jspthrowaway2

I think that's part of the point, as someone else said; that we should reserve such stark judgment with the expectation that we don't know all the facts. Ed was pretty clear in his opinion, but probably would have held a different one had he known all the facts. To be honest, that supports the idea that he (and I; I agreed quietly) was wrong at the time.

I've taken that lesson to heart personally, just from this thread alone.

Some users get upvoted fairly quickly by username alone, too. Think pg, edw519, patio11, tptacek; I've noticed comments from them will have upvotes in seconds, regardless of content. It's just name recognition, for better or worse. pg could probably leave a comment saying only "This is a comment." and get a hundred points of karma off it. (I'd pay him to try.)

So, to an outside observer, you might suggest that these users game Hacker News but the real answer is that they have an audience. It's debatable whether that's their fault, on a case-by-case basis, though.

Then you could probably say it goes the other way: a large part of the community feels a certain way because Ed says so (in the top position), or Thomas says so. I've noticed the atmosphere of a thread change after a comment from a "well-known" person is left, rather rapidly on occasion. The momentum of a community like Hacker News is an interesting study, and although I didn't get an opportunity to watch the thread under the microscope, I bet a large part of it was shaped by Ed's comment.

Recently I've learned how Hacker News threads are living organisms, and I've noticed the impact of the commentary that I make. If you pay close attention, you'll be surprised at how the thread evolves and grows, particularly based upon what's in the top position.

Do you come across a kind, thoughtful suggestion and think "what's the most controversial comment I can write to score some karma" or something? Because honestly, there's no rational universe where your comment remotely makes sense.

And yes, it is Hacker News against you now, as you victimize yourself below. I sure as shit think this comment is disgusting, I hate that you left it, and I'd certainly hope that people would call you out for it (or I'd lose faith in the community). It's comments like this that make Hacker News look terrible to people that don't contribute, and it's one of those comments that's better left thought in your head.

Aaron was involved in this community in multiple ways, God forbid people express themselves at your displeasure.

It's really sad because Aaron's death hit me pretty hard last night, and I wake up this morning and see this suggestion and think "boy, I bet someone's going to piss in the Cheerios in that thread," and it almost hurts that I'm right. What a terrible place this is becoming.

Fair enough. Thank you again.

He has a point, though. It's pretty conservative to say "get help" for every thought about suicide. I think there's a difference between thinking about doing it or, say, wondering what death is like or whether you'd have the stones to go through with it. Honestly, I wonder what death is like a lot.

That being said, I tend to agree with you to be more conservative, but I've had similar thoughts as the guy you're replying to and know without a doubt that I'd never kill myself. Of course, there's probably a psychological argument that me knowing that is up for debate.

(Don't take this as displeasure with your efforts in this thread: thank you.)

I have no words. I've been sitting with my phone's cursor blinking in this box and, for the first time in a long time, my stomach has turned so much from this news that I have nothing to write.

What an absolutely dreadful shame. My heart is wrenched for his family and all of us, who lost a brilliant young man. I'm a month older than he was, and to imagine someone my age thinking there was no way out... with all of the possibilities of his life, a life just beginning.

Christ.

You don't hear of any high-profile bank disclosures, which I imagine is probably because they have security teams that keep up with everything religiously. Most old brick banks have internal systems architected in ways that a younger intruder in the Anonymous mold wouldn't know anything about, as well; you're starting to get into big iron Cobol land.

That said, I don't think it's an impossible task (is anything?), and I'm sure some day there will be a large disclosure through some means, internally-assisted or otherwise.

It's not about the proof required to fire him. It's about understanding the situation entirely before reacting. Immediate reactions are usually problematic because emotions are involved, particularly in this case.

You know my identity but not my e-mail? jed@jedsmith.org. Fire away.

I'm realizing I might regret this, but if you want to contact me out of band, I'm offering the opportunity. I also don't expect that you will.

Actually, I switch accounts when my karma gets too high, so I keep perspective and don't make "a name" for myself in the Hacker News comments. This one is due. I was hellbanned on jspthrowaway, I believe, for something on a thread regarding Gittip and it's not that important to me anyway. If I deserve a hellban, I deserve a hellban.

Just relax, I'm trying to be nice to you this time around and point out how you're being needlessly confrontational, which makes it sad that you're being needlessly confrontational with me in response.

I don't have it out for you, guy. I'm being entirely honest with you when I say that my response was completely user-agnostic until I looked at the username and put two and two together. The points talking to you directly were an edit, not in the initial comment. My time is a smidge too valuable to "stalk" you around Hacker News, harassing you at every whim, and it's awfully presumptuous to assume I do. That's just silly. If I had known you were going to react like this, I probably wouldn't have said anything.

I'm not hiding my identity, either, so congratulations on knowing it, I'd just prefer to not directly tie my identity to everything that I say here. It gives me a bit more freedom to be honest in cases that would otherwise hurt me indirectly. If I'm posting under my name continuously, I can't say some things.

This conversation isn't going to go anywhere (and it's disrespectful to Hacker News as a medium), and I'm sorry that you react to everything I say with such acidity. I'm going to bow out now, since it's just pointless to continue. You really need to get some perspective and stop treating the world with such hostility, or you're heading for an episode of your own creation. I'm sorry that you and I don't see eye to eye, and that you loathe me so much; if I could change that, I would.

I said "immediate-fire", not "fire". Take time to consider all the facts before reacting; reacting quickly is usually a sign of a bad manager.

Wait, you didn't realize it was the same person, but you said "I guess you're going to avoid me" since he didn't bite at your first confrontation? That doesn't add up.

I don't follow you around. Don't flatter yourself. You just contribute to a lot of threads (I'm hesitant to use the word contribute in this case). I didn't even realize I was replying to you until the end, when I added the last two sentences, and I would have said the same thing up until then to anybody.

You have a bit of a victim complex. I wasn't even harassing you.

There's nothing to be gained from following him around and badgering him because he won't talk to you. You're stooping to his level, which is satisfyingly ironic given the topic.

He disengaged you pretty unabashedly, so do the rest of us a favor and stop beating him up over something mindlessly stupid. It reflects more on you than him. Remember how I called you a troll in the past? Bingo.

His view is less about the reason and more about the action itself.

Threads like this are a nice sampling of the kinds of people you find on Hacker News. I find myself saying "yep, I'd work for you," "not in a million years," and so on. It's fun. Try it.

Hint: Immediate-fire responses are managers who shouldn't have reports. Take notes.

Some of us actually enjoy the sun, you know (another reason not to live in the city, unless you love fog).

I hope you're kidding, because the only person that sees me shave on average is me, and then what's your alternative? Touring your bathroom for guests to show off your straight razors?

Amuse yourself, I guess...

> People who pickup Python will always stay and never move on completely.

To be blunt, that's not universally true. I've moved on to Go, with an eye for more functional languages this year.

Python is great, but it's not the last language.

That motion compensation that TVs do is the most egregious sin of all, and makes 48fps film pale in comparison.

It's the first thing I turn off.

> the razor & blades model is ripe for disruption

Bordering off topic, but the smart people realize that you don't need to throw away your blades every time they get dull; that model is only successful because people don't realize you can restore a set of blades to service with a few minutes and some jeans.

So, you could say I've already disrupted it just in my own life, and the wider dissemination of that knowledge would just disrupt it further.

It looked human, based on its size. This was coming up the stairs at Times Square from the 1 train, so probably a rare occurrence.

The OP didn't say lying about his hand, he said lying about who he is, which is what I'm responding to.

Alameda is a fabulously-kept secret. The ferry commute is splendid and with the exception of a rough area on the west side, it's like walking around Mayberry. Shopping isn't terrible.

If you're like me and don't care for a bar-crawl nightlife and would prefer to stay in and read (and own a car, though this isn't as important), you'll love Alameda. Don't tell anybody how good it is to live in Alameda, though, they'll all move here.

I pass a pile of human feces at least once a week on my walk to work, and the street in front of my office smells like urine 24x7. I've caught someone taking the wheels off a car parked on the street once, at about 2 in the afternoon on a completely parallel-parked to the brim street. In the space of a four-block walk, I'm harassed by on average 8 or 9 homeless people who react to your refusal to give them change with hostility. On a recent walk in the neighborhood shortly after sundown I was accosted by someone selling heroin, who reacted to my refusal to purchase with hostility and brandished a weapon.

I agree with him. A lot of people view San Francisco with rose-tinted glasses. While I have passed feces in New York on the stairs up from the subway, I'd contest that every visit I've ever made to New York has left me feeling cleaner than the average commute to SoMa.

If you enjoy lying about anything, that's a serious red flag regarding you as a person.

My new BMW has a Yelp app, which might be the kind of thing they're talking about. I'm pretty sure your car isn't going to advertise to you without you asking for it; that sounds like a regulation nightmare.

GPL compliance (sigh) and a new SDK for a vehicle aren't really the same topic. They just happen to have cars in common. If I left a comment about the camshaft on my Jeep, that wouldn't be on topic, even though it's about cars.

That aside, what do you hope to gain from their GPL compliance? Pop open the GPL compliance kit from, say, a Netgear router and you get a kernel, a few drivers, and the toolchain used to build it. And BusyBox. How useful will the drivers for things in a Tesla be to you? Do you own a Tesla, or is it just curiosity?

If it's curiosity, well, I wish we weren't enforcing that with the GPL.

That's fair, I suppose. Probably a good sign for you, though, as you mentioned re: controversy.

Really? Wondering how to monetize a blogazine is concern trolling driven by hating Dustin Curtis?

I worry that moderating this community has jaded you. (That's concern trolling.) It's a valid question, and one I'd ask of any blogazine that received funding; do you stick ads on it? Charge a subscription fee? Sell user data?

Every now and then someone will complain about it, usually after fat fingering on an iPhone.