Hacker News: thescribe

New comment by thescribe in "How Apple let Siri fall behind the Google Assistant and Alexa"

thescribe — Wed, 14 Mar 2018 23:31:07 +0000

Is a voice assistant the killer app for anyone? I haven't ever used them, and I've only ever seen someone use it as an ironic 'look at me' at a party.

New comment by thescribe in "Even in Denmark, children are career killers for working moms"

thescribe — Mon, 05 Feb 2018 21:52:37 +0000

Why mandatory? Why not let people do as they want?

New comment by thescribe in "Ask HN: Which books do you wish you'd read earlier in life?"

thescribe — Sat, 03 Feb 2018 05:54:01 +0000

Godel, Escher, Bach. I hated math for most of high-school, but I read this book between semesters and it changed my career choice.

New comment by thescribe in "The curious star appeal of Jordan Peterson"

thescribe — Sun, 21 Jan 2018 07:56:19 +0000

So we should all reject tolerance wholesale if we think at any point in the future website could be in the out group? The point is to jostling and get along with and not murder peole who's ideas we despise at our very core.

Tolerance is radical "choosing to get along" or why bother?

New comment by thescribe in "Uber remotely locked down offices during police raids, shutting off computers"

thescribe — Tue, 16 Jan 2018 00:57:21 +0000

How is this different than shutting down your phone at the border crossing?

New comment by thescribe in "The Trouble with Mindfulness Apps (2016)"

thescribe — Mon, 15 Jan 2018 17:38:21 +0000

I tend to lose track of time when I meditate, so I found an app that silences my phone and then alarms audibly every fifteen minutes. I guess that is my version of a mindfulness app.

New comment by thescribe in "Facebook News Feed change hides news, hurts nation"

thescribe — Sun, 14 Jan 2018 22:52:23 +0000

I would love to see an RSS reader that was smart enough to follow links and make a 'source graph' so it the NYT and Slashdot write articles about the same source they both appear in the same 'thread' about that source. To me that would be the killer app for RSS.

New comment by thescribe in "Facebook News Feed change hides news, hurts nation"

thescribe — Sun, 14 Jan 2018 22:50:10 +0000

That's how I feel about social sites, unlike RSS I have no control about items, they just disappear in a sea of tweets. To me it sounds like you subscribe to a lot of spammy feeds.

New comment by thescribe in "Facebook News Feed change hides news, hurts nation"

thescribe — Sun, 14 Jan 2018 22:48:37 +0000

I do fine without an algorithm, everything appears at the rate it is published in chronological order, if I dislike a feed or discover I rarely read it I remove it.

New comment by thescribe in "Teenagers now better behaved and less hedonistic but lonelier and more isolated"

thescribe — Sun, 14 Jan 2018 21:19:23 +0000

The future is finally looking up from my perspective, hopefully this leads to an asetic culture.

New comment by thescribe in "Online shopping in Africa doesn’t work because of shipping and billing forms"

thescribe — Fri, 12 Jan 2018 17:43:44 +0000

Services that rely on post-industrial infrastructure don't work without post-industrial infrastructure.

New comment by thescribe in "Why the U.S. Spends So Much More Than Other Nations on Health Care"

thescribe — Wed, 03 Jan 2018 18:53:26 +0000

I am probably what you would consider an extreme conservative, but I wanted to thank you for sharing your perspective. What do you mean by:

> The US is philosophically much more egotistical than other developed countries.

It isn't a criticism that I had heard before.

New comment by thescribe in "Spamnesty – A Bot to waste spammers' time"

thescribe — Sat, 30 Dec 2017 18:45:08 +0000

I have been using this site for about a month on every piece of spam that tells me to write back. But, I have not gotten any responses. How are they even making money if they don't respond to clearly interested potential customers?

New comment by thescribe in "The estate tax is a bad tax say economists (2001)"

thescribe — Thu, 28 Dec 2017 18:24:21 +0000

If the justification for a tax is social engineering and not revenue for a budget or project it is probably not a just tax. This tax happens to align with commonly held values, but that alone does not justify the tax.

New comment by thescribe in "The estate tax is a bad tax say economists (2001)"

thescribe — Thu, 28 Dec 2017 18:21:34 +0000

What about use taxes? Given it is a voluntary exchange, the government has the right to it, right?

New comment by thescribe in "Bitcoin Is Evil (2013)"

thescribe — Thu, 28 Dec 2017 03:41:23 +0000

I think you could equally say it allows bypassing oppressive taxes and allows citizens to bypass draconian snooping, it is all a matter of perspective.

New comment by thescribe in "Firefox 57 delays requests to tracking domains"

thescribe — Wed, 20 Dec 2017 03:11:00 +0000

I don't have much to add, but I think you have an interesting idea and it is worth exploring further.

New comment by thescribe in "An Anarchist Critique of Democracy (2005)"

thescribe — Sun, 17 Dec 2017 06:14:24 +0000

Under anarchism wouldn't the right just form a block to dehumanize the other? Wouldn't there just be a far-right solidarity group and nothing changes?

New comment by thescribe in "The U.S. Media Yesterday Suffered Its Most Humiliating Debacle in Ages"

thescribe — Sat, 09 Dec 2017 20:04:12 +0000

The Intercept is doing great work. The media needs to be shamed for their blatant lack of integrity.

New comment by thescribe in "Police Homicides in the United States"

thescribe — Sat, 09 Dec 2017 17:16:23 +0000

If the government cannot be counted on to use their monopoly of force why wouldn't everyone resort to vigilantism?