swatow

I'll save my pity for the tech forums still trapped in Orientalism.

To me it's strange that I see so many comments on HN about how technical skill isn't the most important thing: business sense, life experience, communications skills, etc. count for more.

But when someone with no technical skill creates a product by outsourcing the technical side, suddenly the comments are all negative.

Most Australians and Italians would object to this. Unfortunately most White Christians are irreparably racist. I would suggest a tolerant liberal nation like Israel as the destination.

This is really impressive. The problem is highly constrained. Because a house is a sturdy structure, large amounts of physical material are involved. Furthermore, there are quality/safety requirements.

It's great to see Ikea applying their deep expertise in producing sturdy structures that can be shipped cheaply, to this area.

The problem with bubble prediction is the perverse incentives. If you say there is no bubble, you look like an ignorant groupie. If you say there is a bubble, even if nothing happens, you can just say "you guys got real lucky this time".

I agree it's bad habit, but I don't see it in the article.

The article goes to great length to argue why Java should use the same terminology as other languages. I would not say that the statements:

Sun wanted to push Java as a secure language, and one of Java's advantages was that it does not allow pointer arithmetic as C++ does.

They went so far as to try a different name for the concept, formally calling them "references". A big mistake and it's caused even more confusion in the process.

can be called "actively trying to misunderstand people". In fact it shows an understanding with the position he's arguing against.

No, if you read the article, you'll see it is absolutely nothing to do with maternity leave.

The article describes a market where companies pay women for breast milk that is left over after they have fed their own babies, and use it to produce a pharmaceutical product for premature babies. The controversy is between non-profits and for profit companies both doing this (but the non-profit doesn't pay the women).

in the English speaking world outside the US, the "toilet" refers to the entire bathroom, not the piece of porcelain. This also explains why "use the toilet" is considered crude in the US but not outside. In the US it refers to the physical act of defacating, but elsewhere it is equivalent to "go to the bathroom"

I personally consider myself part of the alternative right, but my views are overall fairly mainstream. I fall into #3 not because I'm part of some "dark side" but because I think both big government and big tech largely do what they claim to, and the negative side effects are exaggerated.

I am very wary of "X always ends up as Y" arguments. If you don't like big companies abusing power, then close the loopholes or break them up (though I much prefer the former). If you don't like big government abusing citizens, then change the laws to limit government.

I like big government because they really do tend to work towards the public good. Look at healthcare or welfare in Australia for an example. I like big tech because they really do increase economic efficiency, and drive technology forwards.

I think as poorly of the conspiratorial thinking of #4's as they do of the "dark side".

This is a discussion on probability and statistics, so I was using the technical terms. In statistics if A and B are correlated, then A predicts B. But you're just a liberal who assumes everyone who isn't is dumb. Fuck you.

I think that, in spite of some pro-aging/death views, society acts to prevent aging and death by treating disease.

You seem to want a radical solution, but I think the main reason that there are few people trying to directly prevent aging/death, is because the medical profession doesn't consider this possible at this time.

I'm not very familiar with this style of programming puzzle, but I wonder how this is less arbitrary than whiteboard coding topcoder or kaggle. I know people who were hired based on all of these, but the latter two are different from Starfighter in that they exist for their own reasons (competition for its own sake, and getting answers to data science questions) with providing a signal to employers being a side effect. I wonder if the selection bias in a system set up for the purpose of employment will be better or worse.

I think that the comment was confusing not because of a positive/normative distinction, but because many economists would use the word rent only to refer to inefficiency. While patents are ex post inefficient since they grant a monopoly, they are ex ante efficient (in theory) because they provide incentives to discover new things.

It seems like a real stretch to call a drug company that researches a completely new drug and patents it "rent seeking", even if they can be said to enjoy "monopoly rents" ex post.