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shillster

72 karma · joined January 6, 2015

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shillster··on Chipotle Says Adios to GMOs, as Food Industry Strips Away Ingredients
Its called voting with your dollars.
shillster··on Feds Say It's Time to Cut Back on Fluoride in Drinking Water
Lead poisoning in the aqueduct system is one theory for the fall of the Roman empire.
shillster··on Ask HN: Credit card cannot be used for purchasing medical marijuana in Colorado?
Its still a Schedule 1 substance, indicating it has no recognized medical value, and on the other hand, the government owns patents on THC compounds used to shrink tumors.
shillster··on Are You Ready for the Huge Liability Facing U.S. Merchants in 2015?
America is the land of half-assed approaches.
shillster··on Tesla Stockholders Can't Take a Joke
A great deal of effort is currently being expended to algorithmically detect sarcasm, its a real problem.
shillster··on Criminal complaint against agents in Silk Road investigation [pdf]
I'm sure it was just a few "bad apples", yes?
shillster··on Former feds charged with stealing Silk Road Bitcoins
Don't worry folks, it was just a few "bad apples", who happened to be vetted, highly trusted, undercover law enforcement officials. Just goes to show you how only criminals use Bitcoin.
shillster··on 1,000-year-old onion and garlic eye remedy kills MRSA
Just in time for FDA "approval"!
shillster··on This is what happened when I drove my Mercedes to pick up food stamps
Every time a vehicle is bought/sold there's transaction overhead. Real time and money is lost each time an individual replaces their transportation.
shillster··on I’ve Joined the White House’s U.S. Digital Service
Tech reform begins with the NSA
shillster··on Germanwings plane crash: Co-pilot 'wanted to destroy plane'
One day it may catch up to terrorism theatre!
shillster··on The Gravekeeper’s Paradox: People want permanent tombstones that also show decay
Cemeteries are beyond ridiculous, and growing up, I thought there would be a cultural shift away from such non-sense, but maybe not?
shillster··on Pharrell Williams: $7.3M Blurred Lines verdict threatens all artists
Imaginary property rights strike again!
shillster··on Yahoo wants to let you forget your Yahoo password
I forgot my yahoo password long ago, I had used my yahoo account to register a domain name. At the time, I agreed to allow recurring billing (though I don't consciously remember doing this). After a few years of seeing the recurring charge on my bank statement, I called to get a debit card with a new number. They sent me a new card with the same number (but new expirey). After discovering a fresh charge in the next yearly cycle, I called my bank to "contest" the charges. They asked if I had talked to them (the vendor, Yahoo in this case) or otherwise explicitly cancelled my "subscription" and told them I had no way of recovering my account information and wasn't about to navigate their phone-based customer service. My bank did absolutely nothing to help me. Moving forward, I've sought to minimize any form of accounts following this paradigm. Getting rid of passwords is great, long over due, but there are bigger problems with these organizations.
shillster··on Study: Teen Cannabis Users Have Poor Long-Term Memory in Adulthood
It will be great when this substance can be officially studied in a clinical setting but so long as its a schedule 1 substance at the federal level, well, its worse than methamphetamine (on paper).
shillster··on Why are glasses so expensive? (2012)
What was your experience like getting your prescription details from LensCrafters? I've heard they don't like give up the details to allow customers to easily work with a competitor.
shillster··on Why are glasses so expensive? (2012)
What about buying out the competition? The "consolidation" in the industry is what has led to a decrease in competition.
shillster··on Why are glasses so expensive? (2012)
Inelastic good, supply controlled by cartel.
shillster··on Do Cryptocurrencies Such as Bitcoin Have a Future?
I was making a sarcastic remark, echoing the sentiment of all of the "free market" zealots and politicians. Not only are they talking out of both sides of their mouth, their statements are misleading as we see in hindsight.

The only benefit I can see is there is an overall increase in liquidity but the cost of that liquidity is quite high.

shillster··on Why the practical applications of Bitcoin will be limited
As jordon0day just wrote in an unrelated thread, "we have plenty of evidence that people are really bad at being suspicious of the often unreliable stuff they read on the internet"

I think this is a group that is highly sensitive to face value of statements people make and when someone makes an uninformed remark, their entirely argument is cast aside. Dissent is welcomed, but it needs to be backed by a solid justification.

shillster··on The Death of the Login
Passing tokens around via email isn't very secure. Its not like email is encrypted.
shillster··on Obama sharply criticizes China's plans for new technology rules
He also said he was against warrantless wiretapping during his campaign.
shillster··on Obama sharply criticizes China's plans for new technology rules
This is what has to happen to raise the bar.
shillster··on American democracy is doomed
How do we know we aren't simply replacing one illusion with another?
shillster··on Nasdaq Index Reaches 5000 for First Time Since 2000
Spoken like a Buffet-believer
shillster··on Do Cryptocurrencies Such as Bitcoin Have a Future?
We live in a world filled with speculative bubbles. You have speculators to thank for their price discovery efforts. This enables you to pay the "true value" of a given commodity at a given moment in time.
shillster··on Alaska on Tuesday Will Become Third State with Legal Marijuana
The way you conflate these metaphors makes the truth of your statement seem self-evident, but it is not so.
shillster··on The Man Who Quit Money: An Interview with Daniel Suelo
I wouldn't be so quick to cast anyone off, especially someone who undertakes personal initiatives such as this to ensure their own survival. The "economy" might suffer if more people adopted this attitude, but its hardly the end of the world. It is not our position to judge if this person's potential is wasted or not, you can't really be any more subjective.
shillster··on The Man Who Quit Money: An Interview with Daniel Suelo
He's only a burden in as much as the fall in his personal consumption reduces the overall demand for things he might have purchased. In other words, its no sweat off of anyone's brow. Being individually resourceful doesn't increase the burden on anyone else.
shillster··on Ask HN: How do your enterprise customers pay you?
Microsoft's data centers have been used for mining for over a year and its been used by internal teams to compensate people outside the company (working with open source vendors) and its a very convenient way to bypass the age old fight for money in the budget.
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