Hacker News: ecobiker

New comment by ecobiker in "Why do the poor make poor decisions?"

ecobiker — Mon, 06 Jun 2016 20:47:41 +0000

I grew up with the kind of income that would qualify me as poor. However, my parents' financial discipline were off the charts for someone in their position. Both of them had a decent education for their time and knew what matters vs what doesn't. We never got anything fancy - two pairs of uniforms, one nice set of clothes, one pair of shoes and pretty ugly looking backpack for the whole school year - nothing more. Absolutely no pocket money. No movies, not even extra-curricular activities - basically anything that costed money.

What we got was good healthy food, a great education - things that ended up making a difference in the long term. There were people like us all around us who we could clearly see not appreciating the value of some of the things we valued.

I would go so far to say, it's not the money. People need education. People need discipline and self-control if they are really going to pull their weight. They need help along the way but it's not always money they need.

New comment by ecobiker in "Facebook and Twitter pledge to remove hate speech within 24 hours"

ecobiker — Tue, 31 May 2016 19:59:56 +0000

"The squeaky wheel gets the grease". I have heard far many times for my liking that Apple/Facebook/Twitter/Google...etc are private companies and they can do whatever they want as an argument. The same goes for products that are free. It doesn't automatically mean that we lose the right to criticize. It's necessary and healthy to raise objections and demand features that we'd like to have. It's in these companies' own best interests to listen to their customers and make decisions with their customers in mind (too). Even if these companies don't take heed, someone else would. May be another company would build something we are asking for. May be another social media company could pop up with a constitution like protection of freedom of speech.

The difference is that nobody is asking for these companies to be banned or to cease operations. They are free to do what they want and we are free to ask what we want.

New comment by ecobiker in "Git Reflow"

ecobiker — Thu, 19 May 2016 22:51:59 +0000

The way I see it, I don't want somebody else to do the squash for me. It's my responsibility to make sure my commits are logical. I do as many rebases, fixups, squashes as necessary and provide a logical set of commits. I want the merges to preserve that as it is. But as others have said, there are plenty of really valid reasons to alter history as one deems necessary.

New comment by ecobiker in "Employment, construction, and the cost of San Francisco apartments"

ecobiker — Mon, 16 May 2016 22:49:53 +0000

SF has far fewer trees than other cities. I agree that the city needs more trees but the city should plant them on sidewalks and other open spaces.

http://www.deeproot.com/blog/blog-entries/tree-cover-how-doe...

New comment by ecobiker in "Paul Graham on Uber and Lift Ban in Austin"

ecobiker — Mon, 16 May 2016 17:40:03 +0000

I disagree. People were given a chance to express their opinion. If they cared enough, they should have voted. While that I don't necessarily agree with the ban, it's very important to note that the decision didn't happen in a closed door meeting.

It could be argued that these sort of regulations are not needed at all in the first place - as long as companies are transparent about it and people can vote with their wallets. However, there is a line. Where that line is drawn is decided by the society. I'd be happy as long as that decision is transparent.

Democracy is by no means perfect - transparency and an involved populace would make it work better. If either is found lacking, we should try to make it better.

Startups Embrace Arbitration to Settle Workplace Disputes

ecobiker — Sun, 15 May 2016 01:48:27 +0000

Article URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/15/business/dealbook/start-ups-embrace-arbitration-to-settle-workplace-disputes.html

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11698965

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

New comment by ecobiker in "Amazon Targets YouTube with New Online Video Posting Service"

ecobiker — Tue, 10 May 2016 19:09:13 +0000

Back when Kindle launched, it was very common to see the story of Kodak being floated around (film vs digital) to claim how Amazon is flexible. Fast forward a few years, Amazon video and music services are the worst in terms of cross platform support. The primary reason I don't buy/rent anything from Amazon Digital is because I can't stream it to my Chromecast. Considering the adoption for Chromecast I would have expected Amazon to support. Instead they ban it from Amazon.com.

New comment by ecobiker in "One Regulation Is Painless – A Million of Them Hurt"

ecobiker — Wed, 27 Apr 2016 20:33:24 +0000

While the tax code should be simplified, it's possible to automate most of the rules anyway. It should be as simple as upload W2(s), link your trading accounts, answer a few questions and be done with it for most people. The software need not satisfy every usecase for everyone in the country. Are there an free/open source tax filing software?

New comment by ecobiker in "Dark Patterns by the Boston Globe"

ecobiker — Mon, 25 Apr 2016 18:35:14 +0000

Most countries that have VAT have a uniform percentage for the whole country.

Obama Presses for Open Market for Cable Set-Top Boxes

ecobiker — Fri, 15 Apr 2016 18:38:51 +0000

Article URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/16/us/politics/obama-set-top-boxes.html?_r=0

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11506604

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

Michael C. Fina, Park Avenue Wedding Retailer, Bets on Amazon.com

ecobiker — Tue, 05 Apr 2016 17:46:09 +0000

Article URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/05/business/michael-c-fina-park-avenue-wedding-retailer-bets-on-amazoncom.html?_r=0

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11432621

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

New comment by ecobiker in "A Basic Income Is Smarter Than a Minimum Wage"

ecobiker — Mon, 04 Apr 2016 21:37:18 +0000

>> "higher income than the value they can output"

Just so I can understand your argument better, can you elaborate this a bit more? How do you measure their output? How do you arrive at the dollar value?

New comment by ecobiker in "Y Combinator Acquiring Sequoia Capital"

ecobiker — Fri, 01 Apr 2016 18:04:47 +0000

I'm really looking forward to YC Forestry!

New comment by ecobiker in "Study Finds No Gender Gap in Tech Salaries"

ecobiker — Thu, 03 Mar 2016 22:43:30 +0000

For anyone interested, Freakonomics explored[1] this in detail and their conclusions were pretty similar.

It included an interview from Claudia Goldin and her research[2] which was quite in-depth.

[1] http://freakonomics.com/podcast/the-true-story-of-the-gender... [2] [PDF] http://scholar.harvard.edu/files/goldin/files/gender_equalit...

New comment by ecobiker in "Dsxyliea"

ecobiker — Thu, 03 Mar 2016 20:36:53 +0000

Thanks for the link! Seems like a good place to start.

New comment by ecobiker in "Dsxyliea"

ecobiker — Thu, 03 Mar 2016 19:57:04 +0000

What tools do people use to get around dyslexia? I recently realised that most auto-correct and spelling correction tools breakdown for dyslexic people. The challenge for them is that they know how a word sounds but takes more time than usual to recollect the spelling. The recommendations suggested by standard spell checkers are way off the mark in those cases. Any recommendations would be appreciated.

New comment by ecobiker in "Apple Is Said to Be Working on an iPhone Even It Can’t Hack"

ecobiker — Thu, 25 Feb 2016 01:48:44 +0000

It's my understanding that the current battle is about the request to bypass the retry cap.

New comment by ecobiker in "Break Up the Insulin Racket"

ecobiker — Tue, 23 Feb 2016 00:28:55 +0000

http://theconversation.com/explainer-evergreening-and-how-bi...

I'm not an expert and I can't comment on specifics. But I'm of the opinion that a small enhancement is not the same as an invention of a drug and it doesn't come anywhere close to extending the life of the patent - unless that tiny change actually makes a big different in effectiveness.

Any good patent system should find a good balance between the two seemingly conflicting goals of incentivizing companies to innovate and keeping the price down for patients.

New comment by ecobiker in "Break Up the Insulin Racket"

ecobiker — Mon, 22 Feb 2016 22:02:53 +0000

A simple fix could go a long way - disallow really minor improvements and work hard to get rid of evergreening.

http://www.nature.com/news/indian-court-rejects-novartis-pat...

New comment by ecobiker in "India bans discriminatory pricing based on source/destination/app/content"

ecobiker — Mon, 08 Feb 2016 23:15:40 +0000

But, if you look people out there is no way they'd even know if something is better...