Hacker News Reader

themartoranaon Obama Commutes Bulk of Chelsea Manning’s Sentence

Murder, torture, blanket domestic spying etc., are not (or have not recently been) considered crimes when the federal government is the actor. The line isn't so clear.

themartoranaon MoMA Will Make Thousands of Exhibition Images Available Online

This is the dream of the internet making culture available to the masses. I've loved Google Art Project for a while, and news of more art coming online is fantastic. My wife is an art teacher and this kind of news makes her giddy.

themartoranaon Washington Post Is First Paper to Call for Prosecution of Its Own Source

I would definitely support someone outing and then fleeing Russia. In fact we do it all the time - it's called political asylum.

themartoranaon What I Learned from Executing Two Men

At least 160 children through 2011. It's been a lot more time since then.

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

themartoranaon Washington Post Is First Paper to Call for Prosecution of Its Own Source

Your respect and admiration absolve him of his responsibilities.

This is something I'm seeing more and more - "Snowden is a hero, but should stand trial and face his responsibilities." It's an oxymoron as far as I can figure, and I'm deeply disturbed by it. Either we should know what was revealed, and our government needs checking, or not. But if so, outing that information is heroic and extralegal. If you truly want no one to ever take the same risk Snowden took for the citizens of the US, let the citizens be the ones to throw him to the dogs.

themartoranaon How Utah Reduced Chronic Homelessness (2015)

It will. My theory is that it comes from solar energy. As soon as electricity generation comes to a near-zero cost, and a huge part of manufacturing cost is energy, (and the other largest cost, humans, is also displaced) we start to rapidly move to a place where traditional economies as we know them start to crumble, and we are forced (perhaps kicking and screaming) to accept that we simply can't have Full Employment (maybe not even half). After that providing people with basic rights that include housing, healthcare, etc., becomes low-cost enough that not doing so is much more detrimental.

themartoranaon Amateur Radio Parity Act Passes in the US House of Representatives

I've always found those restrictions interesting. No satellite dishes, no antennas, etc. If these antennas get a pass, does the satellite TV industry immediately lobby for similar treatment?

themartoranaon HP Allegedly Time Bombs Unofficial Ink Cartridges from Working in Its Printers

It really does feel like at least half. I went to buy an iPhone 7 case and they all had 50+ 4.5 star reviews... before the iPhone 7 had shipped. I filtered one case with 40+ reviews to "Verified Purchases" only, and only a single review was left.

In some cases it feels like 90%.

themartoranaon The Zen of Passive Solar Heating Panel Design (2010)

So what's stopping a setup like this becoming standard? It's obviously generally superior, at least for new construction that's well-insulated. Right?

themartoranaon Where Death Lies

Yeah I feel like science and some test strips would do the job. But eating blowfish to begin with is ridiculous, and based solely on tradition. Testing for toxins could be seen as disrespecting the tradition.

themartoranaon The Thrill of Losing Money by Investing in a Manhattan Restaurant

Two posts down from a missing apostrophe as I write this. Am I being trolled?

themartoranaon Google HTML/CSS Style Guide – Omit Optional Tags

Grammar nerd, apologies, but "Google's" with an apostrophe (unless I'm totally missing something). There should maybe be a better way to report this kind of stuff without cluttering the comment stream.

themartoranaon Norway plans to cull more than two-thirds of its wolf population

A designated "wolf-free zone" is crazy, but the wolves should have read the signs.

themartoranaon Flooding of US Coast, Caused by Global Warming, Has Begun

Would you like to give some examples of the leadership in behavioral change you'd like to see? I personally doubt anything save huge taxes on gasoline are going to do anything to change behavior. You can decry driving by people still need to get to work.

Laws are the only drivers of change so massive. We're fighting over oil pipelines to pump more oil for use, not which green energy gets tax breaks. And even with outrageous prices caused by taxes meant to make dangerous activity prohibitive, people still smoke.

Cash-for-clunkers-for-EV? "Infrastructure spending" in EV charging nationwide? Federally supported replacement of coal fired power plants?

People aren't going to change behavior at all because of flooding except for maybe those people under water. But they'll just move.

themartoranaon Flooding of US Coast, Caused by Global Warming, Has Begun

Scary, using laws to prohibit people doing math. It's the equivalent of putting your fingers in your ears and humming loudly.

themartoranaon Vancouver Tax on Empty Homes to Target Near-Zero Rental Supply

I don't understand how my comment above got down-voted. In a pure economic sense, holding property creates scarcity, and prices rise. It's wildly unbalanced value, but its value nonetheless.

themartoranaon Municipal ISP forced to shut off fiber-to-the-home Internet after court ruling

How are government sponsored protectionist laws like this even legal? It's very frustrating.

Edit: For further context, both towns wanted the service, which makes it even more frustrating. If Wilson made its service private there'd be no issue.

Can a private enterprise be government owned? I guess not? How about a tiny startup with one person operating billing and they call it a "private-public partnership"?

I'm grasping at straws, I realize.

themartoranaon Tesla Wins Contract to Help Power the California Grid

Since they're not technically a "plant" - just storage - is there any advantage to be had to build in many smaller (say per-neighborhood) battery plants? Seems like they could act not only as peak providers, but also battery backup in the case of storms and whatnot. Plus it reduces a single-point of failure.

I ask for I am uneducated in this area.

themartoranaon Ask HN: What are the hottest startups related to beer / brewing?

As an also-over-35, I don't think it's just the alcohol. (Feel free to slap me down with science.) A beer hangover is now more severe than an equivalent-amount-of-alcohol hangover from say, vodka.

themartoranaon Why I Majored in Philosophy Despite Everyone Telling Me Not To (2013)

Well, if you can afford that extra mortgage-sized payment while making minimum wage. We're not talking about studying online or at a community college or self-teaching, we're talking about a 4 year degree at a university.

themartoranaon FBI director: Cover up your webcam

Watching you - even bored, bearded, naked you - through your camera is the literal incarnation of 1984.

themartoranaon Vancouver Tax on Empty Homes to Target Near-Zero Rental Supply

Holding onto vacant property creates huge monetary value.

themartoranaon A Primer on Bézier Curves – B-Splines

It's the way my brain works for sure, but dense material is always harder for me to get through when it looks dense and is laid out densely. My brain instantly puts up a hurdle and makes assumptions about the material.

That said, it seems like the entire mathematics and scientific community disagrees with me :)

themartoranaon Google’s become an obsessive stalker

Has Google made this information public? Or are they just indexing it?

themartoranaon Why are Adults so busy?

"Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.”

Amen.

themartoranaon Why drug prices in America are so high

"But it is unclear if firms’ profits need be so high to sustain research."

It's very clear, and they don't. Profits are enormous. Profits are also calculated after the cost of R&D. So no, profits don't need to be astronomical for companies to still be profitable after the cost of R&D.

themartoranaon Pardon Snowden

Lots of crazy shit has been walked back over the years, and I assume it felt very doom-y at the time. That said, I don't see this being walked back. Snowden outed the US Government as ever conspiracy theorist's worst nightmare minus lizard people, and the country kinda shrugged.

themartoranaon Pardon Snowden

"...they didn't have any big attack..."

"Big attacks" are vanishingly rare. But, just for the sake of argument, they haven't had an attack until they do.

The point of this is the US is actually harvesting way more data than the U.K., and we have so-called "lone wolf" attacks every couple of months.

Mass surveillance doesn't keep you safe.

themartoranaon Edward Snowden makes 'moral' case for presidential pardon

The down-votes are absurd.

themartoranaon Edward Snowden makes 'moral' case for presidential pardon

It's a little worrying that I should be concerned about the morale of TLAs who have been illegally drag-netting the entire world without repercussions.