Hacker News: infodroid

New comment by infodroid in "The story of Augur, an Ethereum prediction market"

infodroid — Thu, 18 Oct 2018 12:38:11 +0000

As HN has gained increasing prominence in mainstream media and the wider tech community over recent years, it has attracted a vocal and sizable mass of users that think it is fine to display a lazy and wilfully ignorant attitude.

The existing HN mechanisms to discourage such low quality content are no longer effective, because this mass of new users is now self-reinforcing.

I interpret low-effort comments as the output of individuals who are disrespectful towards the goals of a good faith discussion community, because they willfully or carelessly contribute noise and dilute the signal.

Because I interpret this behavior as antisocial and disrespectful and an act of initiating incivility, I have grown increasingly hostile towards such users, and have started attacking them openly "in response".

We're going to have to part ways here. Because I don't think I am going to back down on this principle. I believe it's fair and just to punish this bad behavior by making these people feel bad for harming the commons.

I know if I continue doing this, it is not going to be acceptable, and I know I will no longer be welcome here.

This is why I am moving on from HN.

New comment by infodroid in "The story of Augur, an Ethereum prediction market"

infodroid — Wed, 17 Oct 2018 17:05:44 +0000

Over the past few years, the increase in zero-effort contributions have all but destroyed the quality of discussions on HN. And you aren't doing anything about it. HN is looking more indistinguishable from Reddit and I'll be damned if I let that happen.

Civility should be reserved for people who are looking to argue and discuss in good faith.

Neon and corporate dystopias: why does cyberpunk refuse to move on?

infodroid — Wed, 17 Oct 2018 10:41:22 +0000

Article URL: https://www.theguardian.com/games/2018/oct/16/neon-corporate-dystopias-why-does-cyberpunk-refuse-move-on

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18237785

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

New comment by infodroid in "The story of Augur, an Ethereum prediction market"

infodroid — Tue, 16 Oct 2018 18:35:40 +0000

Why couldn't you just fucking google it?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prediction_market

Your inane rant disguised as a question doesn't add anything to the discussion.

Guide to making your first command line project with ncurses

infodroid — Wed, 26 Sep 2018 09:58:09 +0000

Article URL: https://github.com/harrinp/Command-line-guide

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18074375

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

Mozilla: Copyright Laws Stifle Creativity and Innovation

infodroid — Fri, 27 Jul 2018 18:12:58 +0000

Article URL: https://torrentfreak.com/mozilla-copyright-laws-stifle-creativity-and-innovation-180725/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17627885

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

New comment by infodroid in "GlaxoSmithKline makes $300M investment in 23andMe, forms 50-50 R&D pact"

infodroid — Thu, 26 Jul 2018 00:27:19 +0000

It doesnt really matter whether you opted in or out. In the end, all that matters is whether the projected profits from abusing your data exceed the projected legal costs of doing do.

How Microsoft stole my code and then spit on it

infodroid — Sat, 02 Jun 2018 12:26:51 +0000

Article URL: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1002696910266773505.html

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17214257

Points: 92

# Comments: 53

Facebook wants your naked photos to stop revenge porn

infodroid — Wed, 23 May 2018 14:02:16 +0000

Article URL: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-44223809

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17134230

Points: 23

# Comments: 22

New comment by infodroid in "Why read old philosophy?"

infodroid — Fri, 18 May 2018 14:40:31 +0000

Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13348502 (2017)

New comment by infodroid in "Make front end shit again"

infodroid — Sun, 13 May 2018 20:51:33 +0000

If you like this, then check out Neocities, a free and modern Geocities reboot:

https://neocities.org/

There are many fun sites to discover using the tag system, which emulates web rings:

https://neocities.org/browse

New comment by infodroid in "A Workshop on Linux Containers: Rebuild Docker from Scratch"

infodroid — Mon, 02 Apr 2018 18:50:09 +0000

A similar project is 'mocker', a "crappy imitation of Docker, written in 100% Python": https://github.com/tonybaloney/mocker

New comment by infodroid in "The PowerPoint Philosophe: Waiting for Steven Pinker’s Enlightenment"

infodroid — Fri, 09 Mar 2018 10:00:03 +0000

Like when Bill Gates called it his "new favorite book of all time".

Mycroft – The Open Source Voice Assistant

infodroid — Fri, 23 Feb 2018 14:35:07 +0000

Article URL: https://mycroft.ai/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16446493

Points: 3

# Comments: 0

New comment by infodroid in "Tulip mania: the classic story of a Dutch financial bubble is mostly wrong"

infodroid — Sat, 17 Feb 2018 13:20:00 +0000

What is often overlooked and misunderstood is that the bulbs were not only valued for their beauty, but more importantly for their use as commercial breeding stock.

Since it was not possible to reproduce the best bulbs through seed propagation, the already rare buds themselves were the only source of producing future varieties exhibiting the same beautiful patterns. This goes a great way to explaining the high prices paid, and debunking the myth of irrationality.

"The tulip market involved only bulbs affected by a mosaic virus which had the effect of creating beautiful, feathered patterns in the flowers. Only diseased bulbs were valued by traders, because a particular pattern could not be reproduced through seed propagation. Only through budding of the mother bulb would a pattern breed true." - Garber, Famous First Bubbles https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/jep.4.2.35

New comment by infodroid in "Don't use VPN services"

infodroid — Tue, 13 Feb 2018 22:34:05 +0000

This seems like bad advice because it doesn't address the legitimate need for keeping your browsing history private from overzealous, data-mining ISP's [1].

And even in the case of a known-hostile ISP that engages in invasive practices like supercookies or ad injection, it's unrealistic to ask users to set up and maintain their own VPS servers.

For the average internet user, a "glorified proxy" service that is hassle-free to set up is a simple and effective means of protection against such a menace.

[1] https://techcrunch.com/2017/03/29/everything-you-need-to-kno...

Tinode Instant Messaging - a replacement for XMPP

infodroid — Thu, 01 Feb 2018 17:38:43 +0000

Article URL: https://github.com/tinode/chat/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16283824

Points: 3

# Comments: 0

New comment by infodroid in "Volatile Software"

infodroid — Sat, 20 Jan 2018 13:55:20 +0000

It's also useful for older versions of software to gracefully handle newer configuration files. If the software really is backwards-compatible, then this should come for free. Just don't throw a fatal error when processing an unknown configuration key, and preserve any unrecognized configuration items when saving the configuration file.

A comprehensive guide to corporate online surveillance in everyday life

infodroid — Sat, 20 Jan 2018 13:44:03 +0000

Article URL: https://boingboing.net/2018/01/19/tickticktick-gdpr.html

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16193292

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

Building a privatised “smart city” by stealth

infodroid — Mon, 15 Jan 2018 13:38:38 +0000

Article URL: https://www.adrianshort.org/posts/2017/bt-inlink-london-smart-city/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16150388

Points: 2

# Comments: 0