Hacker News: pkinsky

New comment by pkinsky in "Coinbase Insolvent?"

pkinsky — Mon, 01 Jan 2018 23:11:26 +0000

I moved money out of CB on the 22nd and it's in my bank account now.

New comment by pkinsky in "Salacious Convent Exposés Were the Most Popular Books in Antebellum America"

pkinsky — Sun, 23 Jul 2017 18:07:16 +0000

It's probably important to remember that despite the anti-Catholic hysteria the Church did have a few issues. For example: http://www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-mass-grave-ireland-201703...

New comment by pkinsky in "Ask HN: Good hacker backpack?"

pkinsky — Fri, 07 Jul 2017 22:12:45 +0000

TAD EDC. It's extremely overbuilt but between the integrated dry bag laptop sleeve and the MOLLE attachment points it's worth it. http://store.tripleaughtdesign.com/FAST-Pack-EDC

New comment by pkinsky in "Why Is Freedom of Speech Important?"

pkinsky — Sun, 19 Feb 2017 16:14:50 +0000

Germany has free speech, except if you want to criticize foreign dictators [1]. I think I'll stick with our extremist variant, thanks.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C3%B6hmermann_affair

New comment by pkinsky in "NeverSSL"

pkinsky — Tue, 10 Jan 2017 21:58:39 +0000

I've always used example.com for this purpose, but this is cool. Thanks!

New comment by pkinsky in "Superintelligence: The Idea That Eats Smart People"

pkinsky — Thu, 22 Dec 2016 23:24:56 +0000

Not that I take the whole Bostrom superintelligence argument too seriously, but this is an incredibly weak argument (or more accurately, bundle of barely-related arguments thrown at a wall in the hope that some stick) against it. Feel free to skip the long digression about how nerds who think technology can make meaningful changes in a relatively short amount of time are presumptuous megalomaniacs whose ideas can safely be dismissed without consideration, it's nothing that hasn't been said before.

New comment by pkinsky in "Amazon Restaurants"

pkinsky — Thu, 15 Dec 2016 23:27:45 +0000

I'd prefer links to stories about new ventures, their strategic impact, etc, but given that anything worth discussing usually produces multiple stories it's better that all the discussion occur on a single thread with a link to the announcement.

New comment by pkinsky in "List of spacecraft in the Culture series"

pkinsky — Mon, 21 Nov 2016 14:51:25 +0000

The Culture themselves aren't terribly interesting. What really makes the books shine (for me) are their interactions with lower-tech societies.

New comment by pkinsky in "Yasha Levine: Interview about Tor, spies and the cult of crypto"

pkinsky — Sun, 30 Oct 2016 16:39:57 +0000

I'm confident that heavily armed hicks trying to found some sort of confederacy 2.0 could offer at least as much resistance as the Taliban. The US government doesn't exactly have a great track record of successfully suppressing insurgencies, even without having to do it on American soil, which would increase the public relations hit for collateral damage (I imagine CNN would care more if predator drones started bombing American weddings, for example).

New comment by pkinsky in "Cognitive bias cheat sheet"

pkinsky — Thu, 27 Oct 2016 15:51:17 +0000

Thanks for putting this together! As someone interested in cognitive biases, I wonder: how many of these effects have survived the recent replication crisis intact?

New comment by pkinsky in "Ecuador acknowledges it has "temporarily restricted" Assange's communications"

pkinsky — Wed, 19 Oct 2016 11:48:31 +0000

Based on your inability to provide a citation my immediate assumption is that your assertion is untrue. This is generally a reasonable heuristic. If only for the sake of convincing bystanders, can you please provide a citation for this claim?

New comment by pkinsky in "Show HN: I made a Chrome extension that helps battle impulsive procrastination"

pkinsky — Mon, 17 Oct 2016 01:18:18 +0000

There's an extension called Delayed Gratification that just introduces a 30-second delay for the initial loading of sites for which it is enabled.

New comment by pkinsky in "Blitzted: The Third Reich as a Society on Drugs"

pkinsky — Tue, 11 Oct 2016 01:24:40 +0000

L-Theanine (amino acid found in green tea) supplements solve that problem.

New comment by pkinsky in "Backpage Raided, CEO Arrested on Sex-Trafficking Charges"

pkinsky — Mon, 10 Oct 2016 04:39:38 +0000

Right, right of course. Your totally secular belief system is what led you to a moral viewpoint in which it is immoral to rent the mouth, vagina or anus, of another human being, but (one assumes) renting their penis is totally fine.

So as a gay man, it would be highly immoral for me to have sex with a prostitute whom is a bottom, but renting the services of a top for the night would be totally fine. Am I interpreting you correctly (not that I have, or plan on, engaging the services of sex workers. Not really my scene.)?

New comment by pkinsky in "Backpage Raided, CEO Arrested on Sex-Trafficking Charges"

pkinsky — Sat, 08 Oct 2016 13:12:32 +0000

Maybe you can start purifying your soul (because clearly there's some sort of puritanical religious thing going on here) by abstaining from the use of electronic devices: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coltan_mining_and_ethics

New comment by pkinsky in "Backpage Raided, CEO Arrested on Sex-Trafficking Charges"

pkinsky — Sat, 08 Oct 2016 11:28:50 +0000

Where would all the sex workers who disagree be without you to tell them how they really feel!

New comment by pkinsky in "Backpage Raided, CEO Arrested on Sex-Trafficking Charges"

pkinsky — Sat, 08 Oct 2016 11:28:10 +0000

If you're deliberately misinterpreting my post, we're done. If you're not, I see no point in engaging further with you.

Once again, if only for the peanut gallery: you are asserting that no sex workers have agency in the matter of their employment. Yes or no?

New comment by pkinsky in "Backpage Raided, CEO Arrested on Sex-Trafficking Charges"

pkinsky — Fri, 07 Oct 2016 15:46:16 +0000

>some of the people ignorant of the shifting nature of prostitution are actually prostitutes and prostitutors themselves

Sounds awful paternalistic. Have you considered the possibility that people who make choices you disagree with have agency?

New comment by pkinsky in "Backpage Raided, CEO Arrested on Sex-Trafficking Charges"

pkinsky — Fri, 07 Oct 2016 15:44:26 +0000

Then replace selling fruit with backbreaking manual labor: coal mining, digging ditches, whatever. Something that causes real and permanent damage to one's body over time. Is selling your labor in such a way morally wrong?

New comment by pkinsky in "Elon Musk on How to Build the Future"

pkinsky — Fri, 16 Sep 2016 04:47:33 +0000

When you say resistance, you mean 'implementing a locally controlled version of the problematic US-controlled system they're resisting', right?