidon Rate YC Hacker News Interface

No undo vote does make me think a bit more carefully when I'm voting on something though. The only time it becomes a problem is if I accidently click on an arrow, which I think has only happened once for me so far.

Adding undo wouldn't add clutter, just see how reddit does it.

davidon What RSS reader do you use?

Thank you! Now I know I'm not the only person who hates RSS readers :)

davidon What is the average startup entrepreneur age? ie your age (I am 26 almost)

davidon My startup. Comments?

I have trouble reading the tiny text in the "what you get" boxes.

davidon The problems with social news

I remember in the early days of reddit some people claiming reddit/digg were a good idea because they used the WoC idea, and thinking that wasn't really correct. I've always thought a lot of the problems with social news could be solved by following the WoC model more closely (ie: it would be a better way of getting "a few interesting news stories"), but apparently I'm one of the 20 or so people who isn't hip to facebook, so I don't know if I'll be trying wildfire.

davidon Is college worth the cost?

Well, I liked your comment. High school has mostly been a waste of time for me. I don't see why kids can't get apprenticed or go to college or do something productive at that age.

davidon Scaling a startup from 0 to 40 hits per second in 3 days

Isn't the http-referrer already available to any link you visit from a search?

davidon VentureBeat: The Y Combinator List

snipshot

davidon What contributes most to reading speed: letter-recognition, word-recognition, or context?

acrd-rovcgviticn

davidon Why the iPhone doesn't have copy+paste

Well, if they've created the hardware and the environment and done a lot of brainstorming, experimenting, and researching how to make the design work, maybe they do know better than their users what they want. Most people probably don't spend all their time thinking of new ways to use a phone. If you decide Apple is wrong, just don't buy their products.

I do like open systems (linux/smalltalk/etc.), but then it seems like you still have a choice between using something someone else has designed for you, or doing it yourself. Developers can make systems configurable, but it doesn't seem like configuration options are always that creative, and they can get annoying after a while.

I guess the best thing a designer can do is make systems easy for hackers to extend, but someone is going to have to create a design somewhere, or else the end product isn't going to be very good.

davidon How to be a Programmer: A Short, Comprehensive, and Personal Summary

I remember reading that the officials he was surrounded with were mostly taller than he was, so he looked short relative to tall people.