HNHacker News
TopNewBestAskShowJobs

ytinas

177 karma · joined January 5, 2010

submissionscomments
ytinas··on Ask HN: What makes you happy? What is your American Dream?
To become financially independent so I have time to change the world for the better.
ytinas··on The ethics of social games and how mass culture killed the auteur
I play one of these silly online games. The draw is simple: my friends play it and it only takes a few minutes a day to move forward. I'm close to ditching it though because they've changed the game to be completely unable to progress without my attention and it's not good enough to justify more investment than I've already given it.
ytinas··on In response to Mike Arrington: Why you should start living your life again.
But if everyone in the world considered issues rationally, then everyone would be smarter, no?
ytinas··on Rats Cooperate in Prisoners' Dilemma
It is, but if both remain silent they get a smaller penalty than if both rat on each other.
ytinas··on That Facebook app is not your friend
This is ridiculous. Once the children are off school property they no longer have a teacher/child relationship. The teacher is a citizen at that point and should have the same recourse as a citizen (e.g. alert the police if a fight is going to take place off school property). Suspending children for something they do on social networks on their own time? These teachers should lose their teaching licenses.
ytinas··on U.S. must stop spying on WikiLeaks - Details on intimidation attempts
After you've already tried all the other channels? Then you're no longer an anonymous whistle blower.
ytinas··on U.S. must stop spying on WikiLeaks - Details on intimidation attempts
No, you can have things you want to hide and that's fine. Unless you're a powerful government trying to hide your own illegal (or should-be-illegal) activities.
ytinas··on U.S. must stop spying on WikiLeaks - Details on intimidation attempts
None of this has anything to do with Wikileaks. They are exposing things that are obvious cases of corruption. How are we helping the largely imaginary terrorists if we expose a CIA murder cover up?
ytinas··on That Facebook app is not your friend
Which is just one more way that the US school system is an insane caricature of real life.
ytinas··on U.S. must stop spying on WikiLeaks - Details on intimidation attempts
So as soon as the US classifies something it is no longer valid, in your view, for anyone to show it? I guess they can do whatever they like then! Just classify everything that would otherwise be illegal.
ytinas··on U.S. must stop spying on WikiLeaks - Details on intimidation attempts
>Would you publish nuclear launch codes?

Afaik, wikileaks has never been about publishing launch codes. It's about revealing cover ups and there should be no government cover ups. If they are trying to hide something they've done then it's probably because it's illegal.

ytinas··on Ask HN: Is there a point to school?
If you want to be a really incredible programmer you need to spend time programming, but that isn't remotely required to be successful, even in programming. For example, I wouldn't consider any of the creators of the top 3 scripting languages good programmers. They're known, I'm not.
ytinas··on Ask HN: Is there a point to school?
>Or a better major. Perhaps you're making the mistake of letting your chosen career dictate your choice of classes. The universal secret to school is: Take the best classes you can find, from the best people, regardless of subject.

I think this is great advice. If I had the opportunity to do college now I would probably try to major in my second (or third!) career choice. Having mobility in where you could have a career could turn out important.

ytinas··on Marry Him: The case for settling for Mr. Good Enough
Except that prison is almost exclusively bad and marriage doesn't have to be. For example, someone did a study a while back to prove that married men were happier then unmarried men because marriage made them happier. They didn't end up proving that but they did discover that on average married men have sex more often than unmarried men.

See? Not all bad.

ytinas··on Chatroulette + GeoIP + screengrabs = Chatroulette Map
Well, given that they're connecting through VMs that run in other countries...
ytinas··on How to Quit Your Job
It's pretty cultural. The contract is a two way street. Most people don't do what you describe because they wouldn't want the company doing it to them. People probably also worry about burning bridges.

Since it's a legal contract violating (by leaving) it could lead to lawsuits.

ytinas··on [dead]
They knew Star wars was Scifi. What would the effect be if they joined to be part of something cool to find out it was nonsense?
ytinas··on The truth about student loans
On this site, downvote doesn't mean "disagree", it means you violated some etiquette.
ytinas··on The truth about student loans
I don't know how much you owed, but was it worth it to pay the loans off so fast? It seems there must have been something more valuable a large sum of money could have done for you.

EDIT: I mean this as an honest question, not proving a point or something. I was under the impression that these loans have pretty low interest. If the interest is low I would pay as little at a time as I possibly could.

ytinas··on How to Quit Your Job
Wow. Where I am, the notice is 2-3 months and contractual so there is no negotiating it.

Personally, I would tell the person "Go ahead and go now, and we'll just continue to pay your salary to the end of the contract". If the person is really unhappy with the place, having them around bringing everyone down is going to cost a lot more than paying someone 2 months to not be there IMO.

ytinas··on How to Quit Your Job
Good advice. I just had to do this recently and morale is pretty low where I'm at. Everyone was saying "so did you complain about <random issue from a laundry list>?". All were shocked when I said "no, I had nothing but good about the place. I side stepped every negative point".

The thing is, trashing a company as you leave never does anything positive. Maybe you can brag about it to your friends, but chances are they will be laughing at you, not with you. Most of the time the things you would complain about are something your boss knows about is trying to fix, so it just makes you look like a whiner.

They will also tend to take it personal. You're leaving, chances are they will to at some point. How would you like to sell yourself to that same guy 3 contracts down the road after dropping a turd on his desk?

ytinas··on Jessica Roy: Dear San Francisco Employers: Please Hire Me
I would agree and I wish the world was like that. All I can say is: don't ever go near a "right to work" state.
ytinas··on Jessica Roy: Dear San Francisco Employers: Please Hire Me
I haven't found it so bad and I'm not great at networking. I just use consulting agencies, that's the only way I've ever had any luck. It's easier to get into a company via someone who knows people there, than just some resume in an email.

The trick is just to remember these guys are extremely busy. If it's more than a week old it isn't relevant anymore, so get a contact within lots of different agencies and contact them on a regular cycle (once a month is probably ok).

ytinas··on Jessica Roy: Dear San Francisco Employers: Please Hire Me
Ok, so if she comes to work for you she's in good shape. In the real world, however, when a jackal sees a gazelle it doesn't care if it has "pouty eyes" or not. Meat is meat, the easier to catch the better.
ytinas··on Stop Writing Bullshit Documentation
Java as well.
ytinas··on Japan: It's Not Funny Anymore
You've never worked for an American company that tried to tell you what you could/couldn't do outside of work? Either you've had good luck or I've had bad because every place I worked for tried to impose their rules beyond the office parking lot. Maybe it was due to working in a "right to work" state?
ytinas··on Warning: Your reality is out of date
What you're talking about isn't a racial thing, it's an economic status thing and I've heard of it in many different countries throughout the world. People who can't afford both a nice house and a nice car, will often get as nice of a car as they can since this is a status symbol that more people will see.

Why Cadillac might be chosen in the US probably has to do with availability and reputation.

ytinas··on Stop Reading "Clients from Hell"
Well, he could have explained it differently, no? I personally would prefer (and use myself) "I can if you like, but the problem will be..."
ytinas··on Clojure won't win the battle but may win the war
The issue with at least the #lisp community is that they are nice so long as you go along with their ideas. As soon as you suggest anything might be done better some other way, out come the thorns.
ytinas··on Good ideas are meant to spread
I disagree. Touch screen has been "in the wild" for quite some time in various forms. Pre-iPhone the most used one was the stylus approach. And it was awful. All the different things that come together in the iPhone made people see this as finally being the right path to moving the computer from the desktop into the hand. It might have happened without them, but judging on how all previous attempts turned out I wouldn't be surprised if they saved us decades.
Page 1 of 6Next →