Hacker News Reader

tynon Be lucky - it's an easy skill to learn

True, I would still count them after ssing the message

tynon Consciousness, Dune and Abu Ghraib

What is the purpose of this feeling? There is no obvious evolutionary advantage in "feeling" the red.

tynon Consciousness, Dune and Abu Ghraib

And what about qualia?

tynon Ask HN: Thoughts and a suggestion concerning off-topic items.

And still you initiate a meta-meta-discussion

tynon Experiment: No Comment Scores

This new system saves me a lot of time by making HN less attractive.

tynon Why you should buy 5 year old car and sell it after 10 years.

Plus he doesn't take inflation into account

tynon Critical thinking? You need knowledge.

One problem is that this could end up to be a very limited area. Another problem is that students might not like the same things.

tynon Humans evolving 100 times faster than historical levels.

You could just attribute it to the attractiveness of blue eyes. Most people consider blue (and green) eyes more beautiful than eyes with a different color. But this will get you only as far as the next inevitable question: why are blue eyes attractive?

tynon What I Learned From My Failed Startup

This guy was an investment banker before. If they plan and execute the same way in investment banking as he did in his startup, no wonder we are in this mess now.

I appreciate that he shared his story, though.

tynon What Kate saw in Silicon Valley

Number 4 was a surprise to me. And I'm not sure I really get the meaning of "If you're not threatening, you're probably not doing anything new, and dignity is merely a sort of plaque".

tynon Ask HN: What do you think of this startup idea?

I'm sure you could take a grant from telecom providers.

tynon Creative new way to fund a movie

http://www.the-numbers.com/movies/records/allbudgets.php

A lot of films with budget below 1 mil. (although some of them are very old and you have to take inflation into account)

tynon Coding Horror: Monty Hall, Monty Fall, Monty Crawl

"If all that is known is that one of the children is a girl, only one possibility out of 4 is ruled out, and the answer is 2/3."

Well, that's the case when you glimpse from the window. Probably I'm wrong but I don't see why there is a fix, you still don't know if you see a G in GB or in BG or in GG

tynon Coding Horror: Monty Hall, Monty Fall, Monty Crawl

From the Jeffrey Rosenthal paper that Jeff Atwood suggests (http://www.probability.ca/jeff/writing/montyfall.pdf):

<Quote>

Nebulous Neighbours:

Your new neighbours have two children of unknown gender. From older to younger, they are equally likely to be girl-girl, girl-boy, boy-girl, or boy- boy. One day you catch a glimpse of a child through their window, and you see that it is a girl. What is the probability that their other child is also a girl?

Solution.

The probabilities that a glimpsed child will be a girl for each of the four possi- bilities (girl-girl, girl-boy, boy-girl, and boy-boy) are respectively 1, 1/2, 1/2, and 0. Since the probabilities must add to 1, the probabilities of these four possibilities are respectively 1/2, 1/4, 1/4, and 0. Hence, the probability is 1/2 that the other child is also a girl.

</Quote>

Can someone explain how glimpsing to one child and seeing that is a girl is different from hearing the parent saying that one child is a girl? How come and getting the same information from your eyes instead of your ears changes the probabilities? (1/2 for the other child to be a boy when seeing, 2/3 when hearing).

tynon The Accidental Diet

I think the point of the article is more about the idea of self-experimentation than the diet itself.

tynon Why Women Have Breasts

Where does he claim that this is a scientific theory? I think he just makes an hypothesis.

tynon Hand Shaking Is So Medieval. Let’s End It.

In my previous job whenever someone entered the open space office in the morning was giving a handshake to everybody that was already there. I think this is a french thing, there was a french majority, but eventually everybody (except me - I was just saying "hi everybody" when entering the room) was doing this. Apart from the fact that it was distracting (imagine you were first in the office, you had 25 people coming to shake hands and you couldn't concentrate from the moment someone entered the door), I find it also completely useless. What's the point in shaking hands with people you see every day? I find it similar to bringing flowers to your wife every day. After a while it will mean nothing but if you stop it she will wonder why.

tynon Reg Braithwaite on Optimism

This point of view looks a bit like taking the "blue pill" to me. It might make you happier (in the "ignorance is bliss" sense) but I doubt it will make you more succesful. If you attribute all your faults to bad luck and all your success to being smart, great etc., you are not going to improve yourself much, after all we learn a lot from our mistakes. I have to say, though, that I haven't read the book, i just checked in internet to see what it is about.

tynon What's Special About This Number?

"88 is the only number known whose square has no isolated digits"

Anyone that can explain this?

tynon A movie recommendation service that actually works

Same thing here. I put Godfather II which is one my all time favorites and of course I got a suggestion for Godfather III which I consider a totally stupid movie. Apart from this I got suggestions for a bunch of gangster movies. I couldn't care less about the gangster theme, it's the quality of directing, acting and dialogue that makes Godfather II great. Ironically enough Godfather III is from the same director and with the same lead actor which supports even more the point that properties similarity is not a good predictive factor in movies recommendation.

tynon The recession may be lifting

"And those who are selling you that it's the end of the depression are those who sold you the whole Ponzi mess in the first place. Shame on them."

I hope you don't include the Economist.

tynon Poll: Where are you from?

Greek,living in northern Europe

tynon Where did all the wealth go? To our kids.

"Because the future earnings of GE, and for that matter most U.S. corporations, are essentially the same today as they were two years ago.."

Are they?

tynon One Thing You Don't Need To Be An Entrepreneur: A College Degree

Larry Page holds a Masters degree in Computer Science from Stanford, according to Wikipedia.

tynon The Eligible Bachelor Paradox

Why is it not the case that attractive men postpone their decision too, just as attractive women do?

tynon Hacker style versus the Dijkstra style

Prototyping helps you in understanding it.

tynon Ask HN: How do you get new freelance jobs/contracts?

Sometimes, though, there is a conflict of interest for the client. In case the job is ongoing (continuous maintenance, new features) the client might be afraid that you will not have enough time to devote for them if they find you other customers, (I'm almost sure that this is the case with my current (only) customer).

tynon Employees working on their own business

I wonder if Einstein was bad in his patent office work because of his involvement in his relativity side project.

tynon Long Ring Fingers May Point to Wealth in Traders, Study Says

The study says that these traders are paid more, not that they are more succesful in their trades. Might be that high testosterone makes you a better negotiator or more aggresive in pursuing wealth etc.

tynon EU Police learning hacking tricks. They are about to “Remote search” your PCs.

What about naked photos of your girlfriend?