Hacker News Reader

zwtayloron Facebook denies 'listening' to conversations

True, it seems far-fetched at first. We should keep in mind that a even few short years ago theorizing about the US Government operating a widespread domestic electronic surveillance dragnet was still the realm of delusional conspiracy theorists.

zwtayloron Facebook denies 'listening' to conversations

Dozens of times in the past few years I've been served relevant ads on some topic instantly after discussing it in person in proximity to a smartphone. I've encountered countless other anecdotal stories from friends. When this happens I feel an acute sense of violation and vulnerability. It's hard to imagine a less sinister explanation for this phenomena.

zwtayloron American death rate from substance abuse and mental disorders triples since 1980

Interesting to see the dramatic rise in deaths related to substance abuse from 1996 onwards, the year Purdue Pharma introduced Oxycontin. It's especially glaring in the most impoverished parts of Appalachia.

zwtayloron How to Browse the Web from a NYC Wifi Link Kiosk

What did they honestly think was going to happen when they introduced internet terminals across the city?

I struggle to understand the city's response to this issue, aggressive filtering could have achieved the same goal of preventing unseemly public web browsing.

zwtayloron United States of Paranoia: A growing tribe of troubled minds

Very awkward day to make this claim.

zwtayloron Ask HN: Who is hiring? (June 2016)

Computer Lab | Brooklyn, New York City | Designer, Web Developer | Onsite or Remote | Contract

http://computerlab.io

We're a new digital consultancy in NYC looking for a designer we can work with on a number of upcoming projects. We have office space in Williamsburg but also would be open to remote work.

Email hi@computerlab.io to get in touch!

zwtayloron I've been scrubbed

It doesn't seem to me like he has an agenda. Keep in mind that the "duck boats" are pretty much universally reviled by natives in Philadelphia; they are loud, feel out of place in the neighborhoods they operate in and are full of gawking tourists.

The incident in 2010 he mentioned was pretty big news in Philly. Just seems like a concerned reporter who was at the right place at the right time and noticed a series of recurring events with these boats.

zwtayloron Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (June 2015)

Location: New York City (NYC)

Remote: No

Willing to relocate: Possibly

Technologies: Front End Developer & Designer (CSS3, HTML5, jQuery/JavaScript, MySQL, Unix, Git, Photoshop)

Portfolio: http://zachtaylor.me

Resume: http://zachtaylor.me/resume.pdf

Email: zachtaylordev (at) gmail

zwtayloron Snapchat's Evan Spiegel: ‘We Need to IPO’

> Spiegel also said he believes there is a tech bubble that will eventually burst.

My cynical reading of this is that Snapchat wants to grab as much of retail investors' money before consumer tech valuations implode.

zwtayloron A Bitcoin miner in every hand

I hope you're right, there _must_ be other components to their business model to warrant $116m in investment capital. At face value this all appears beyond foolish, though I'm rooting for them to make me eat my words down the road.

"21 Inc., formerly 21e6, announced it had raised US$116m in venture capital, the largest investment yet accumulated by a startup in the digital currency industry. 21 Inc.'s lead backers include American Andreessen Horowitz and RRE Venture, Chinese Yuan Capital, as well as strategic investor and chipmaker Qualcomm Inc."

http://cointelegraph.com/news/113668/bitcoin-startup-21-inc-...

zwtayloron Unlearning Helplessness

MBTI has always struck me as something akin to Astrology for the triple-digit IQ set.

zwtayloron Yelp Is Exploring a Sale

Sometime in the last year I started to find myself exclusively using the reviews and filtering within Google Maps to search for restaurants, bars and other businesses. I can't say I've really touched Yelp at all in months.

It definitely seems like Google has devoted a lot of effort to improving these features as I remember a time when their review sections were a veritable ghost town. I won't be surprised if Google ends up buying them.

zwtayloron Robinhood raises $50M

I'm not at all suggesting that young people shouldn't be investing, just that the interface and experience of Robinhood makes investing seem more like a toy or game than a discipline that requires a lot more than a few swipes and a tap.

Developing a relationship with investing when you're young is a great thing to do, but Robinhood might not be the best gateway. I am interested in seeing where the app goes, as the design by itself is very well done.

zwtayloron Robinhood raises $50M

I agree that a mobile-only interface is just not enough when you're dealing with something as intricate as investing. They've tried to abstract away the many layers of paperwork from investing/trading, but it leads to things like the problems you've had.

I tried Robinhood for a few days and started to feel that it was turning investing, something that should require significant forethought and research, into a bit of a toy. The fact that it specifically targets a younger millennial audience who most likely have no experience investing makes me a little uneasy.

That's not to say the app isn't well designed and good-looking, but that a mobile-only app just might not be the best medium for investors.

zwtayloron U.S. NSA domestic phone spying program illegal: appeals court

There probably wouldn't have been a ruling at all. The court itself states that Snowden was the principle catalyst for this case to ever go to court in the first place.

From the judgement:

"Americans first learned about the telephone metadata program that appellants now challenge on June 5, 2013, when the British newspaper The Guardian published a FISC order leaked by former government contractor Edward Snowden".

zwtayloron If you use 'haha', you're probably old

Likewise, I only use "Haha" for things that are truly funny. "lol" is reserved primarially to lend a degree of self-awareness to a particularly absurd or stupid statement that I say or recieve.

zwtayloron The Steady Rise of Bike Ridership in New York

> Also, in New York, the roads are often chaotic. In Berlin, I only saw chaos around construction sites, otherwise the roads were safe and orderly.

One only needs to bike a couple minutes in New York to start encountering hazards, even in lanes specifically designated for bike use. I ride in NYC daily and usually encounter at least one of the following in bike lanes on every other block: car or delivery truck double-parked, construction, police activity, someone walking or running in bike lane, car doors opening. There's often no other option for some of these things (I particularly empathize with delivery drivers), but it all creates a very hazardous atmosphere, especially for those not accustomed to riding in the city.

zwtayloron What's the use for Bitcoin?

I think that you could be right about this particular vision of Bitcoin as a financial platform.

It's my belief that the future of Bitcoin will be analogous to something like Linux; a great deal of financial infrastructure will rely on blockchain technology, but Bitcoin itself will have little visibility or use to the average consumer outside of a small, dedicated circle of enthusiasts.

zwtayloron Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (April 2015)

Location: NYC

Remote: Yes

Willing to relocate: Yes

Technologies: HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript/jQuery, PHP, MySQL

Resume: http://zachtaylor.me

Email: zachtaylordev @ gmail.com

I'm a self-taught web developer and designer who's been working in a freelance capacity for over four years. I'm looking to move into a full-time on-site position but will certainly continue to entertain offers for remote/freelance work.

zwtayloron What's the cheapest living situation possible that still has basic utilities?

Very cool, do you have any suggestions as far as finding and purchasing cheap land?

zwtayloron The Art World’s Patron Satan

At the moment fine art is perhaps the most bubbly asset on the planet. The wealthy are clamoring for exotic plays to invest their cash in.

A acquaintance of mine who is an art-handler tells me much of the art they move is stored in warehouses in New Jersey solely in the hope that it can be resold at a vastly inflated price in the future.

zwtayloron For Sale: 50,000 Bitcoins

I don't have a deep grasp of Civil Forfeiture but it seems like this is unusual considering DPR has not been convicted of anything yet. Is this part of a plea bargin or something similar?

zwtayloron Twitter's future: How high can it fly?

Sometimes I like to imagine what Twitter or other social networks might look like as a subsidized public utility. I'm sure it would more than likely be poorly executed in practice, but it would go a long ways in eliminating the need to squeeze every last ad-dollar from a service, a process that often dilutes what is at its core a valuable public platform.

Obviously an idea that runs contrary to the usual thinking around here, but something worth a quick muse over.

zwtayloron The day UFOs stopped play

This reminds me of something British enzymologist J.B.S. Haldane once said, "Reality is not only stranger than we suppose, it may be stranger than we can suppose." It's unprovable, but perhaps alien intelligence is already "here", existing at some level imperceptible to human faculties. Given the age of the universe, and humanity's relative youth, it's not impossible that an alien civilization could have developed transportation/communication technology far beyond anything we could possible imagine.

zwtayloron ‘Stop-and-Frisk’ Is All but Gone from New York

Interesting, I wasn't aware that this was due to new policy. I've definitely noticed a dramatically increased police presence on the streets of New York, especially in poorer neighborhoods near gentrifying areas. I also frequently witness police stopping traffic to randomly select cars for some sort of odor/ballistics residue testing. As a resident of Philadelphia, where I seldom see police outside their vehicles, it all feels slightly draconian and disconcerting. I can only imagine what this presence feels like to someone other than a young, white male. I've never felt unsafe in any of these neighborhoods prior to the new "Omnipresence" strategy.

zwtayloron Peter Thiel AMA

Interesting, I'd like to read more about this, is there a term for this sort of practice?

zwtayloron Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (September 2014)

Location: Philadelphia, PA

Remote: Yes

Willing to relocate: Yes, the prospect of lumbering through yet another East Coast winter is beginning to lose its romance.

Technologies: Primarily HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript/jQuery, PHP, MySQL. Basic experience with Python, AngularJS, Node.js

Resume: http://zachtaylor.me

Email: zachwtaylor @ gmail.com

I'm a self-taught web developer who's been working in a freelance capacity for about four years. I'm looking to move into a full-time on-site position but will certainly continue to entertain offers for remote/freelance work.

zwtayloron Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (August 2014)

Philadelphia, PA. Willing to relocate anywhere, full-time or contract is preferable.

Stack: HTML5, JavaScript, CSS3, LESS, SASS, jQuery, PHP, MySQL, Adobe Creative Suite

Resume: http://zachtaylor.me/docs/ztaylor.pdf

Contact: zachwtaylor (at) gmail.com, http://zachtaylor.me I'm a self-taught front-end developer who's worked in a freelance capacity for several years. I'm looking to move into a full-time role at a small company or startup where I can expand my technical skillset and work with a team of cool people on something interesting.

zwtayloron Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (June 2014)

Philadelphia, PA. Willing to relocate anywhere, full-time or contract is preferable.

Stack: HTML5, JavaScript, CSS3, LESS, jQuery, PHP, MySQL, Adobe Creative Suite

Resume: http://zachtaylor.me/docs/ztaylor.pdf

Contact: zachwtaylor (at) gmail.com, http://zachtaylor.me

I'm a self-taught front-end developer who's worked in a freelance capacity for several years. I'm looking to move into a full-time role at a small company or startup where I can expand my technical skillset and work with a team of cool people on something interesting.