lucajona

For context, I started an open source project that is arguably 10x more popular than Nutjs (20k stars on github vs 2k). I also gave up on maintaining it, but others stepped in to take care of it so it's still running.

The parallels between open source and bolshevism are interesting. I'm not a history expert, but this is just how it appears to me.

  - Contempt for property
  - Pitches itself as a movement by "the people", ends up being a tool of the powerful (e.g. Microsoft's use of open source)
  - Punishes the producers by destroying the economics of production, rewards the stooges
  - Creates a high-low alliance between powerful and unskilled, drains the middle class

Mirror: https://archive.is/aAf3K

I don't understand why the media and Silicon Valley seem to be gleefully awaiting the downfall of Uber. If Uber's business model is not financially viable then the free market will take care of that. But promoting the view that their "culture" is "rotten" based on a report from a disgruntled employee, or saying that their employees are being "exploited" based on one video from one driver is sanctimonious and vicious. Why is this necessary? The only answer I can come up with is that there is a political motivation, driven by neo-Marxism and the narrative that capitalism and big business are inherently evil.

I'm an Uber user, and I still love the service and the fiercely competitive way that Uber has transformed what was previously a protected and stagnant industry delivering poor service.

Okay sure, I made a bad generalisation. Some true statements can be uninteresting. The point I was trying to make was more that the parent commenter was making a true statement about epistemology that is relevant and useful to the discussion.

Maybe it could have been better elaborated, but I don't think it deserves being down-voted and replies of what seems like moral disgust.

Those "anti-intellectual slogans" I think you mean can also be seen as arguments for a return to enlightenment values instead of an entrenched, elitist dogmatism.

Behind those slogans is the idea that intellectual life doesn't belong to a chosen few, but to everyone who's interested and willing to engage their capacity for independent thought and critical thinking, and those who are willing and eager to engage with other people with different opinions.

I don't think it's fair to call a correct statement vacuous. More nuanced than it appears, and easily misinterpreted maybe.

I think it's fair to point out that peer review doesn't determine scientific truth, because that would get the causal relation in reverse.

Consensus has little to do with objective truth, but it is a useful heuristic as you say.

Good point. But if the only way you can avoid malaria is if someone gives you a bed net, then your ability to improve your own circumstances is still close to 0. You're still impoverished and powerless, you're just not dead. And now you're dependent on a source of bed nets that might dry up.

If plain old reciprocal altruism hadn't somehow failed, there would be a way that you could exchange your labour or otherwise for bed nets. The people paying your wages could be acting altruistically, or they could be rationally self-interested actors.

These are the sort of systemic changes I was thinking of, but I like your argument.

This hits on the problem with "Effective Altruism" — it is exactly the bad form of utilitarian thinking.

It seems purely about reallocating some wealth from the rich to the poor. That's nice, but it's only treating the symptoms and ignoring many other factors that influence human flourishing, such as an individual's ability to improve their own circumstances (instead of waiting for a generous benefactor to give them some cash). Surely addressing poverty involves systemic changes, not just charity. And besides, charity can also have a negative utility, feeding feelings of inferiority in the receiver and leading to resentment.

... and then read Pinker's reply http://stevenpinker.com/files/pinker/files/comments_on_taleb... TLDR: The book’s structure was lost on Taleb, who blends the different chapters and then criticizes his own confusion.

You're right, I think we should believe him when he says that he was tortured. It's the part where he claims that it was at the direction of the FBI that needs proof.

And I agree, I don't think the UAE cares about Portland. They might care that US security services had taken an interest in this individual though. Are you saying that the UAE security services are totally subordinate to the US and just act as puppets when it comes to US citizens? I would have thought they'd have a bit more independence than that, even if they do cooperate at some level.

I don't know why this was downvoted, it seems like a valid question. I suppose I will get downvoted too, but I think it's worth discussing this now, since it's made the front page even though it probably shouldn't have.

So what evidence is there that the US condoned Fikre's torture? The alleged statement of a torturer? That doesn't seem very reliable. He couldn't prove his story in Sweden, so how will he prove it in the US?

Isn't it possible that the UAE came to find out that Fikre had some involvement with the FBI over the Portland mosque, wanted to know why, and decided on torture on their own? Maybe they suspected that he had been turned into an FBI informant.

It seems a bit far-fetched that the US would be outsourcing the torture of suspected Muslim terrorists to a largely Islamic country, and just waiting for suspects to travel there so that it can happen. And the State Department's statement that they saw Fikre and he seemed ok seems strange if they had anything to hide.

Yep, Scoop has Rust 0.9 now.

Thanks!

Thank you so much! I've seen that before but assumed the /a 'administrative install' meant UAC popups. Just tried it now (with /qn though) and it's UI-free. Very cool!

Yes that's true for common programs like less, tail, grep, awk, and sed. I do think Scoop can give you better support for ln and sudo though. Then on top of that, Scoop lets you install Ruby, Postgres, Figlet, Go, Vim etc.

For a lot of GNU core utilities, Scoop uses the same MSYS programs that come with MSYS Git, it's just installing them separately so you can choose only the ones you need.

Good question.

I think you'd want to pick Cygwin when you want to be able to compile and run POSIX apps on Windows without having to modify them too much.

However, if you just want a better command-line experience on Windows and want to easily install cross-platform open-source programs, I think Scoop is a better alternative to Cygwin.

If that is what you want, then not being a pain to use and setup is one good reason to pick Scoop :)

Also, Cygwin programs can only run under the Cygwin environment, whereas the programs Scoop installs are usually native programs that can be called from any other Windows program, or executed from a normal console. I assume there's a way to call Cygwin programs from a normal win program too--it's just more round-about.

I totally agree. Self-contained installs without side-effects are the goal for Scoop, and it's almost there. Scoop extracts NSIS/NullSoft and InnoSetup installers already, and if all goes well it'll extract MSI installers soon too (using lessmsi).

If you're building your own package for Scoop and you just want to run the installer, there's good support for that too.

The 'extras' bucket for Scoop is a good fit things that aren't open source command-line tools, but are still useful dev tools. Teamcity should fit well there:

https://github.com/lukesampson/scoop-extras

If you read HN and your organisation treats you like 'Joe user', I'd say you probably feel pretty oppressed.

Scoop is aimed pretty squarely at HN readers, not so much at people that are ok with working at an organisation that doesn't trust them to run programs on their computer.

You're going to have to set-execution policy yourself—I highly recommend it though for a useable shell ;)

So far there are 59 apps in the main bucket: https://github.com/lukesampson/scoop/tree/master/bucket

There are 17 more apps in the 'extras' bucket: https://github.com/lukesampson/scoop-extras/tree/master

To use the extras bucket, you just need to run 'scoop bucket add extras'.

Any requests for more dev tools? Feel free to add an issue or pull request on GitHub.

Author here. I use Chocolatey too, although not so often recently.

Scoop is more focused on open-source command-line developer tools. I expect Scoop will appeal more to cross-platform developers, those who appreciate a bit of Unix philosophy in their spare time, and those who feel 'stuck' on Windows.

Chocolatey does a lot of things that Scoop will never do, like install Web Platform Installer apps, and built-in Windows features.

Fortunately, it's much easier to write packages for Scoop (aka "app manifests"). You only really need to know JSON, whereas with Chocolatey you need some Powershell and Nuget chops.

There's a simple example app manifest here: https://github.com/lukesampson/scoop/wiki/App-Manifests

My condolences to anyone reading HN who works for one of these organisations.

The iex [remote-script] probably will run in that case actually, just not the 'scoop' command. Which shows what a farce the PS execution policy is.

Powershell really is crippled by default, unlike bash. Your equivalent is only equivalent (the sudo part) if you start powershell with 'run as administrator', which you probably shouldn't, but it's quite common practise because Windows doesn't have a good, convenient equivalent to sudo. Luckily you can install one with 'scoop install sudo'.

Note you don't need to run as admin to install scoop--it's all about installing stuff for your user account without requiring elevation.

You are right though that you probably shouldn't just run scripts like this if you don't trust them. I do it all the time because it's convenient and I'm not running elevated. You can always check the source if you're not sure.

See "Don't Let Architecture Astronauts Scare You" by Joel Spolsky: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000018.html

Or Scoop at http://scoop.sh (I made it).

>> Are you saying that the Pen Register Act is on par, morally, with Jim Crow?

No.

>> You can't wave off court orders just because you think the Internet is some kind of libertarian cyber-paradise where mortal laws do not apply

“One has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.” — Martin Luther King Jr.

I found your 5-minute video at docker.io much easier to understand—great presentation!

I understand your feeling of helplessness, but supporting the people that stand up and fight against these patent trolls seems like a good place to start.

Signing the petition costs nothing, and there's a chance that it could have a real and lasting impact on the patent system.

Donating to Austin Meyer's legal defence fund is much cheaper—both financially and emotionally—than having to defend against a patent troll yourself at some stage in the future.