jamesbritt
Joined 19 years ago
Karma
28,062
Submissions
6,174
Member since
Apr 27
Recent submissions
Comment · 6 years ago
Extra irony: I went to try Dogpile, but got redirected to some anti-something site (seems to not like my VPN IP) that wants me to do a Google Recaptcha.
Comment · 6 years ago
People reference the essay, and in so doing they are referencing the whole essay, including the nasty parts.
People doing this need to be aware of that; I suspect many are not.
Being cited doesn't make anything true, so I'm not sure what that has to do with it being correct or not.
There does exist scholarly work disputing Hardin's conjecture. For example, the work of Elinor Ostrom of Indiana University.
"Ostrom received the 2009 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for her groundbreaking research demonstrating that ordinary people are capable of creating rules and institutions that allow for the sustainable and equitable management of shared resources. She shared the prize with Oliver Williamson, a University of California economist."
Comment · 6 years ago
More about Hardin's essay:
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/voices/the-tragedy-of-t...
> The Tragedy of the Tragedy of the Commons The man who wrote one of environmentalism’s most-cited essays was a racist, eugenicist, nativist and Islamaphobe—plus his argument was wrong
Comment · 10 years ago
> But even if they were working on Pinboard, it's still a free service
What does it cost?
Pinboard costs $11/year.
Archiving accounts cost $25/year.
Comment · 12 years ago
How do you know how simple it is for a CSR to offer you a refund?
I don't. So I asked the CSR to please pass my request on to someone higher up.
The response?
Nothing.
Zilch.
Not even the decency to tell me, "No."
I gather then that once Dropbox decides you're not a potential revenue source they can't be bother with even basic consideration.
Comment · 12 years ago
You already bought it. It's done. Your option is to cancel at renewal or not.
This is technically true.
In the bigger picture we should judge people and companies by what they choose to do, not by what they have to do.
Had Drobox even replied that they understood my complaint but decided that it did not warrant their making an exception to their ToS I might be less disgusted. At least it would show some sort of backbone. Instead they pretend their hands are tied. That's dishonest.
Comment · 12 years ago
According to OP, he was knocked down to free tier but not issued a refund. That is incredibly odd, given that he already paid for the service
To be clear: The knocked me back to the lower free tier and quota, and only restored the quota a few days later when I saw no refund and complained.
Comment · 12 years ago
I'm not surprised at all that a company doesn't want to refund you because of a political disagreement you have with them.
What's important here is how they handled this. A company can issue a refund anytime it likes, the ToS notwithstanding. Those are rules they made up.
Telling me that it is impossible to issue a refund is just lying. It's not impossible; it's very doable.
If they (or any company) deliberately choose not to issue a refund they should state it like that, in plain language, not pretend that they have no choice in the matter.
Likewise with botching my account downgrade; only after I pointed out there error did they restore the quota but then acted like it never happened.
It isn't simply the lack of a refund, it's the bogus way they did it. Actions like this reveal the character of a company.
Comment · 12 years ago
Dropbox is morally corrupt and support for them by HN users is disappointing.
I wrote to Dropbox and said I wanted to cancel my account and get a pro-rated refund because of their hiring of Condoleezza Rice. Her involvement in the Iraq war and the mass surveillance of Americans is deplorable.
A few days after my request my account was converted to the free version, with the limitations of the free version. I could no longer sync any files. When I saw this I assumed I was going to get the refund.
Days passed. I asked about the refund. The support email included disturbingly fawning about Ms. Rice and how amazing she was, and insisted that the Dropbox ToS made it flat-out impossible for them to issue any refunds. My account was changed back to allow the 100 GB of storage and Dropbox acted like it never botched my request.
It almost funny that they would not even respect differing opinion on their hiring of Ms. Rice and graciously offer a refund to those offended by such a move. Hiding behind their own ToS just shows how deaf they are to the matter. They basically don't give a fuck, and they don't have to because they have enough people who are more concerned with convenience than principles as amply shown on HN.
There are very good alternatives to Dropbox. Both SpiderOak and ownCloud work great on Windows, OSX, and Linux. You can get managed ownCloud hosting if you don't want to set up your own: https://owner.io.
It's puzzling that anyone would trust them with their data given their behavior.
Comment · 12 years ago
Absolutely. The support for Dropbox here is disheartening.
Comment · 12 years ago
Oh, very cool. Thank you.
Comment · 12 years ago
Very cool. Props to you.
I've a question that's not specific to this app but related to Web apps in general: When I think about installing a PHP (or Rails, for that matter) Web app I get a bit antsy abut security.
I keep thinking that a near-ideal solution might be to have these things encapsulated in a Docker container.
How hard would it be to craft a Docker script that would spin up an instance of Upvote (for example) so that it is isolated from the rest of the server?
It also seems like it would make for a nice way to try something without having to do a "real" installation. If you like it, keep it and change the settings. If not, delete the docker container.
Comment · 12 years ago
Previously posted: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8227198