chapill
Joined 8 years ago
Karma
7
Submissions
163
Member since
Jan 4
Recent submissions
Comment · 8 years ago
Comment · 8 years ago
But you agree that the motive in both cases is to take away constitutional rights.
Comment · 8 years ago
Well, the main problem is HTML sucks. It can't do things literally everyone wants to do at one point or another.
One example, scrolling table with fixed table head. Why is that not something I can specify declaratively? Why is that next to impossible, even with the aid of JavaScript.
Where are tabs? Where are image carousels? Why is it that styling forms elements is still essentially impossible? Where are <select> elements with icons? Where are calendar date pickers that allow me to select multiple dates and ranges?
Why was three columns with header and footer declared the "Holy Grail" of CSS for a decade? And does anyone remember building rounded corners with <b> tags?
Basic basic basic structures that literally every developer is asked to build don't exist. Every developer everywhere has wasted ridiculous amounts of time making something barely functional which should have been stupidly simple.
Comment · 8 years ago
I think healing has less to do with it than liability. Snake oil salesmen used to be a thing.
What currently sets programmers apart is the lack of liability. Programmers write their own get out of jail free cards. We call them EULAs.
If a doctor screws up and leaves a clamp inside you after surgery, he is sued. If a programmer screws up and leaves a debugging backdoor in a shipped product, nothing.
>Can you think of a consistent, concrete set of ethics that would draw unanimous support among programmers?
I think if programmers can't come to a consensus on that answer, then legislators will do it for them.
If you look around, we're actually witnessing this happening right now. Populist anger has erupted after Equifax, Cambridge Analytica, and Uber. NYT opinion pieces call for changes in liability law around programming.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/11/opinion/equifax-accountab...
And it's not just talk. Changes have already started. Section 230 was recently modified to make small changes in liability of web hosts. In response, Craigslist went full nuclear option in protest and dropped their Personals section. Almost nobody noticed, which means in the next round, law makers will be much more bold in applying more liability to the businesses of programmers.
Google's "Do no evil" was the closest thing I think we've witnessed to a Hippocratic oath for programmers. That's long gone now. Now it's all jerk tech, exploit your users for content and then demonetize them with no recourse or redress.
I don't think the west can get any wilder, so the pendulum is going to go against us from here on out. Programmers should be getting ahead of this, but like all dumb humans, we will sit stupidly. We will only react to immediately obvious consequences instead of preparing for the storm on the horizon.
Comment · 8 years ago
>if I help develop A.I. that can be used for all sorts of things, one of which happens to be military-related, is the effort "evil"
There's a famous quote for this:
It should be noted that no ethically-trained software engineer would ever consent to write a DestroyBaghdad procedure. Basic professional ethics would instead require him to write a DestroyCity procedure, to which Baghdad could be given as a parameter.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Nathaniel_Borenstein
Of which I believe the meaning is yes, it's evil. It's handing a toddler a loaded gun sort of evil. If you DestroyBaghdad, you've limited the harm your program can do to what is specifically required by the situation. DestroyCity is easily misused in the wrong hands and should be carefully considered by ethical programmers.
Doctors solve this by disallowing unethical members of their profession to legally practice. Programmers should consider becoming an ethical profession, because depending on others in the field to do the right thing and police themselves hasn't been working out.
Comment · 8 years ago
Wow, just wow.
We started at submission about Google employees waving around a paper tiger petition, we proceeded to top ranked reminder to everyone of DARPA and how military funding is the One True Way, then on to crypto export controls, rolling onward into a gun control debate, conflating semi-automatic weapons with rocket launchers, and finally into yes, the meaning behind "fire in a crowded theater."
The comment section on HN is now second only to the comments from Yahoo news stories. Keep up the great work everyone.
Comment · 8 years ago
https://youtu.be/Ii_pEXKKYUg?t=5m16s
RISC-V is already faster. It just needs better fabs.
Comment · 8 years ago
You're now contradicting yourself:
>I really find it difficult to figure out why things fail even though I have almost 20 years of experience
>In Gradle, this is immediately understandable to everybody
You pulled an easy example to defend Gradle for the exact problem you just complained about.
>You may not want or like to learn another tool and that's fine.
It's not about like or want, it's about having the wisdom to recognize a poor solution before investing time in adopting it. OP fell for the hype. Maven works fine for me, thanks.
Comment · 8 years ago
Here's a non-violent twitch streamer who made a reaction video to one of the shooter's...
https://mobile.twitter.com/BrittanyVenti/status/981372650575...
Aaand, she's banned.
Comment · 8 years ago
Please consider reading the guidelines of this site. I'm sure that dang is reading these.
Comment · 8 years ago
Here's her last video. One youtube doesn't want you to see evidently,
https://www.freedomsafespace.com/m/videos/view/YouTube-Shoot...
She seems really upset.
Comment · 8 years ago
Censorship works fast friend. I've already posted this, but was censored too. You need to showdead in your prefs to see such things.
Comment · 8 years ago
I'm sure this submission will get flagged off the front page too because "Iranian woman bears arms against YouTube for censorship" doesn't really fit the narrative around here, but here's her page before it's wiped out too. Her YT and Insta have already been nuked.
I notice you didn't warn the anti rights person who did start the flamewar, because that person refuses to acknowledge similarities between the two situations.
I notice you have a tendency to attack me because you clearly disagree with my opinions.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16578470
I'm obviously not welcome here. I'll go. You won't need to worry about any more wrongthink from me. Enjoy enforcing your opinions on everyone. Your board, your rules.