Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.

The definition of "interesting new phenomenon" has room for variance in interpretation, but the sentence following really scopes that down.

So, yes, participation is optional; however, if moderation can't keep it under control, HN will suffer, badly.

Mistake? Gah. Probably in a lot of cases. The ecosystem around it is both “robust” in the sense of projects and libraries, and “objectively awful” for permitting some of the recent security issues seen.

ECMAScript was never intended for where it’s at now, and all the lipstick Google applies won’t change that, even if it “works fast” “now”.

What I’d pick for a new project? It depends, tell me about the project. …it probably won’t be Node.js though.

Yes, ideally a trusted intermediary would do something like… read your digital ID (which stiLL doesn’t guarantee it’s you providing it, up to a point), examine a birthdate, and sign an attestation to a liquor store that “this user is 21 or older” without you ever having to fork over your name, address, or biometric details.

The will to enforce such measures, at least in the US, seems low.

It takes a public scandal, and all.

Even if it feels sus, remember that AI is trained on what it sees: even the posts here will make it more and more effective at “writing like a human”.

As for the OP, the claims to exist and have published books, etc. are relatively easily publicly verifiable.

No, $500 isn’t a large amount, doubly so anymore. I consistently have to try to re-anchor, but $100 is the new $20 (sadly).

If Apple doesn’t show up, they’ll lose and the filer will get a default judgement, for which they hopefully asked/made the case for $10k. I’m sure they can arrange to have it enforced against a local Apple Store to seize not product, but operational working assets, if they’re creative a bit. If Apple has anyone competent in Legal they won’t let it get that far, though.

Then again, if they do show up, they’ll pay a lawyer well more than an hour of time, probably by a lot, and still have to argue against a likely well-prepared person, with proof of purchase, etc., (legitimate) sob story of lost time, digital assets, and the like, and likely won’t endear themselves to the court.

And of course for a business, an actual court filing (or arbitration if it gets forced on them, with competent counsel) could be even worse.

They’re great entertainment pieces, and almost a commentary on the state of the world through the lens of microeconomics, with both sides behaving in a way they think is best for them.

For the baiters, they get engagement and, sometimes, the feeling of revenge for a scam visited upon an elderly relative; for the scammer, maybe it’s worse, as we know some people are trafficked into places then forced to scam people (or maybe they just want money). Still, kinda paints the world in a sad light.

Particular airline like United makes your life hell, or even behaves sloppily and heavily inconvenienced you? You not only hate them, you actively go out of your way to tell your friends, family, and anyone who asks your opinion that you hate them. And why you hate them. (Lost one/only bag, for longer than an entire trip, over ten years ago.) And go out of your way, even at higher cost, to avoid them. (Have never flown United afterwards.)

Aside: We know this can be done competently; see Japan. They’ll even fail sometimes, but I suspect that nearly-always, someone from the airline would be delivering the bag personally after they obsessively located it, as opposed to the “meh” attitude US carriers take.

On the other hand, some company like Valve: for an out-of-warranty product (just time, current-model Steam Deck) that was purchased outside the country and gray-market imported (consumer level, just carried out to another country)… and which they don’t sell in your country… they demurred a bit then agreed to ship a replacement part to the original purchaser. At zero cost. Dealing with product issues isn’t fun, but we all know issues arise sometimes, and they killed the “delight the customer” goal.

Some companies still care, and I’d argue that treating your customers like crap while attempting to extract maximum “short term value” doesn’t actually work. Not in the long term, and in the short term, well… it depends on your definition of “short term”. One bad incident can go viral and wreck your quarterly earnings.

As an example of one.

Banks requiring device attestation may be a pain in the ass, but it’s not a “requirement”; they (for now) still have websites and, usually, a physical branch.

Other examples probably exist.

In the EU, the requirement to support alternative app stores would probably mostly fix that, but those of you in the US are kinda…

Otherwise? Yeah. Gift / prepaid credit cards are a horrible scam, because they tend to have a percentage or, worse, flat fee to activate. $4 extra on a $50 card as a gift means you just paid 8 percent just to GET the card.