Hacker News: presorted

New comment by presorted in "BitPay introduces Bitcore"

presorted — Sat, 15 Feb 2014 17:01:55 +0000

My question implicitly defined the scope of the conversation to be programming languages. I like how you broke out of that, and pointed out that Bitcoin might have bigger problems that need to be tackled first. Every time I try to think about how to solve Bitcoin's problems, I return to the traditional banking paradigm: you pay someone else to take the risks of managing the money, and they will thus reimburse you if something bad happens.

New comment by presorted in "A 60-Hour Work Week is Not a Badge of Honour"

presorted — Sat, 15 Feb 2014 16:56:23 +0000

A humblebrag: when you make your use of the word 'humblebrag' a hyperlink to its definition.

New comment by presorted in "BitPay introduces Bitcore"

presorted — Sat, 15 Feb 2014 01:31:05 +0000

Am I paranoid thinking it crazy to use an untyped, interpreted language for financial apps?

New comment by presorted in "Occupy leader now works for Google, wants to crowdfund private militia"

presorted — Sun, 09 Feb 2014 18:24:53 +0000

Link bait. Way down in the article you finally learn that this occupy leader is suggesting a non-violent militia, or really, protesters.

New comment by presorted in "Bro pages: like man pages, but with examples only"

presorted — Sat, 25 Jan 2014 20:29:18 +0000

I don't have an objection. I'm not judgemental. I think that paper is very inspirational to think outside one's cultural conditioning.

New comment by presorted in "Bro pages: like man pages, but with examples only"

presorted — Sat, 25 Jan 2014 18:08:35 +0000

White privilege: unpacking the invisible knapsack

http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=9I7ExPk-920C&oi=f...

New comment by presorted in "Elites embrace “do what you love” mantra. But it devalues work & hurts workers"

presorted — Sun, 19 Jan 2014 21:58:59 +0000

Through lots of study of psychology and sociology, I've changed from believing in do-what-you-love to believing in doing anything useful for mankind (but which has some interest for you) with people that you love (i.e., role models). Psychological flourishing has so many ties to our feedback from our social capital. The do-what-you-love mantra is too self-focused to really capture our requirements for total happiness. I've witnessed many people pursue their careers surrounded by assholes, living in misery, despite working on what they really like. Girls have it right by avoiding the tech industry (which has few role models for them, even if they like the subject matter).

New comment by presorted in "Chrome Is The New C Runtime"

presorted — Sun, 19 Jan 2014 08:08:09 +0000

I've also used Chromium libraries for cross-platform development in the manner you have suggested. What you might want to address is how you handle deficiencies in the base libraries --- how much do you have to rewrite when you see that the base implementations, which are fine for Chromium, don't offer the features that you need in your app? An example: it includes a fs-events system, to monitor for changes in files, but it is crippled to work around a bug in one version of Mac OS X, and so in the end, one probably has to write their own file-monitoring logic for each platform (or copy the Chromium code, and then modify it). Additionally, once you start modifying the base libraries to add the features that you require, how do you merge with the changes that the Chromium team inexorably publishes?

Intersection of Andreessen and Greenwald

presorted — Thu, 16 Jan 2014 15:21:47 +0000

Article URL: https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/423823011155034112

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7069818

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

New comment by presorted in "[dead]"

presorted — Sun, 29 Dec 2013 17:35:45 +0000

Quoted from the article:

Take, for example, when they intercept shipping deliveries. If a target person, agency or company orders a new computer or related accessories, for example, TAO can divert the shipping delivery to its own secret workshops. The NSA calls this method interdiction. At these so-called "load stations," agents carefully open the package in order to load malware onto the electronics, or even install hardware components that can provide backdoor access for the intelligence agencies. All subsequent steps can then be conducted from the comfort of a remote computer.

New comment by presorted in "How Google keeps employees by treating them like kids (2006)"

presorted — Wed, 25 Dec 2013 06:18:25 +0000

Being infantile means that you are an adult that behaves regressively. People with kids, and in their mid-thirties, can be infantile. I think that Aaron knew what he was saying. The problem is how do you judge whether someone is infantile, because you must either judge relative to yourself, or relative to a role model. If we are to believe Aaron, then we must believe that he could distinguish between a mature adult and regressive behavior --- and if we are to believe you, then we must believe the same of you. And if I'm to play the judge, then I need to know this myself, and I've found it to be a complex topic, and since it involves growth, it is a lifelong pursuit. Perhaps the one objective statement we can make is that we eventually must become independent of our parents and the safety of the parental home.

New comment by presorted in "[dead]"

presorted — Sun, 22 Dec 2013 21:00:10 +0000

It seems that the Bay area is weaving a story that blames tech for displacing everyone else earning less money, rather than fix the artificial scarcity of housing that drives prices up.

Edit: suggestion for people riding the busses: be prepared with fliers to hand out to the demonstrators, urging them to fight for city growth as a way to combat the high housing costs. This could help turn their energy to positive benefits for everyone. I can already imagine how the news articles would cover the scenario of trapped bus riders handing out fliers.

New comment by presorted in "What Tech Hasn't Learned From Urban Planning"

presorted — Sat, 14 Dec 2013 18:09:17 +0000

This is a psychologically perverse view. If you are well versed in psychology, sociology, urban planning, and child cognitive development, then I could consider it. But it is the statement that someone ignorant of those subjects would say as well. Have you read Jane Jacob's "The Death and Life of Great American Cities"? If not, then why should urban planners learn more from tech? Her book makes it clear that what you have said is brutally wrong. From the perspective of child development --- "I personally care not a single more for my own neighbor than for some random individual living in China; in fact, I would probably care more about the Chinese person if he was a "Mozillan" and my neighbor was not." --- is a destructive position.