Hacker News Reader

hackerman12345on We can break up Big Tech

Warren goes a bit incoherent when she writes that Amazon buying Whole Foods is a big anti-competitive problem...

hackerman12345on Impact of a Night of Sleep Deprivation on Novice Developers’ Performance (2018)

https://www.gwern.net/zeo/CO2

hackerman12345on Dell Autism Hiring Program

The generic explanation is: The 'minority' can often have worse interview results and still get the job over a non-minority.

There was recently in the news a lawsuit against Harvard I believe, because there is some evidence that a White or Asian (minority in US but not in schools as a lot of them attend school) student can have better admissions testing scores and a "underrepresented" minority with lower scores gets admitted instead.

Wikipedia: In other countries, such as the UK,[7][8][9] affirmative action is rendered illegal because it does not treat all races equally.

hackerman12345on ISPs in AU and NZ start censoring the internet without legal precedent

Even if an overwhelming majority of people believe state shootings (with guns) of people who won't hand them over is moral and ok in society.. the point of my reply still stands and has nothing to do with the right to self-defense etc.

There are plenty of times in history when overwhelming majorities beliefs took away minority rights.

When reading the wrong words can get you 10 years in prison, it probably does trend towards Orwell's future though.

hackerman12345on ISPs in AU and NZ start censoring the internet without legal precedent

"Guns are too dangerous, give them to us or we'll shoot you and take them from your cold, dead hands" might be a little bit totalitarian.

hackerman12345on Volvo is introducing a 112mph speed limiter to all its new cars

There have definitely been recalls/warnings for firearms which have misfired without anyone's finger on the trigger.

https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2018/06/investigates/sig-sau...

hackerman12345on The men fighting Florida’s python epidemic

Why is there value in keeping the ecosystem in a state we're familiar with? It's not like alligators were "always there" either. Animals migrate, things change, and us ensuring that the animal populations always match what they were in 1995 is hubris.

hackerman12345on The men fighting Florida’s python epidemic

They may seldom attack humans, but it wouldn't be safe/smart to let your kids play outside if there were jaguars around.

hackerman12345on Minimum-wage worker needs 2.5 full-time jobs to afford a one-bedroom apartment

Americans use the word apartment as something that is rented. You don't buy an apartment, well unless you're a landlord. It's owned by somebody else.

I think the way you are using the word is our "condo", perhaps.

hackerman12345on The case for capping all prison sentences at 20 years

Foolproof method of preventing more victims - just put all the people guilty of those 2 crimes in prison for life. That way, they can never get out and re-offend.

There's already too many cases of someone getting a sentence of only a few years for one of those crimes, and then upon getting out, reoffending in the same or worse way within a few months.

hackerman12345on LaTeX Coffee Stains (2009) [pdf]

On the TV show White Collar, there's an episode where a fake (paper) case file is put together and adding coffee mug stains is part of the process.

hackerman12345on Soros at Davos: China's social credit system and Big IT are mortal threat

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/29/technology/george-soros-f...

They're not allowed to prove it. It's a scandal that they are even asking the question - someone was fired for it.

hackerman12345on Soros at Davos: China's social credit system and Big IT are mortal threat

Sheryl Sandberg recently got in big trouble for having investigators look into whether he shorted $FB before going up on a public platform to talk about $FB ethical issues.

hackerman12345on Veganism: An Engineer's Perspective

the feed the animals are happy to eat is boring and can grow very densely, the food vegans would like to eat (if a lot of people went vegan) would assuredly not just be corn, or wheat, or legumes.

hackerman12345on Tell HN: We are now closer to the Y2K38 problem than the Y2K problem

Don't forget 2019!

https://www.gps.gov/cgsic/meetings/2017/powers.pdf

hackerman12345on Ask HN: Conclusive evidence to turn anti vax into anti anti vax

Does equipping the amulet of life saving protect you from those issues?

hackerman12345on One Year in San Francisco as a Software Engineer

I think you're in the minority with that view of GDPR being well-implemented judging by previous threads, and secondly that website (news org) is really is for/about a specific city and it's not really relevant if they are required to block some foreigners halfway across the world because of their foreign laws.

" it will have come as no surprise when Romanian authorities attempted to use the GDPR’s wide powers to threaten journalists investigating corruption in the country. "

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/12/year-gdpr-2018s-most-f...

hackerman12345on For years, Guatemalans traveled thousands of miles for jobs in Mt Pleasant, Iowa

I've heard the "we depend on illegal migrant workers to keep food affordable because they are the only people who will work for $3/h" line a few times and it usually comes from the 'anti-wall' folks.

hackerman12345on As oil and gas exports surge, West Texas becomes the world’s “extraction colony”

It is perhaps necessary as Germany now has to import coal.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-11-30/germany-c...

hackerman12345on Epic Games banked a $3B profit in 2018

Heroes. A good hero selection is p2w because you may not have a reasonable counter to xyz enemy. They used to sell Runes too (I believe an update made this invalid). Of course, you can get all this stuff for free just by playing 100s of hours, if you have the time/will.

hackerman12345on Our Cellphones Aren't Safe

IME most SMS verification is bundled with some additional information submitted by the user (e.g. secret information, ID information).

hackerman12345on Wan Gang pushed China to leapfrog the West in electric vehicles

You're comparing it to old junk. Whatsapp is far superior to FB Messenger. Discord is far superior to Skype, etc.

hackerman12345on Fukushima's surfers riding on radioactive waves

I would say the main reason they are stored underwater is mostly because they need a place to transfer heat to lest they melt and cause a critical mass of spent fuel.

hackerman12345on Ask HN: Which abandoned proprietary software would you resurrect?

If you find people staying safe to be tremendously harmful to your politics it might be time to reconsider your viewpoints.

hackerman12345on Ask HN: Which abandoned proprietary software would you resurrect?

Won't happen. Apps with those features get accused of being racist.

https://www.npr.org/2012/01/25/145337346/this-app-was-made-f...

hackerman12345on Huawei CFO arrested in Vancouver, sought by U.S. for extradition

It's currently on the bottom of page 2.

hackerman12345on How Facebook Is Fueling the French Populist Rage

Facebook apparently :)

hackerman12345on Engineer.ai raises $29.5M Series A for its AI+Humans software building platform

You're confusing investment with constraint-free donation.

hackerman12345on Inside Tesla’s factory, a medical clinic designed to ignore injured workers

On the other hand, we do already have evidence that there are individuals who get a job at Tesla with the sole goal of getting them to unionize and no motivations actually wanting/needing the job.