detst

This is what Turing_Machine is doing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum

Offering something free doesn't make one immune to criticism and criticizing isn't entitled whining. This is fair criticism.

I suspect the answer is "significantly". It would have been better to post in the morning.

I considered that and I'll admit that I was being a bit lazy with my comment but I think it could be written in a reasonable way. Perhaps a license fee attached to any failed legal action. Or even limit to certain types of legal action.

"Sue us and your license is revoked" is quite a reasonable provision, IMHO.

Edit: if you're going to down-vote, at least read my clarification below.

No. You should read the other comments before posting. DannyBee explains above: "It's about what happens when two people file patent apps for things they can both prove they invented." If I steal your invention and patent it, you still have the opportunity to show that it was your stolen idea.

Stealing a definition from below:

> Sexism definition: Prejudice, stereotyping, or discrimination, typically against women, on the basis of sex.

I'm not arguing that this isn't a terrible, unwarranted attack; I'm arguing against the dilution of the term. Not every attack against a person of another race is racist and not every attack against a women is sexist.

Where is the "basis on sex" in this story (genuine question, i.e. did her gender motivate the attack)? Without this, you can call it many things but not sexist.

How do you know the motivation of this person? Every time one of these stories come up, someone tries to call other people out for rationalizing. It's not rationalizing, it's calling it as they see it: someone being an asshole.

If you want blatant sexism, FTA: "no offence, I just don’t relate to girls speaking about the industry at all, I learn better from guys". That's sexism.

It's not denial if you don't know the motivation. Why is it so important to label these actions a certain way when we can just call it as it clearly is?

Trying to label everything that may or may not be sexism doesn't help the cause. Most of us know there is rampant sexism. Arguing about this just detracts from the real problem. There are more than enough obvious instances to demonstrate the problem.

EDIT: for the 2 down-voters so far: the point I'm making is that sexism is a major problem but trying to ascribe motivation to something with uncertainty is intellectual dishonesty that does nothing but detract from the real problem.

You might want to stop and consider who's "not participating in this conversation in a constructive manner". You've called him a "software-bigot", "troll", "jerk" and "asshole". You seem to be taking his valid criticism personally. I've re-read the post and cannot see your motivation for the name calling.

The Ruby community may come out of this better and stronger but it's quite valid to suggest that some people may be better off moving on.

> And yet, that's what the law said.

It wasn't the law[1] but rather a contractual restriction on surchages. This settlement with VISA and MasterCard removes that restriction. It doesn't apply to other companies like American Express.

[1] Some states did and still do prohibit credit card surchages.

That's the same logic that results in people paying a huge markup on cables because it's only a fraction of the cost of the TV they just bought.

$100 is $100 and $600k is $600k. Trying to put it in relative terms to minimize the cost doesn't make any sense. It's still a waste.

> Do you want all your neighbors and potential employers to know you've filed for bankruptcy?

That's a fair point and I certainly wouldn't but that's really a different matter as AnthonyMouse pointed out. My personal opinion is that I don't want this data readily accessible but I do see value in it being so.

> 99% of the public wouldn't know what to do with PACER

99% of the public wouldn't know what to do with the YouTube API[1] but the fact that it's readily accessible means the 1% can do interesting things for the 99%. Don't be so presumptuous about the value of this information being freely available. Neither you nor I can envision all of the possible use cases.

[1] Replace with government data, open source code, etc.

But you've completely derailed this post. I think you could have raised awareness about this man while also keeping the discussion on the positive aspect of these questions being asked at all.

> I've been shocked to see how many geeks - including Linus, do not seem to understand the concept of maximum penalties.

And I'm shocked to see how many people misinterpret those geeks. We don't believe he was absolutely going to end up in jail for 35 years; we believe it was hung over his head to extort a plea deal, while remaining a real possibility.

> Journalists like to quote the "up to" numbers because they sound dramatic, and as a functioning member of society you need to know what that means and doesn't mean.

We're not talking about the concept; we get that. We're talking about a prosecutor that had large discretion in which, if any, charges to bring and brought multiple charges that had high maximum penalties for a reason. It's disingenuous to come back later and try to downplay the real charges with the real prospect of 35 years in jail, even if its real purpose was extortion.

It's easy to say "you need to know what that means and doesn't mean" until you're the one actually facing those penalties and financial ruin. I'm sure reminding you how the game works will be very comforting.

I've been more violated entering NFL games than going through airport security, on average.

The problem is that the American people want to do anything about terrorists, crime or "for the children" at the expense of our civil liberties. It's entirely irrational. TSA at NFL games will not even remotely begin to change that.

There was a bit of an uproar about the increased security measures at NFL stadiums some years ago but it died down and things went on as usual.

I love HN for discussions like this when a security expert familiar with the Chrome architecture will jump in and break things down (good or bad).

Increasingly I expect a contrarian at the top stating nothing but the obvious fact that there are security implications. Can we stop this now?

  I'd expect more intelligent people, which this community
  claims to consist of, to not react the way it has to the
  events, with nothing but hyperbole and sensationalism.

Your first comment here on HN contains this:

  Even within this submission, the comments here still talk
  and insinuate Aaron was facing life imprisonment, danger to
  being raped daily, and suicide was his only option.

Talk about hyperbole and sensationalism. There's been some of that but I've seen none of those three specific statements and if that's all you've got out of these discussions, you're seriously missing something. Just because you disagree doesn't make it all "hyperbole and sensationalism".

People are emotional and justifiably angry. Maybe some of it has been a bit ridiculous but that doesn't invalidate the disgust with these events and with the larger systemic issues.

> Getting rid of plea bargaining doesn't make the problem better

He didn't say that and I hope you know the difference. Reform is desperately needed.

There are all sorts of unanswered questions but whether or not it affected his mental state is not among them. I'm angry about an unjust prosecution that should never have had the opportunity to cause this damage. I can't know if things would have ended differently but that's not a question we should have to ask.

Unfortunately this is part of deeper systemic problems and bringing up his accomplishments is rather irrelevant and distasteful. If exaggerating his accomplishments helps to spread the story, I have absolutely no problem with that because it has nothing to do with the real issues.

> Even so, these careless and unfounded words must have hurt tremendously, much more so than had nothing been said at all.

It angers me to think that HN could have contributed in any way to the dark place Aaron ended up reaching. More so because many of those comments bothered me at the time and I neither knew Aaron nor the severity of the situation. They were unwarranted even in absence of the full story.

I'm not challenging that it's a useful data point. I'm questioning why you couldn't resist the urge to close the tab if you're going to bother to offer feedback. Time is finite and it's a perfectly valid reaction but not if you're going to attempt constructive criticism.

I'm also challenging that "we're doing just fine". Progress is always welcome and needed.

It's interesting that you were so proud to judge a website by its slogan that you'd come here and tell all of us. It's one thing to have that reaction, it's another not to resist that urge and then announce to everyone that you judged the book by its cover.

> do not need another way to talk to each other, we're doing just fine

People are very poor judges in deciding whether they need something new before they actually see it. I have no idea if this is something we "need" but this is some bizarre anti-progress attitude. The world is in need of new and better ways of doing almost everything.

> And in all of this noise we've only heard a few whimpers about the systemic failings that have brought about this tragedy, with vastly more voices calling for specific heads to roll.

"Calling for specific heads" is a perfectly reasonable response to systemic failings. The system is fucked up and it's not even as if they can say "I was just doing my job". There is a large amount of discretion involved here. Even hypothetically conceding that some crime was committed and that this is just how the game is played to get people to plea doesn't justify ruining someone's life.

Hold these specific people accountable and the message will be sent that these tactics are no longer accepted. It's just a band-aid but it's a start.

Right but the root problem is that I can't take my Verizon phone to AT&T because of hardware incompatibility.

There's not much sense in fighting for something that is largely irrelevant to most people.

This is the answer. Chromebooks are a buy-in to the web platform. That's why it's good for the consumer. It de-emphasizes the OS; users can seamlessly switch between Windows, Mac, another Linux distro, iOS, Android, etc. and stick to the web platform. Chromebooks are an optimization for the web and in some ways a "less is more" prospect for consumers.

From the HN "it's my hardware, let me do what I want" perspective (and count me among you), it's a bit of a paradigm shift. Sure there are some restriction but it's not as if we are completely shut out. We have Native Client to get at a lower level and the usual tools like SSH. If this isn't good enough, you aren't restricted to a single piece of hardware or just install Ubuntu.

No, this is him very intentionally posting to a public web site, wanting people to discover it, knowing that they would and now they have. Rather different from "she shouldn't dress that way..." for obvious reasons. Your claim (in another post) that he "made it clear that he wants to be left alone" isn't very convincing anymore.

Note that I share your unease with this whole situation but let's not pretend that this wasn't the expected outcome.

> But this is getting ridiculous and this sleuthing/snooping is uncomfortable.

Maybe it is but it's pretty clear from the other posts in this thread (posted about the time you posted this) that this is the reaction he was expecting. This is him "doing something". If he didn't want people to snoop he wouldn't have given them something to snoop into.

> (and I wish it was possible to connect by SIP to google voice)

There was a time when you could connect Google Voice to Gizmo5 (SIP) but then Google bought them and disabled that functionality.

A README is the absolute bare minimum for a GitHub project. Even a lack of code can get some interest in an idea. Someone landing on the GitHub page will reflexively look for the back button if they haven't seen the blog post.

Great work!

I'm not going to argue that Google+ doesn't fit some definition of "social network". But what's up with the snarky comments? How about sticking to an argument, instead of making comments like "The only person who thinks otherwise is you", which isn't even true?