Hacker News: avalaunch

New comment by avalaunch in "Google Tried to Patent My Work After a Job Interview"

avalaunch — Fri, 30 Nov 2018 06:48:12 +0000

Alternatively maybe they had been working on the idea for awhile and it was just a coincidence. Bringing an idea to the table that they were already working on might also hurt your chances of getting a job there.

New comment by avalaunch in "Affordable Care"

avalaunch — Fri, 13 Jan 2017 19:58:13 +0000

Why does your faith trump someone else's personal belief? That is, why does faith, which is a belief without any proof, often with proof to the contrary, trump a belief that might actually be grounded in some form of reasoning? In both cases it's simply what you believe vs what someone else believes.

New comment by avalaunch in "I've removed all ad network code from my blog"

avalaunch — Thu, 05 Jan 2017 19:00:14 +0000

I'm not seeing anything, but I'm on mobile. Does it only work on desktop? That seems like a pretty big deterrent to using it if so.

New comment by avalaunch in "The Burden of Policing Walmart"

avalaunch — Wed, 11 May 2016 18:58:44 +0000

Yeah, but are the decreased amount of police calls due to Target's loss prevention officers (and other such prevention mechanisms), or is it simply due to the fact that they cater to a different demographic? It would certainly be an interesting experiment - if Target removed their loss prevention officer, and/or Walmart added them, how much would change? I have no idea, but I suspect the demographic plays a pretty large role.

New comment by avalaunch in "The Burden of Policing Walmart"

avalaunch — Wed, 11 May 2016 18:55:38 +0000

Response to flippant answer: I'm pretty sure the only thing Target figured out is to cater to a higher income demographic.

I'm curious if there were less disturbances before Walmart, or if they were just more distributed throughout the city.

New comment by avalaunch in "Top 1% of Income Earners pay 45% of California's Taxes"

avalaunch — Fri, 15 Apr 2016 17:37:40 +0000

Well, despite using the term progressive, the poster I replied to was not emphasizing progressive taxes, because he used an analogy where everyone literally pays the same amount.

In any case, what I said wouldn't be covered under a flat tax percentage unless that flat tax percentage were on wealth, not income. A person making approximately 20k or less currently pays no income tax, which makes sense, because there's virtually no way they can accumulate any wealth at that income. On the other hand, as you move up each income tier, the amount of wealth you can accumulate goes up progressively. So a progressive tax is a close enough approximation to a flat tax on wealth, which is what I'm arguing makes the most sense.

New comment by avalaunch in "Top 1% of Income Earners pay 45% of California's Taxes"

avalaunch — Fri, 15 Apr 2016 16:59:53 +0000

When two people order a steak, regardless of their income, they get the same thing. On the other hand, one of the largest services a government offers its citizens is protection of the citizens' persons and wealth, both from domestic and foreign threats. The value of that protection is relative to how much each citizen is worth. If you're in debt, like many Americans, you're basically getting protection only for your person, as you have little to no wealth to protect. On the other hand, if you're worth billions, the government is protecting your wealth as well. It only makes sense that the more you have to protect, the more you should have to pay.

New comment by avalaunch in "On asking job candidates to code"

avalaunch — Tue, 15 Mar 2016 20:43:54 +0000

Asking to be paid during an interview seems too much but a 4-8 hour interview doesn't seem too much? The average interview length across all industries is 40 minutes. Asking interviewers to spend 4+ hours on the hope of a job offer seems a tall demand. I think asking to be paid seems a fair counter to what is otherwise a very unfair ask.

New comment by avalaunch in "Etsy stock has lost 76% of its value in 9 months"

avalaunch — Sat, 16 Jan 2016 02:25:33 +0000

I think the distinction being made is the value of the stock vs the value of the company, which is not always perfectly in sync. That's why, at any given time, a stock can be undervalued or overvalued. For example, I think you'd be hard pressed to state that the value of a stock right before a company announces unexpected losses is representative of the actual value of the company. The perceived value, prior to the announcement, is too high.

New comment by avalaunch in "Teaching a 3-Year-Old to Program Without a Computer Screen"

avalaunch — Thu, 19 Nov 2015 06:10:39 +0000

The problem is that virtually all of the screen time studies don't apply to tablet usage as they were studying the effects of passive screen time such as watching tv. People have a tendency to group the two together as "screen time" but actively playing educational apps on a tablet is very different than passively watching tv. In time we should have a better idea what the effects are but right now tablets are still too new for any comprehensive studies to have been completed.

New comment by avalaunch in "Facebook M – The Anti-Turing Test"

avalaunch — Tue, 10 Nov 2015 20:14:37 +0000

I still want a citation.

New comment by avalaunch in "Show HN: HN Who Is Hiring Thread - Sorted, Filtered and Searchable"

avalaunch — Tue, 01 Sep 2015 18:28:43 +0000

The page is blank for me. I see the header and footer but no content. Browsing on iPhone safari.

Hasbro is teaming up with IndieGoGo to find the next face-to-face party game

avalaunch — Sat, 29 Aug 2015 05:26:19 +0000

Article URL: http://hasbrogaminglab.com/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10139171

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

New comment by avalaunch in "Amazon Underground"

avalaunch — Thu, 27 Aug 2015 05:38:00 +0000

Yes, all the time. HN advertises jobs for y combinator companies and those ads are placed in between actual news stories.

New comment by avalaunch in "Show HN: Find your competitors that Google can't"

avalaunch — Mon, 17 Aug 2015 18:13:20 +0000

Site doesn't appear to be loading right now.

Can anyone tell me what the site does?

Thanks.

New comment by avalaunch in "“It’s done, there is no way back. We tried, we failed”"

avalaunch — Wed, 12 Aug 2015 19:44:22 +0000

You're thinking of a very specific type of investment. Investment in the more generic form simply means putting in time, money, and/or effort in the hopes of some future reward. In this case, you're investing money in the hopes of a future reward that you preselected.

New comment by avalaunch in "Ask HN: Just launched. Zero users. No clue how to market. Resource suggestions?"

avalaunch — Wed, 22 Jul 2015 02:21:27 +0000

I would advise not to iterate based off a single customer. Despite being a customer, I think there is still too great a chance that she isn't in the startup's target market. This goes 10x if the customer isn't a paying customer.

Otherwise, great advice.

11-Year-Old Boy Played in His Yard. CPS Took Him, Felony Charge for Parents

avalaunch — Fri, 12 Jun 2015 02:22:23 +0000

Article URL: http://reason.com/blog/2015/06/11/11-year-old-boy-played-in-his-yard-cps-t

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9703663

Points: 121

# Comments: 68

New comment by avalaunch in "When It's a Crime to Withdraw Money from Your Bank"

avalaunch — Fri, 05 Jun 2015 22:13:53 +0000

And based on the second article I posted, you also need to make sure you don't look uncomfortable while stating that you are exercising your right to remain silent.

New comment by avalaunch in "When It's a Crime to Withdraw Money from Your Bank"

avalaunch — Fri, 05 Jun 2015 21:47:16 +0000

Except sometimes your silence will be used against you:

http://www.npr.org/2014/10/05/353893046/you-have-the-right-t...

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudenc...