Hacker News: schmittz

New comment by schmittz in "Tesla Model S Options and Pricing"

schmittz — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 05:24:52 +0000

My family's q7 has default cabin illumination when the headlights are on. It took me 2 months to notice that was the case. As long as the screen dims automatically when not in use, I think that most people won't mind, but I could be wrong. I'd also imagine that Tesla was smart enough to think about having a way to hibernate the screen.

New comment by schmittz in "[dead]"

schmittz — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 17:00:17 +0000

While I think that anyone should be allowed to discriminate against anyone they want to in private forums (i.e. restaurants or businesses), laws prevent you from discriminating on the basis of sex although not appearance (with the exception of a few states) or if the position is covered under the Bona Fide Occupational Qualification exception. That being said, "being an asshole" isn't a covered category under anti-discrimination law, so they're perfectly allowed to discriminate all they want.

Nerds and Male Privilege

schmittz — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 21:44:47 +0000

Article URL: http://www.doctornerdlove.com/2011/11/nerds-and-male-privilege/all/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3365186

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

Why the Occupy Wall Street Movement has Libraries

schmittz — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 22:51:17 +0000

Article URL: http://www.libraryjournal.com/lj/home/892578-264/why_the_occupy_wall_street.html.csp

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3184530

Points: 3

# Comments: 0

New comment by schmittz in "People paid us $10,000 last week to learn how to program. Lessons learned..."

schmittz — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 00:19:16 +0000

Yes, I apologize. I wasn't telling you off, I wanted to succinctly point out that there's more to the idea. To address your semi-rhetorical question, this model is easily adaptable to anything that you want to casually learn (excluding what I'll call "traditional education spheres"). That is to say, right now it's incredibly difficult both to offer to teach a cooking class in your community and to find a cooking class to take. Thinking about Niroka as a way to connect people with skills willing to teach to people interested in learning new hobbies is better than thinking about it as a place to go to learn (blank). If they grow and expand in this way, Niroka would become the starting point if you're interested in learning a new skill that can't easily be absorbed through what's currently available on YouTube or printed on the web (this also presents people who do offer some of these services that way an easy way to monetize). In a similar vein, it can also be easily adapted to handle scheduling for small businesses dedicated to teaching schools (in exchange for a cut, they maintain the schedule of classes and provide a large potential audience for say, a local pottery place or yarn store, etc.) The harder market to tackle would be traditional education where topics can require highly specialized knowledge and fall prey to bad teachers.

New comment by schmittz in "People paid us $10,000 last week to learn how to program. Lessons learned..."

schmittz — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 23:13:22 +0000

You're assuming the end game is programming.

New comment by schmittz in "People paid us $10,000 last week to learn how to program. Lessons learned..."

schmittz — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 22:08:47 +0000

That's an interesting concept. It would be helpful to see that other people are having the same issues in a given class. I wonder how successful an automated system would be based on key words. Something like a twitter stream for a live feed, but more concentrated to focus on recurring questions.

New comment by schmittz in ""Embarrassing" open problems in maths"

schmittz — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 16:25:27 +0000

A slight typo in the author's bit (which is fascinating), the Collatz sequence doesn't terminate in a series of 1's. By its definition, once 1 is reached, the series repeats {1,4,2,1,4....}. Thus, the number of steps required to reach 1 is called the "stopping time" of the sequence. See the Wikipedia article on the Collatz conjecture for some great visualizations of low seed value termination trajectories for the Collatz sequence:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collatz_conjecture

New Speech Synthesis Could Make Roger Ebert Sound More Like Himself

schmittz — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 17:15:52 +0000

Article URL: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=new-speech-synthesis-could-make-robert-ebert-sound-more-like-himself

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2992384

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

New comment by schmittz in "Bill Dietrich gives CMU $250,000,000"

schmittz — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 14:24:25 +0000

For those interested, here's a list of the actual valued naming opportunities. Although, it doesn't include anything about naming spaces. (Scroll to the bottom) https://www.cmu.edu/campaign/about/endowment.html

Top of Chinese wealthy's wish list? To leave China

schmittz — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 14:21:10 +0000

Article URL: http://news.yahoo.com/top-chinese-wealthys-wish-list-leave-china-065826880.html

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2973992

Points: 5

# Comments: 2

New comment by schmittz in "Bill Dietrich gives CMU $250,000,000"

schmittz — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 17:40:43 +0000

People have a horrible misunderstanding of libertarianism. Libertarians believe people should be absolutely free to do what they want with their money. Libertarianism is not a fancy word for narcissistic hedonism. From a philosophical standpoint, libertarians should welcome charity/philanthropy as it is a free market solution to dealing with society's problems. They are merely against forced charity (i.e. welfare, medicaid, etc.). Mr. Dietrich's donation fits perfectly within a libertarian framework. Sorry to ruin the joke, but there's no hidden juxtaposition there.

New comment by schmittz in "US Government seeks to block AT&T & T-Mobile's $39 Billion Merger"

schmittz — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 17:12:02 +0000

I don't understand this at all. There's no direct bribing because of the ramifications, but there is a lot of post-office job offer and campaign contribution gamesmanship, as everyone recognizes. However, I'm not sure where you're drawing your data from. Could you enlighten me? My anecdotal perception is that the "required" donations operate largely the same between parties. As per data compiled by the reputable OpenSecrets, of the top contributing organizations from 1989-2010, most of them donate strongly to Democratic candidates (this I assume would be the amounts used to "bribe" politicians).[1] Regardless of this fact, I still don't see an analogy between a flip-flop vote (I don't know the vote numbers, so that phrasing might not be true) on TARP by the Republicans (while I don't know numbers, as I recall, the Democrats also voted heavily against a "bailout" package before voting for it) and the way that AT&T might use political clout to push through this merger.

[1] http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/list.php

EDIT: Interesting to note, however, that AT&T is third on the list of all time donors and on the fence for Dem/Rep support. If the justice department wasn't full of appointments or hires as opposed to elected officials, this could strongly weaken the likely outcome of this suit. In any case, will be interesting to note the effect in upcoming elections that this has on AT&T's donation patterns.

New comment by schmittz in "US Government seeks to block AT&T & T-Mobile's $39 Billion Merger"

schmittz — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 15:36:42 +0000

I'm not looking to debate this at all, but I'm not sure how program designed to prevent the insolvency of a major portion of US assets and the anti-competitive practices of one company are related or why you're singling out Republicans in both your metaphor or in relation to AT&T.

New comment by schmittz in "[dead]"

schmittz — Sun, 28 Aug 2011 23:50:04 +0000

I'll admit at the time I posted my comment, I wasn't particularly well versed in the history of computing. Thanks for the links, they are insightful.

New comment by schmittz in "[dead]"

schmittz — Sun, 28 Aug 2011 20:31:05 +0000

Although, important to note that while Xerox invented GUIs, they were about to trash the project before Apple stepped in and nurtured it. Speculation about what would have happened if they didn't do this is mostly meaningless, but disregarding the promulgation and popularization of GUIs in lieu of crediting only their original inventor is totally unfair.

New comment by schmittz in "How Apple Works"

schmittz — Sat, 27 Aug 2011 16:25:54 +0000

Naming Tim Cook as CEO makes a lot of sense. Obviously, it made the most sense to Jobs himself. People like to think that Apple's design alone is the only reason the company's grown so large. It's easy to forget that without the operational work of Cook, Apple could not even have built the products they did. In that regard it makes more sense for Cook to be CEO because he can insure that the company remains as profitable as it is, while also enabling new devices to be realized. With great designs and weak organizational leadership, Apple cannot thrive as it has.

Rick Perry and Texas Job Numbers

schmittz — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 03:35:29 +0000

Article URL: http://www.politicalmathblog.com/?p=1590

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2897860

Points: 6

# Comments: 0

Hollywood's First Digital Christmas to Cause Pain

schmittz — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 17:50:39 +0000

Article URL: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/hollywoods-first-digital-christmas-cause-217414?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+thr/news+(The+Hollywood+Reporter+-+Top+Stories)

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2833462

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

New comment by schmittz in "RIM’s Response to 'Open Letter'"

schmittz — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 04:23:01 +0000

Your point is murky. Usually investors are ahead of "the news." Some of the best examples of this are actually with Apple (go figure). The days after a major product launch the stock usually falls several percent. This can be attributed to the fact that people buy in leading up to the event and cash out afterwards. Analysts had moderate estimates for RIM's quarterly, they came in way under (making it extra funny they emphasized their "strong" earnings in their response) and their stock price fell 20% that day. They know their hurt, their investors now know they're hurting (they had an idea before, hence moderate estimates), the letter was aimed at convincing the public they're just fine. Honesty works, look at the recent Domino's PR campaign, sales are up after admitting their product was shitty.