dylangs1030

I second this. I've discussed it in entirety with my parents, my girlfriend, her parents, and her siblings. They get it as well. They also don't care.

In fact, they're pretty much shocked at all the surprise and nerdrage on the internet right now. They responded almost universally the same way -- "We assumed this is how it's always been. This is a new thing?"

Honestly, I think it's neurotic that human beings will receive criticism for, and have to worry about the choice of how many times they tap a space bar when writing (not even coding). That we have to even include things like output format and source format to distinguish between is just on another level entirely (I'm not criticizing you, your point is valid).

I mean, when I read titles like this I think to myself, "Who gives a shit?"...then I read a long thread and think, "Wow, this is actually a real debate."

I never knew there was so much that could go into a decision about typesetting spaces. You learn something new everyday.

There are a lot of people who don't know what this is like; as someone who used to regularly experience this, I'd like to share some of my experience.

I have been in real situations that legitimately threatened my life and safety, and sleep paralysis consistently gave me comparable levels of stress and fear in each episode.

Imagine having a bad nightmare, so bad that you wake up from it. But when you wake up, your eyes are open and you cannot move. You see things that your mind logically knows cannot actually be there, but they are real for you. The REM dream state continues, overlapping reality.

In one case I woke up one my side to a large, dimly lit figure on the side of the bed, staring at me with red eyes. It just stared at me, while I physically felt something at the bottom of the bed dragging my body off. I couldn't move or even shift my head.

I was aware that I was awake, that this wasn't a dream anymore, but that this sort of paranormal situation should't be happening. I couldn't move, couldn't struggle - then the thing staring at me unhinged its jaws wider than should be humanly possible and screamed at me at the top of its lungs. It sounded like a human mixed with the shrill cry of a velociraptor from Jurassic Park.

I just remember trying to yell but not making noise, and feeling like I was drowning. I knew I was awake but the supernatural sense of wrongness was almost more terrifying than the hallucination.

Then, after what felt like minutes of struggling to breath, and the figure almost eating me, it all vanished, and I shook my body so violently I threw myself off the bed (seriously). I think I actually ran to the lights, turned them on and sat shuddering on my bed in the blanket for a while.

It's no joke. I used to regularly have these, and I sympathize with anyone who has had them. They're primarily caused by stress and anxiety (and have a high incidence in people with PTSD). It's not like a nightmare where you can convince yourself it wasn't real, because the things I hallucinated were as real to me as the lamp and nightstand.

Obviously I should say I didn't consume anything the night before. It's almost debilitating, and caused me insomnia for quite a while.

It was hard to describe to people - they are not the same things as night terrors. I would talk to people about it and they would say it was a bad nightmare. But it felt so real, it was like that scene from the Matrix with Neo and the bug.

Afterwards, details were always fully lucid and clear, and never became fuzzy. I eventually realized that the level of obsession I would get into when trying to get people to understand that it wasn't just a nightmare mirrored the hysterical reactions you would see from characters in Nightmare on Elm Street or the Exorcist. I never really believed in things like alien abduction, but I can fully understand why repeated exposure to sleep paralysis would cause someone to seriously question reality.

It's actually very serious. Just like ATMs, power stations can look completely harmless while being incredibly dangerous under the surface. Once you connect to a system via USB, it automatically allows data transfer, which makes your smartphone vulnerable to malware and data theft.

I can't speak for Android, but iOS 7 now has an automatic warning when you connect to new devices that asks if it should be trusted, presumably to mitigate this risk. However, I doubt anything less than a full hardware solution can actually eliminate the risk entirely.

There's a reason why conferences like DefCon warn you explicitly not to use power stations or ATMs nearby - they can be hijacked very easily.

Yeah...seriously. I expect some people will take offense to this, but here it goes:

So what? If this contrived issue that Google may face is now considered a serious matter, then I guess everything is off limits.

"Hey Tom, what should we name our new operating system?"

"I don't know, how about 'daring diamond' - it's got alliteration, and everybody loves diamonds."

"Mmmm...nope, sorry, that whole blood diamonds thing...don't want to risk that!"

Google isn't making a statement supporting Nestle's practices in other countries. They're not saying people are silly for boycotting the product. This is really just hypersensitive.

I'm not saying you shouldn't boycott Nestle. But KitKat is a fantastic name. It's not a loaded word. If you stopped people on the street and asked them what they thought about it, they'd probably say, "Hey, those give me a break commercials?" not "Hey, I boycott Nestle! Screw those bastards."

It's a cute name that has alliteration and is well known. I mean...come on. Criticize Google for something substantial, not because they named an operating system after a delicious chocolate treat marginally related to some controversy. If you're going to criticize Android, go the whole hog and do it with something that actually matters.

Okay. I get your point. The NSA is terribly flawed and out of bounds, and we need to raise hell to fix America. We're in agreement that the NSA is a problem we should care about.

One question: where does it end? I cede the point that Apple and the iPhone are part of tech news. So is the NSA. So they could conceivably be on topic together, especially with regards to privacy concerns.

My friends and I have a fantasy football league running through Yahoo. Yahoo could have backdoors from the NSA! I could be putting my entire online identity at risk by participating in fantasy football.

That's all speculation. I have no proof, just like the fingerprint TouchID theories had no real proof yesterday. Do I tell my friends this?

Instead of enjoying fantasy football, do I interrupt my friends' trade and persistently warn them about the NSA? When they tell me I'm being annoying, that they know already, that they heard me the first ten times, and that I am not offering any evidence or proof, just paranoid speculation, do I begin afresh in my spiel, like some crazed zealot touting Jesus on the street who can't let his friends just enjoy fantasy football? Do I make the sole decision that they need to hear this because I know what's best for them?

Like I said, I get your point. I understand that this is an important, sensitive topic. But again, some of us like Hacker News to aggregate tech news without NSA news necessarily being in front of our faces.

The perspective that I have to read about the NSA instead of the iPhone moving to 64-bit architecture because you know what's best for me is dictatorial. I understand if the democratic system of Hacker News demonstrates this is what the majority cares about, but at least you'll understand our perspective as well. Believe me, we get yours.

Yep. To demonstrate, I present Exhibit A:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6361558

A news headline about the Apple iPhone event, completely overshadowed by NSA speculation. The first threads spans 1/2 a page to 3/4 a page and is entirely argumentative speculation with no real benefit to the discussion.

I for one, just wanted some discussion about the phone moving over to 64-bit architecture. But, no, NSA speculation (read: not even new information, rehash) took over.

EDIT: Also, in before -- yes, I know I can scroll down the page. But the point is that in principle, you shouldn't have to scroll down half a page just to find the meat that's actually relevant to the discussion. It's not like we're saying the NSA news is unimportant -- just don't hijack threads that are about other things with obsessive privacy speculation when there isn't any empirical evidence or information to offer. For example, Apple's fingerprint scanning TouchID could be compromised...or maybe not. We don't know. But let's not destroy entire threads speculating about it.

You'd probably like SMBC too (if you don't already read it).

I agree with you that it's relevant to technical news, but I don't think it has anything to do with "plugging ears" or "willful ignorance."

I don't flag them (it's pointless I think), but I think the people flagging these stories are doing so because they're tired of hearing about it, and because one interpretation of the HN Guidelines supports it.

I was really excited about this, but then I read the limitations...in particular:

>No, due to technical limitations, some Steam games may be unavailable for sharing. For example, titles that require an additional third-party key, account, or subscription in order to play cannot be shared between accounts.

Damn. Probably should have expected this.

But, all in all, seems like a positive step forward!

On the contrary, I think it's pretty cool and creative that they did this. Very tactical of them.

But then, I'm also very neutral in the iPhone vs. Android debate.

There's an easier way to find this list.

https://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=+&sortby=point...

But, it's cool to see old posts :)

Spot on. I couldn't finish it to be honest. The author could have broken this article into at least two different essays to flesh out his ideas more. There was just so much going on.

It's not just you.

I don't like posts like this. "Beautiful in your own way" doesn't cut it. Instead of telling women that men don't care about those things (which, for most men, is false), be honest about it and encourage them to find a way to circumvent that problem altogether. Trying to impress men with your looks in order to get places is an uphill battle that should be avoided altogether, but let's not be naive and pretend it doesn't exist.

Younger people are generally more attractive than older people, all else being equal. This is okay to say. It's not sexist. Don't encourage people, whatever their gender, to compete in that arena with people younger than them as if they're on equal footing. Tell them to accept that and find a way to get the attention they deserve without desperately driving down their self-esteem.

Or, download the trial, and crack it from there? No malicious backdoors there.

"Then Max started saying some shit about something called 'serifs'. Yeah ok, like that’s a real word."

This is a perfect parody. I have nothing against Yahoo or Mayer, but man was that blog post snobby.

I mean, seriously, who cares? The whole "Let's post a blog post about the creative process of a fucking logo" is kind of ridiculous. Especially with the (admittedly impressive) video that used all kinds of graphics and cool music.

I hate it when people say this as a response.

If I'm on a bridge, and people are jumping off en masse, then one of two things is happening:

1. They've all been mentally affected, in which case, I almost certainly am too, or;

2. They know something I don't.

It's disingenuous to throw out a contrived example of a herd of people nonsensically jumping off a bridge. If that many people are jumping off a bridge, you probably should too, because they probably know something you don't (yet).

That was a good movie.

Can we get a citation on this that looks more like a neutral third party?

Chill out. He didn't try to insult you, he said it's somewhere else for those things to go. He didn't claim it's actually unimportant, and frankly, Hacker News wasn't intended for this kind of discussion - the guidelines support him.

Whether or not that means it shouldn't be here at all is up for debate, but don't act as though he's being insulting when he's just supporting something that's reasonable. He can voice his reasons just as you can voice yours. You're the one being more insulting.

Orange is the New Black is awesome. Highly recommend.

Haha, you can do that already. Disable that feature that restores your phone after x number of failed passcode attempts, and keep inputting wrong passcodes until it's locked for x hours.

I don't think it has an upper bound but I could be wrong.

You guys are having a phenomenally good discussion. This thread is fantastic and what I love to come to Hacker News and see. Right on, maximum A+.

Just wanted to squeeze that in edgewise.

In case you're unaware of what Spamhaus is, its severity as a DDOS, and the ongoing investigation into its operations, read here:

http://arstechnica.com/security/2013/03/spamhaus-ddos-grows-...

I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic, but it's unfair to judge someone's ability based on where they used to work.

This friend of mine was laid off in New York and received his severance; based on what I know about him, he could work in a multitude of places right now if he wanted to.

Zynga's vilified image aside, there is no reason to believe their engineers are not "top talent."

I understand what you mean, but I'm not opposed to extreme skepticism. It's alternative explanations that seem contrived that I'm opposed to.

There is a difference between extreme skepticism in the face of one story, and postulating hypothetical scenarios that have equal or higher burdens or proof, and are less likely or more difficult to demonstrate.

In fact, in terms of logic, the two are diametrically opposed.

What makes you think the majority of Google employees had any idea this was going on? We have the testimony of several Google employees who comment here on Hacker News that there was no indication any of this was happening.

Then there's the news report that corroborates this, implying not even the leaders of the companies had any idea.

I mean, again, they could all be lying...but Occam's Razor and all that.

Wow. I can't make out half of that either, and I'm a native English speaker too. Thanks for this, that was fun.

You're misinterpreting Rayiner's point, and debating this in the wrong way. You're speaking from an ethical perspective, but Rayiner is not. He's making a point about logical sphere of influence - it's not cold and uncaring towards distant suffering, just not prioritized.

I'm sure Rayiner feels deep sympathy for places that are not presently near to him (such as India, in this thread).

If every major problem in the United States were already solved, it would be more reasonable to then try to help others solve their problems. But that's not the case.

If you have people suffering right in front of you, it just makes sense logistically to help them first. Helping our own homeless and unemployed would aid in stimulating the American economy.

The bottom line is that there isn't any sane reason why an American would prioritize the needs of another country before his own. Nor would it be sane for an Indian to prioritize America's while she lives in India. It just doesn't make sense. You tend to your side of the street first.