robotcookies

Almost every mammal has a protruding mouth to help bite/feed. Humans are the exception and pre-humans like australopithecus had very prominent mouths like other mammals. It seems very likely that chins are remnants of having much longer jaws which have recently (evolutionarily speaking) shrunken. Why do so many people have crooked teeth and need to remove their wisdom teeth? To me, it seems more than likely that is due to the same mouth shortening (or whatever you call it). Teeth disappearing in coordination with shrinking jaws did not happen so it's quite possible chins didn't either.

I know there is no proof of this. But we accept many things as true because it seems very likely. I think chins fall into the same where the above explanation should be accepted as probably true until proven otherwise. Other explanations just don't seem nearly as plausible. Even the 'attractiveness' argument doesn't seem compelling to me as you're talking about every society on earth. Did every community of humans on every continent find chins attractive? Not likely.

I agree about the taxi drivers. I do think they have gotten better in terms of customer service since Uber has come on the scene - probably in response to losing business to them. Competition is good. That's partly why I hope both continue to exist (and maybe a 2-3 uber type companies). But yeah, still irks me when a cabbie won't use navigation.

I think they'll both survive (uber types and taxis). They fill different needs. When I'm at an airport, I really don't want to have to search the crowd of cars for my particular Uber driver - I just want to hop in a cab. When I'm home and need to get to the airport, I like to use Uber to get there because they reliably show up.

Of course taxis are decreasing in numbers because they've been trying to fill both roles. But there will always be a demand for hailing a car in dense cities. No reason why we can't have both.

I don't think this is as much about AI as it may seem. I mean, yes, it's about AI. But what it's really about is a human tendency which is to create things and meaning when we don't necessarily have the evidence of them.

What this is really about is religion. More specifically, we have people who are the most non-religious group out there (like scientists) and they dismiss formal religion only to recreate another version of it:

"A core of technically proficient, digitally-minded people reject traditional religions and superstitions. They set out to come up with a better, more scientific framework. But then they re-create versions of those old religious superstitions!"

And I see this more often than just in computer science. It happens all the time in economics.

In the fourth paragraph that starts "Twenty minutes later..." he specifically states that his account email and password were changed on his account a second time. This is after calling in to paypal to fix the first hack.

I closed it more as an incentive for them to improve their security than because I feel I'm at risk. I think customers should do this more often otherwise companies are slow to address these issues. And if it were too difficult for me to close my account I'd know I am too dependent on them.

I closed my paypal account after reading this. The gist is that the author had his account compromised and after warning paypal about this, had it compromised immediately again. It turned out you don't even need a password to get into accounts.

There's no excuse for a multi billion $ company to be this lax on security today.

The case could be made that Corel did this to make it easier for users who used one product to find things in the other. I use both macs and pcs and I still get confused because the command button is on the inner while ctrl on pcs is on the outer. You need cmd-w to close while you use ctrl-w on pcs to close. I really wish one would copy the other and make the exact same keyboard.

The layout in Excel is not special or better than other layouts. The point of patents is to protect ideas that are unique and improve. By enforcing patents on layouts which are not specifically improvements, you're really just trying to create an artificial moat that makes it harder for consumers to switch products or use more than one. That is bad for consumers and it hurts innovation.

The issue I have with Cook's proclaiming support for strong encryption is that Apple still has control over what can and can't install on the user's device. So imagine if some strong agency came and said to a company you can't allow certain apps to install and you can't tell your customers we told you this. "You can allow these apps that claim to encrypt user's messages [list here], but not these [list here]". So some state could still strong arm Apple into compromising privacy and Apple would have their hands clean.

It seems that if you really want to guarantee privacy, you have to give the individual control over what they can install. Telling people to just "trust us" is not really good enough. And Cook is saying they are giving the user ultimate control by not having keys to their encryption but in reality that's nonsense... they are still requiring people to trust them.

I've heard many similar stories from people who have had medical procedures outside the US. Even in more developed nations, a foreigner paying out of pocket with zero insurance can be substantially cheaper than the same in the US. Meanwhile, the most common cause of bankruptcy here is getting sick. Something is very wrong about the medical system in the US.

I would say "portal" which is to connect content creators with content consumers (and charging for space on the portal). Unfortunately for yahoo, this model lost out to social networks. People seem to prefer seeing content from friends over content curated from yahoo. Or they prefer going to sources directly.

He seems obsessed with being Satoshi. And the article itself said he made edits to insert bitcoin related entries into past writings. I'm sure he's a very smart guy but he's also one of the last people I'd think was Satoshi.

Yes, for point-of-sale exploits, this would not work. But certainly there are companies that store CC information. Every time I go to Amazon, I don't re-input my cc info. They must be storing it somewhere?

As for buying it back, see my comment about LE not needing to make such purchases for this to work. And if the CC companies know about the fake numbers, the process of verifying that the number works, would itself, inform of the breach.

And to add, the credit card companies would know about the fakes so as soon as someone tried using it, we'd know about the breach and where it came from. All without having LE trying to buy the information from criminals.

I propose that a few fake credit card numbers and names be issued to different companies and that they place them in their records. If there is a breach, finding those fakes will identify where the breach came from. Each set of fakes would only be given to a specific company.

This is similar to how dictionaries (before the internet) would post fake entries to discover if competitors were copying them. Or how (some claim) map makers would plant fake places to identify similar copying. In the credit card case though, it wouldn't harm innocent users who may mistakenly think the fake is real.

I feel the same way. And it's funny how many people think along similar lines and then go straight to their iPhone without a second thought. It's as if because it's always been that way with the iPhone (no external apps) that it makes it ok.

How about something like this except make it as a watch strap? You could just replace your strap and not make your watch thicker (my pet peeve when it comes to watches). You could probably even have a larger battery and have it last for several days. Most watch straps are standard and either 18mm or 20mm. You'd also be sure it wouldn't fall off - I know they say the chronos won't fall off but come on, many people aren't going to trust micro suction.

Buying up coal would raise the price of electricity. That's essentially a flat tax. You punish the poor of the world who use minimal amounts.

It's a morbid fear of social interaction. Some situations are worse than others. And, for me, it isn't caused by confusion over what to do in social settings (although when I was younger I had confusion due to lack of experience in social settings).

I don't have any difficulty with social cues or understanding innate human interaction. I am popular in the workplace because I'm forced to interact with others. Almost all my friends are from work. By contrast, none of my neighbors know me and probably think I'm odd because they never see me. That's because, when I have a choice, I will always pick avoiding social interaction due to fear. Whenever I leave, I check the peephole to make sure no one is around. I have gone a week or more without leaving my home. If not for needing food and to go to work, I could probably go months without leaving. And this is driven by fear of human interaction.

I can appear completely normal in social interactions. I understand eye contact and not to linger too long. I understand the need to balance talk and listening when having a conversation. I get jokes and subtle humor. Fist pumps get me excited. No one had to teach me these things. And most of my co-workers think I'm completely normal in social settings, though on the quiet side. But when given a choice I withdraw due to fear. In High School, I spent every single lunch hiding in the library or a bathroom stall. I did not know what the cafeteria looked like. I didn't go to a single party or a single date due to crippling fear. But this fear was not the result of feeling confused over social cues or behavior.

Hmmm. Much of what is described here is not social anxiety. He is really describing what seems to be Asperger's. The two are very often co-morbid and can be confused as being the same but they are not. While they often occur together, they do not always occur together. You can have one and not the other.

I have social anxiety but not Aspergers but I have spent time with others who have Aspergers. The thing about staring into someone's eye and not understanding social cues/norms is a trait of Aspergers and not social anxiety.

Tesla was founded in 2003 and is now 12 years old. It is not a new company.

Why are so many people keen on defending VW with the claim "if VW are doing it, everyone else must be"? That dilutes the severity of this problem. I've seen several threads on HN meant to do this.

You have to wonder, if they had hands and arms instead of flippers, they might have built civilizations like humans have.

That's strange because when we do this, the person who initially paid usually ends up with more cash back after everyone else repays. Maybe this is a good way to measure the honesty of co-workers.

But I am the same way and hate trying to 'collect dues'. One approach would be to have everyone take turns paying for the entire meal and not worry about collecting individual payments. They do this in some countries regularly (I think Spain is one) - people take turns paying for everything so it works out in the end. Although I do recall a Spanish friend saying there was one person in her group who would habitually take longer to come up in the roster of "person paying entire meal".

It's an interesting idea for an app though. Instead of you nagging late payers, the app could send email reminders to them. There could be stickiness to an app that has some reputational knowledge of how individuals have paid up in the past. Sort of like a fico score but among friends or coworkers.

Author is conveniently neglecting to mention how much Pandora typically pays out for 1 million plays. Just because the songwriter gets only $90 does not mean that is all Pandora pays out.

If I recall with the last musician who made a similar complaint about a million plays, Pandora actually paid out in total royalties of around $1,400 for a million plays. That means most of the money is going to recording companies (if the songwriter only gets $90 out of $1400).

Now if I were a songwriter, two possible approaches to increase my payout would be either... 1.fight for Pandora to double what they pay out and get $180 or 2. I could fight to get say 50% of what Pandora already pays out and get $700. Pandora would also go out of business in the first scenario as they already pay over half of their revenue to royalties. Second scenario sounds a lot better to me. It's also more sustainable as a bankrupt company doesn't pay out anything.

So why don't these songwriters do what would net them far more money?

People do in general prefer trains over buses. This article is basically just saying that as you make the buses more train-like by giving them dedicated lanes and more reliability, people start to like buses more. Make them longer (articulated), faster, with dedicated lanes, and basically they start to become like a train with rubber tires. I think that is in fact, confirming people like trains better.

Titles do matter and I have an issue with the title of the article. It's like saying people prefer lobster soup over pea soup, but as you start to add more lobster to the pea soup... people start to like the pea soup... and therefore, it's a "myth" that people prefer lobster over peas. People prefer faster, reliable service with fewer stops - duh.

Do people really complain because google maps uses Mercator (or a similar) projection? My understanding was that the complaint was when Mercator is used for wall maps like in the classroom. When you show the whole world using it, the sizes of the continents are way off proportion.

On a zoomed in scale like when showing streets or smaller areas, it doesn't matter.

My experience has been that it depends on the laptop and how it handles the charging. Some will keep trickle charging at 99% so it keeps recharging the laptop frequently. That wears out the battery and usually in a couple years it won't hold much charge. Other laptops though wait longer until it falls to say 94% even when you leave it plugged in. This reduces the frequency of recharging and the battery lasts longer.

The story mentioning the woman who did not consider herself a "real programmer" is obviously disturbing. But that is not the consequence of believing in a bi-modal distribution of programming talent. Rather, it is the consequence of believing in a bi-modal distribution AND believing that gender also fits that distribution.

The bi-modal distribution of talent is not a myth nor is it intrinsically harmful. However, it can be extremely harmful when misinterpreted to mean gender, race, etc. The author is subtly conflating the two and in the process doing more harm than good. This does not help women, minorities or other under represented groups.

If it works out, wouldn't the utilities do it themselves? Why transmit that power for miles and then transmit it back. And even if they didn't, arbitrage means the price difference between times would fall as more people do it. Peak prices would move closer to night prices as demand equalizes between the two.