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ndiscussionon Program teaches prisoners coding so they can land tech jobs once released

> Society has a vital interest in reintegrating people who have been punished

Food for thought, but this is only true if we release them. For most of history, we simply executed criminals.

In most of the world, that's still the case (thieves without hands etc).

Without making a moral judgment on what's right or wrong, if most societies evolved that way, it probably means it's conducive to the long-term health and survival of societies. Survivorship bias and all that.

ndiscussionon B8ta closing another San Francisco store after armed robbery

But the DA and police chief choose not to pursue property crimes or even assaults... the officers themselves are probably not conspiring, but it's a culture of "leave the criminals be" which leads to needing this extra protection, and it's all coming from the same organization.

ndiscussionon Full System Control with New SolarWinds Orion and Serv-U FTP Vulnerabilities

The QR code is scanned, not the text on the paper printout, as far as I understand

ndiscussionon B8ta closing another San Francisco store after armed robbery

You're right, it does seem like a strong counterexample. But I'm not sure how cops would fix this one directly either - they surely can't station an officer at the store all the time.

Part of my point is that they spend so much time on things like traffic tickets and civil forfeiture, little time is left for actually prosecuting these criminals.

https://priceonomics.com/how-police-officers-seize-cash-from...

It's a big cultural change that could take months or years to see the difference in daily shoplifting amounts.

ndiscussionon Study finds childhood diet has lifelong impact

Look at the obesity statistics by age, this is something that will pay off far into the future imo.

One good thing my parents taught me is that vegetables can be eaten without cheese or salt, and I currently eat healthier than anyone I know, and it's not a struggle at all for me.

It's just "normal" and I'm accustomed to it. I think this can still be trained as an adult, but it's probably easiest if you never have to "transition" or break out of bad habits. Wishing your family the best.

ndiscussionon B8ta closing another San Francisco store after armed robbery

It's probably impossible for the store to solve it, hence the closing.

This problem is really up to the city to solve, and it doesn't seem the city is interested. Gated communities and all that.

ndiscussionon B8ta closing another San Francisco store after armed robbery

In my experience, police are more likely to focus on corporate property crimes than violent crime. It seems to be a sick game of incentives gone wrong... the police department just needs to grow, so it needs more money.

So it protects the corporate taxpayer over everyday victims.

ndiscussionon iPhone's Adult Content Filter Blocks Anything 'Asian'

I wonder why?

ndiscussionon Desirable streets: where do people prefer to walk?

I don't support busing them out, and actually, I used to acknowledge them and treat them as humans. Eventually, it became a large time sink, and not a pleasant one (give a mouse a muffin).

Out of curiosity, do you live in a large city? Try crossing the Burnside bridge in Portland, OR every day for months and get back to me.

ndiscussionon Desirable streets: where do people prefer to walk?

In many cities, they are bused out to become someone else's problem.

I'm not sure what the solution is, but many of these people are obviously extremely unhappy, and they show no sign of changing soon.

If I viewed them as part of my community, it would probably be like pouring money into a black hole. Heroin tolerance goes up very quickly, and the associated costs go up just as quickly.

ndiscussionon Desirable streets: where do people prefer to walk?

Just fyi, I'm about as far from a sheltered techie type as they come... since 18, I've lived in shared room situations with strangers on Craigslist for most of my life, often in the cheapest and most unsafe neighborhoods.

I actually have plenty of experience in the big city, it's not like I'm someone who comes from the rich burbs and then acts disgusted by the people around.

If anything, I've only become more bitter and hardened over time by living in the city. I was much more empathetic before it happened for 10 years+ and before I was put in so many unsafe situations.

Again, I'm not even referring to minority neighborhoods, actually most of these people are white (though certainly not all).

ndiscussionon Desirable streets: where do people prefer to walk?

I'm glad this has been your experience.. my experience in cities is largely limited - Portland, LA, Seattle, NYC.

For me, I've encountered huge amounts of harassment in the first three cities. Oddly in NYC I didn't have a problem with it. In the first three, I've had problems in almost every neighborhood.

I honestly believe that somehow, your experience has been very different. I'm not sure why that is... perhaps you have a higher anxiety tolerance than I do. But I've been followed onto the train by a person speaking about shadows, and how he knows people who do "really bad things", situations like that, more than I can count.

ndiscussionon Stepping Down as CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation

I'm sorry, on further consideration, you're right about the salaries.

I think with some charities (like feeding children), my expectation would be that the salaries would be very low, and the costs of providing the "good" would be the bulk of the expense.

But in the case of an advocacy/software platform, you're right that salaries would be expected to be a large part of the expense.

As someone who's used Firefox for close to 20 years, their recent activities have left a sour taste in my mouth, and I suppose I'm a bit biased as a result. For the last five years as everyone switched to Chrome, I continued to use Firefox, and encouraged others to use the same.

I believe that the Firefox project has been somewhat mismanaged, which has resulted in a large drop in users. For example, they could have started including an ad blocker by default - they would probably have killed Brave's business that way. If they care so much about privacy, it seemed like a no-brainer.

I guess I was reaching for reasons that their budget was lavish... but that wasn't true. My real concern is with the fact that donations to the organization don't, and cannot, go to the browser.

When I first saw a notice to donate in my browser years ago, I certainly thought my money was going to development. They want to encourage an "open web", privacy, etc, and I think those goals are all very important. The continued dominance of Firefox was probably the best way to actually achieve those goals.

Talk is cheap, and I'm a bit sad that the browser share is now dwindling. We have many other organizations making blog posts/activism for the open web, but Firefox was the only one actually doing something about it, which is 1000x as valuable as far as I'm concerned.

So when they encouraged me to donate, and I thought it went to development, and realized it was going towards this kind of "activism", I felt betrayed and tricked. I still stand by that sentiment. We have plenty of activists and journalists who fight for the open web via words - all for free.

I feel that by existing, Firefox took up most of the market share for that, and by encouraging donations, they created a desert for other browsers to rise up. If another organization had forked Firefox and taken over with hundreds of millions in donations, I doubt the market share would have dropped so sharply. For example, they wouldn't have been "forced" to do privacy-bad things like selling ads on the new tab page. By claiming to be "the" privacy-focused browser, they soured any efforts to make a new one.

And now it's probably too late: https://drewdevault.com/2020/03/18/Reckless-limitless-scope....

All this to say, I'm mostly sad about it. I miss Firefox, and I wish we had a strong fighter still in the arena. I'm doubtful Firefox can turn it's product and reputation around at this point given their corporate structure. Cheers.

ndiscussionon Desirable streets: where do people prefer to walk?

Yes, thank you, these people are actually a bigger issue than panhandlers in my experience (though panhandlers are much more common in my area and they slipped my mind)

ndiscussionon Stepping Down as CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation

I think I can agree to disagree with most people replying, I consider it highly misleading that they prod users to donate when using Firefox, and don't mention that Firefox is not funded by donations: https://donate.mozilla.org/en-US/

A few years ago, I certainly thought the funds went to development. And I can't say I'm a big fan of most of their initiatives (most of which have been abandoned Google-style).

ndiscussionon Stepping Down as CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation

https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2018/mozilla-fdn-201...

Unless I'm misreading something, 64% of their expenses in 2018 went to salaries.

ndiscussionon Desirable streets: where do people prefer to walk?

I edited my post if you're interested, I assure you that I don't do anything to agitate these people, and if I did, I'd deserve whatever came to me (probably a knife).

ndiscussionon Stepping Down as CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation

Sadly just like Mozilla. Most of these charities are a lavish waste.

ndiscussionon Desirable streets: where do people prefer to walk?

Interesting article... it does make me wonder if they're missing some key ingredient.

One example for me personally is the level of aggression in the locals. There are certain streets I avoid due to this aggressive behavior, and something like that wasn't even mentioned.

Perhaps there are other missing variables too.

edit: in case anyone was wondering, no, I'm not implying some kind of racist undertone here. I've walked through many diverse neighborhoods in many cities without any problem whatsoever.

By "aggression" I mean panhandling and other interruptions by people undergoing obvious psychosis with no sense of social norms.

The reason I stated this oddly is because there's a large tangent of people on HN who will attack you for inferring that some homeless people (yes, these psychotic people are generally homeless) are psychotic and aggressive. Perhaps they live in gated communities?

No matter what I do, these people are allowed to exist where I live, but I don't consider them part of my community at all.

ndiscussionon Academic media censorship conference censored by YouTube?

"The top "Censored" news stories are identified through the Campus Affiliates Program, a collaborative effort between faculty and students at many colleges and universities."

Since college faculty often skews 10:1 or better democrat, I don't find that too surprising.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Censored

ndiscussionon Engineering productivity can be measured, just not how you'd expect

I read Peopleware last year and totally agree, it's the masterclass.

Along with Mythical Man-Month, it's clear that we didn't need any other management books.

ndiscussionon Engineering productivity can be measured, just not how you'd expect

Check out this post: https://daedtech.com/defining-the-corporate-hierarchy/

I really recommend his book Developer Hegemony, although it was very depressing and I haven't quite recovered a year later :D

ndiscussionon Moscow Detention Centers Have Run Out of Space, Filled with Peaceful Protesters

I'm not exactly a bootlicker, and I'm not informed on the situation, but do we have any proof this isn't the same kind of peaceful protests we had in the USA?

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/cnn-ridiculed-for-fi...

Any sane government would be arresting people involved with torching police buildings. If these people are innocent, I pray for their release.

ndiscussionon Amazon will pay nearly $62m over “outrageous” practice of pocketing driver tips

Is that all? Not sure what else I can add to this comment, but that's comically low, and a slap in the face to our new underclass.

ndiscussionon Engineering productivity can be measured, just not how you'd expect

It's about power not money.

ndiscussionon Never use MongoDB (2013)

Sorry, this might come off as obtuse, I don't mean it that way. Perhaps I'm misreading your title, but I find it odd that a UX designer or product person would be the one writing proofs of concept that require a database.

Unless you mean for solo projects? In that case, it may work for you, but if you're not a database expert, it makes sense you would work around your limitations. That doesn't necessarily mean it's a best practice.

ndiscussionon Drug decriminalization in Oregon begins today

The changes this policy drives will be apparent after several years, not several weeks.

ndiscussionon Americans Don’t Know What Urban Collapse Looks Like

I consider art another type of materialism, but perhaps my definition is wrong. I consider any kind of hedonistic pursuits materialistic (even if they are free). Consumerism in other words.

I'm not speaking of just money and property, but rather, anything which pleases our lizard brain - this includes things like tourism, sex-for-pleasure, video games, and novels.

Some counter-examples that I don't consider materialistic are: personal relationships (family and friends), pursuit of justice, philosophy, and also creating art.

ndiscussionon Medieval Cambridge skeletons reveal injuries to manual labourers

Interesting, do you have any examples of female warrior societies? The wikipedia article seems to start with WW1:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_the_military

And even then, they were support, not infantry.

ndiscussionon Medieval Cambridge skeletons reveal injuries to manual labourers

Not trying to be condescending to women, but we are a sexually dimorphic species due to the heavy costs that women bear in reproduction (ie they are unable to fight for 9 months, and they can only reproduce ~annually, whereas a man can reproduce ~daily)