Hacker News Reader

mmakunason Tech firms are departing from their see-no-evil stance on society and politics

The amorality on this thread is blowing my mind. Please watch something like this before perpetuating the delusion that tech doesn't affect people. http://www.structureevents.com/joyents-bryan-cantrill-on-tec...

mmakunason Tech firms are departing from their see-no-evil stance on society and politics

So build stuff that completely disrupts entire industries, and eliminates whole categories of jobs, but STFU about it's actual effect on people? Just cash the check, geek out about the tech, and get on with your life?

mmakunason Tech firms are departing from their see-no-evil stance on society and politics

That is bull. Everything about what tech is creating is political. Software cannot "eat the world" and not be political. Ignore it at your own peril.

mmakunason Uber seeking to buy self-driving cars: source

Great analysis but this makes it sound even less likely. Going from zero marginal costs to something like this seems totally against their current model.

mmakunason Uber seeking to buy self-driving cars: source

Maybe I'm missing something but that number sounds hard to believe. An S-Class in the US is $100K. Even if a stripped down "utility" version was available at $50K that's $5B worth of cars. Yes, it's a "long term" order (i.e., not paid for and delivered at once), but that seems way beyond anything even Uber would do.

mmakunason Woman of 24 found to have no cerebellum in her brain

Consider occupational therapy as well. It was very very helpful for my daughter, who was "behind the curve" with her gross motor skills. It's not just about increasing physical ability, either. Lack of core strength can affect the ability to sit still and focus as the body gets fatigued more easily.

mmakunason Is Snapchat only used for sexting? We asked 5,000 people to find out

Interesting point.

I think it's about creating something entirely disposable, and the freedom that

Part of that freedom comes from the level of privacy I think. But from looking at those tweets maybe I'm over estimating how people are explicitly thinking about privacy.

It just goes to show that is not always about creating something where the individual bits of functionality are new. Sometime the most compelling thing is putting a novel spin on what we already do and building a network of users around that.

mmakunason Is Snapchat only used for sexting? We asked 5,000 people to find out

You're missing the point. People are realizing that it's probably not a good idea to have every pic you ever take be out there for the world to see. But they still want to share them with certain people. They (rightfully) don't trust other people to delete them (or lose there phone, etc.) and they don't trust the privacy settings of facebook and the like. Given that, having a mechanism for sending a pic and (almost) guaranteeing it is deleted is a compelling use case. Snapchat could certainly fail, but I think the general use case will be enduring.

mmakunason Remembering Aaron Swartz: Commons man

The Economist obits are indeed wonderful. It's almost always the first thing I read in it. But, as a point of clarification, this article is not the weekly obit. It's part of the Babbage blog. It remains to be seen if something about him will make the print edition.

mmakunason Social Media Companies Have Absolutely No Idea How to Handle the Gaza Conflict

I agree. Technology and media over the past two decades have done more to sanitize war (and thus make it more palatable). It's good to see the oposite happening. As dickc says, "twitter brings you closer." The more we experience the reality of it, the better our decisions will be regarding it IMHO.

mmakunason Hot Dogs & Caviar

"The advertising units Twitter and Facebook are selling today are “hot dogs”: poorly targeted, poorly performing."

Maybe that's true for FB, but apparently Twitter's mobile ads are doing just fine: http://on.wsj.com/LxMLwc

mmakunason Iranian nuclear program hacked, made to play AC/DC

Somewhere an RIAA lawyer is trying to figure out how to sue the AEOI.

mmakunason Google’s Marissa Mayer Tapped as Yahoo’s Chief

True, but Yahoo! has made so many mistakes that she would have to really to screw up (like lie on your resume) for it to hurt her reputation. So that time and opportunity cost is unlikely to ever be a waste. If she fails, well Yahoo! was already a failure, if she succeeds, she's a perceived as savior. Either way, she's a contenter for ceo of any other major internet company going forward.