gyom

I've never considered this, but the history of Wikipedia over the next 100 years might be an insanely valuable source of insight about culture.

So if something is providing a service to society by using resources that would otherwise be unused, but government can't tax the service, then it's "bad for the economy" ...

> Who knows what other legal obligations he faces - the moment he opens the account, someone else may have immediate notification & right to seize the funds (tax delinquency, child support, etc).

Yes, and I would have liked to read about this instead of reading about some vague uneasiness concerning banks that this poor guy developed by being homeless for so long.

Then it would turn into a story about how the System is giving no chances to a man who deserves a chance, about the "entry fee" to get back into the System, instead of it being about him feeling awkward about what it would mean to open up a bank account like a non-homeless person.

I have not, but that doesn't seem to be the point of the article, unfortunately.

The article says that this might be complicated because you might need an address, but then it goes on about how it is some kind of mental state of disconnection that prevents this guy from someone realizing the value of the $10k in the bank.

> Would you want to return to that non-homeless life that you failed?

You're eating burgers from restaurants from "that life", you're sleeping on a park bench from "that life", you're wearing used tshirts from "that life", you're watching tv at the shelter and the news are about the politics from "that life", you're getting napkins from a shopping mall from "that life" ...

This is why I don't get the bank account thing. It's definitely one foot in "that life", but so are a ton of other things in a homeless person's life (as I picture it).

It seems to me that having a bank account is barely "joining the system". We're not talking about having a house, paying taxes or working a regular job. We're just talking about having a bank card that can get money at the ATM. He doesn't even need to put money back in the bank account.

The story looks very suspicious / incomplete because of that. But then again, I'm not in his shoes. Maybe I'd understand if I was.

This article should have made better points about why this is a "dark" side of airbnb. It's vaguely attempting to motivate existing laws and pointing how airbnb does not respect those laws. Since when are we supposed to be automatically in favor of rent control policies ?

During the transition period between the old media and the new, they'll have the opportunity to transfer everything.

We had VHS tapes for our family videos. Now we have them as video compressed with h264. If that format is getting phased out, we'll just transfer to the latest format. Some degradation may occur when switching codecs, just like when transferring from VHS to digital, but that's fair.

You don't have to come up with a solution that lasts 80 years. You just need to survive 10-20 years until you transfer to the next media that makes sense for you. Keep redundant copies off-site.

I think you've put your finger on something important, but I don't think that it's just a bad thing that leads to an "embarrassing situation for everybody".

Opportunities to act differently for one day of the year are more valuable than that. That way, you can explore a side of you without being "inconsistent" with your usual public self, or get to know a different side of other people.

Anyone can decide to dress up like a pirate on any given day, but most of will wait for Halloween to enjoy it.

It also sounds like a canned response from Stretch who probably uses that to justify why he himself works there.

I never imagined that I would one day feel like I'm "downing in my own filth of useless powers of 2".

If you play that game with any kind of prior belief about the values that you're about to see, then the theoretical solution is not longer valid.

What you're describing with the rock star vs incompetent people scenario is about bringing prior knowledge in there. You see a rock star as first candidate. You figure that, in your lineup of 10 people, odds are that no one will be better than that rock star. So you pick him/her.

This makes the theoretical solution at best a kind of intuitive justification in practical settings, but you shouldn't apply it mechanically without using your judgment.

I assumed that he meant that the kind of homeworks that you can realistically give students in C++ is going to be restricted to very elementary things that are not very representative of the "real" software that people encounter in the "real" world.

I prefer the narrative in which sales on Steam are the popular response to high pricing (and DRM), and where Free To Play is something that bad guys do to exploit people's psychology (tapping into the same mecanics as casino do).

You are framing it in a way that makes Free To Play the only valid response to piracy.

That summary of the Asimov story is very interesting. Do you have the name of the story if I want to read it ?

> So this is a valid contribution to economics in the form of an inadequate dynamic model.

With that line of reasoning, don't you feel that anything is a "valid contribution to economics" ?

Don't even watch the THRIVE stuff either unless you're fond of Egyptians communicating with extra-terrestrials and that kind of nonsense.

Except that, if it was what they wanted, then it's hard to explain the walking character at 3:30 that gets his legs almost trapped in the soft heavy melting snow.

There's just no way that you'd get that kind of effect with that kind of snow. It looks more like the kind of thing that you'd get from non-uniform snow that has a crust on top (and that kind of snow is not sticky and not melting).

The idea is cool. I wish there was a middle ground between 1 snitch for free, and unlimited snitches for $20/month.

How many snitches should I get for $1/month, say ?

Page 46 reads : "It was not until the last World War that poisonous gases were demonstrated to be an important factor in modern military science."

It feels strange to be reading something like that in 2013.

I didn't expect this to be illegal, but now that I think about it, it should be illegal-ish.

Do you know what's the general principle called, or have a reference ? Something like "hiring without intention of providing work". Wrongful hiring ?

So, in that sense, the accurate claim should be something like "passwords are getting a little bit better, but crackers are improving by waaaaaay more, and that shifts the balance".

I read a comment from Richard Garfield in the days of "Revised edition" and he said that one of the flaws of Black Lotus was that there was no deck that could not be made better with the addition of Black Lotus.

It's an auto-include. A no-brainer. Everybody wants one. Every deck benefits from having it, and that's why it defeats the spirit of the game and should be left out of future editions.

So, you could say that it's because it's so powerful that it's an auto-include, but then that leads to a discussion about cards that are powerful on their own and what cards are enablers.

I thought the article was mostly about "most used" instead of "most powerful", but I admit not having taken the time to understand it well enough.

If it's just about "most used", then it's probably because Wastelands fits almost everywhere and it's good disruption.

I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that they can retrieve dual lands. (disclaimer : I'm not an expert)

You could, for example, run a two-color deck with 4 dual lands and 12 fetchlands. You retrieve the dual lands first (if you don't care about Wastelands) and then you get basic lands.

Does that mean that fetch lands are 3 times as popular ? Yeah, kinda, but if you had a choice between using only dual lands or only fetch lands, maybe the decision would favor dual lands in many contexts.

I don't think he meant about the particular details. To give a minimalist example, you could say that people who enjoy using old cameras (even though they're not as good as modern ones) share something in common with people who enjoy hooking up their NES and playing Mario 3 (even though some might argue that it's not as engaging as their favorite AAA game).

The two objects of interest are not the same, they're not in the same category, but they're both tied by the same kind of enjoyment for retro things.

So it's not really about which shirts are worn by geeks and hipsters at the same time ...

If you can do it virtually through the bank's API, then you might have a better shot than by exchanging pennies manually.

Here's a reference. No idea if some particular bank is vulnerable to it, but it's a fun read.

http://blog.acrossecurity.com/2012/01/is-your-online-bank-vu...

Would you mind expanding what you wrote in that third paragraph ? All the better if there was a nice youtube video interview with said economist explaining him/herself.

I agree that playing to win isn't the right approach to have fun at bowling with new friends. I still find that's it's hard to care about the game (to enjoy your own good moves), and then at the same time not care about who's winning.

I guess what I'm saying is that it seems like we're playing bowling because of tradition. Someone could come up with a better-designed game, maybe involving pins and balls, played in a bowling alley. People would still enjoy feeling like they're going out and having fun, but they'd be playing a more compelling version of bowling.

The bowling example reminded me of how all the problems about bowling as a group activity. It's rather easy to imagine why these people are on their phones instead of chatting together or cheering for the other players.

1) You are often playing against the other players. When your friend gets a strike, it generally means that these points are scored against you. That makes it a little hard to be enthusiastic about your friend getting a lucky strike. Two-player coop in games is great because you get to win together.

2) The ball is pulled from your hands the moment you start getting into the motion. Then it's back to more downtime. Bowling with friends is almost 80% downtime, but it's just short enough that you might consider just sitting it through and not necessarily engaging in conversation with someone that you don't really know.

3) When you do have a good conversation going, the last thing you want to do is to have to leave it there to go throw the ball at the pins for a minute and have a hard time resuming the conversation afterwards.