Recent submissions

Comment · 3 years ago
You sound like you're arguing with me, but all of the rules you described seem to suggest that what the strikers did in this case was legal. They didn't blow up anything or steal anything, they quit working at an inconvenient time.

Also, I think you're imagining a set of gentlemanly Marquis of Queensbury rules around strikes that don't exist. This isn't an elaborate ritual like the filibuster; labor dispute precedents are written in blood.

Comment · 3 years ago
What a terrible analogy. This strike didn't hurt anyone, it cost the employer money, which is exactly what they're supposed to do! A strike that doesn't cost money isn't a strike, and a union that can't strike is a social club.
Comment · 5 years ago
The underlying assumption here, that there are some areas that decided to lockdown and others that didn't, and each had different pros and cons, seems wildly inaccurate.

The reality is that almost everywhere in the world did a lockdown of some kind, but in some areas it was effective and in other areas it was not; and, while everyone has suffered consequences of some kind, the consequences suffered by the latter group exceed those of the former by a wide and obvious margin.

Comment · 5 years ago
I can imagine that on a slow, lazy flip with a big coin, but is this realistic with what I think of as a "normal" flip, i.e. a US quarter, flipped rapidly end-over-end with the thumbnail, 2+ feet in the air? It's hard to believe that even decades of practice would get this reliable, and I don't think I've ever seen a stage magician rely on it in a routine.

For comparison, the other method (where the coin rotates about its vertical axis) is something you can learn to do tolerably well in a few minutes, and to do very well after a month or two at most. The motion of the coin will look perfect, and you can even get the "ding!" noise of a real flip. The only giveaway is the hand position; a real flip is done with the thumb under the coin, and this trick (for me, anyway) requires the thumb to be on top.

Source: taught myself to do this many years ago. I'm not a magician and have never used it to win money, I just use this to settle arguments between my kids.

Comment · 5 years ago
Watching Urbit through the lens of HN comments over the last few years has been utterly fascinating. The hatred it attracts is unmatched - no topic has reached the front page only to be brigade-downvoted off of it again so regularly.

And yet, for all the indignant posts about how it's performance art, a scam, or the ravings of a madman, it just kind of keeps on keeping on. It gets a little more stable and adds a few more features every year, like a regular old open source project.

My position on it has remained unchanged for 5+ years: I hope it succeeds because it aspires to solve a use case that I genuinely want to use, I don't care about the (ex-)founder's politics or his old blog, but seeing as the existence of the latter seems to have destroyed any chance of the former coming to fruition so I'm kind of hoping Jeff Bezos decides to build a clone (presumably, one that has much lower ambitions and elides most of the weird stuff).

Comment · 5 years ago
I agree, and I would add that there is one good subjective way to measure the productivity of individual developers, and that is talking to their teammates.
Comment · 6 years ago
> In 2017, Pai voted with his fellow Republican commissioners to remove rules that prohibited internet providers from blocking or slowing traffic to particular sites and offering higher speed “lanes” at higher prices. Many major internet providers have not yet taken advantage of that rule change, however.

It seems likely that this is because they consider the looser regulations likely to be overturned in Biden's presidency, not because they don't actually want to make changes they spent millions lobbying for the right to make.

Comment · 6 years ago
A number of commenters seem hung up on the actual measurement of information, which I think is a little ancillary to the point (which I think is valid). So I'll add that I think the author's point here is that the press has shifted from focusing on surprising news to reiterating things we already know, because that is a good way to reassure and flatter their audience.

Consider a headline like, "Trump says illegal immigration is a big problem." He's said that many times, it's very unsurprising that he would say it again, and hence it contains very little information. However, each time he says it, it affords the press that agree with him a fresh opportunity to talk about why he's right, and the press that disagrees a new chance to talk about why he's wrong.

That is the point here - that what we call "news" has shifted from spending most of its energy informing us of things we don't know towards reinforcing and emphasizing things we do know. If that trend is true, then certainly it represents a reduction in information (in the Claude Shannon sense as well as the everyday sense).

Comment · 6 years ago
There's a lot of risky investments. Anyone over 18 can bet their life savings on roulette. That has nothing to do with this. "Well other investments are risky too!" does not apply here because "Investing in startups is super-risky!" is not the reason why accreditation requirements exist.
Comment · 6 years ago
If it was possible to make millions of dollars by fooling naive people into misusing matches, matches would be regulated.
Comment · 6 years ago
Lotteries, mortgages, and public securities are heavily regulated to make it nearly impossible to get ripped off. You can lose your life savings by buying AAPL, but you can't lose it despite AAPL going up because you didn't read the fine print on the brokerage website.

The reason for accredited investor requirements is that it's not realistic to do the same with small businesses. It is perfectly legal, and not totally uncommon, for startups to have very unfavorable terms for investors. If the LLC paperwork says the majority partner can choose to buy back your shares against your will for a dollar any time they like, then they can, and it's your fault for not reading it more carefully.

I've heard of many cases, and personally witnessed one case, in which an accredited investor put a lot of money in to a startup, and lost it even though the startup did well. The requirements may not be perfect, but I don't think it's fair to suggest they don't serve a purpose.

Comment · 6 years ago
> Trail of Bits recommends using Curve25519 for key exchange and digital signatures... it is implemented in libsodium, which has easy-to-read documentation and is available for most languages.
Comment · 6 years ago
They did apologize, but not for the stuff Howard complained about.

A: You kicked in my front door, walked in unannounced, and stole my TV!

B: I apologize unreservedly. I should have announced myself.

Comment · 6 years ago
I'm dismissing it because it doesn't seem to contain any evidence of Joe Biden doing anything bad. It seems like someone hacked his kid's email, went through it for embarrassing stuff, didn't find much, and so released it very close to the election because there wasn't enough dirt there to sustain a longer scandal.

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