Hacker News Reader

just_steve_hon How Facebook handles account deletions

There's also no mention in the article about what Facebook does with all of the data you've surrendered to them while using the platform. Do they actually remove your history of likes and your node in the social graph?

I'm very doubtful they voluntarily delete your data.

just_steve_hon Finland's homeless crisis nearly solved. How? By giving homes to all who need

For reasons I've never understood, many Americans seem fixated on viewing poverty and homelessness as MORAL failures, which deserve punishment.

just_steve_hon 10,000 year clock gets lowered into Texan mountain

It will be interesting to see how this mechanism fares, for sure.

If they can master this, they're at least 10% of the way toward figuring out how to contain high-level radioactive waste! That brilliant (!) engineering marvel needs to be contained at least ten times longer than this clock is supposed to run.

Easy peasy!

"Clean! Safe! Too cheap to meter!"

just_steve_hon Quinn Norton Named to New York Times Editorial Board

She's being dragged hardcore for using "bad language" in various tweets. I've only seen the individual tweets themselves without context, so it's hard to judge tone & intent.

Anyone have insight?

just_steve_hon Ajit Pai is right

His restaurant example actually undercuts his argument: despite the "burdensome" licensing and safety requirements imposed by San Francisco, the city is flooded with restaurants.

just_steve_hon Ray Kurzweil thinks we could start living forever by 2029

Ray has been thinking about this stuff for thirty years. He has a knack for getting positive press, which goes back to his time in high school.

His ideas reveal the narrowness of his experience in the world: it appears that he has only the vaguest notions of what the lives of most humans currently on the planet are actually like.

If he understood humanity beyond the confines of Silicon Valley / Route 128 / Davos, he might spend more of his time applying his alleged genius to actual problems which might admit actual solutions.

His fantasy about living forever bespeaks a deep-seated emotional and psychological immaturity.

His idea that we could have life without death is not unlike imagining a world of sunlight but no shadows.