Hacker News: tothrowaway

New comment by tothrowaway in "Stripe adds yet another additional $15 dispute fee, unless you use their AI"

tothrowaway — Wed, 19 Mar 2025 21:27:01 +0000

Almost no chargeback will ever go to arbitration though. So it's not like this new fee is the reason behind the change. Patrick Collison is (probably) just exploiting his position in the market to squeeze more money out of merchants.

I sure wish there was more competition in the payment marketplace. During the early Stripe years, I thought Patrick would be above this nonsense (even without competitive pressure). Not so!

New comment by tothrowaway in "Automattic Hit with Class Action over WP Engine Dispute"

tothrowaway — Wed, 26 Feb 2025 19:12:54 +0000

I think it's more about running up the legal bill of the defendant. It costs virtually nothing to include a spurious claim in a complaint (it can literally be a sentence or two). The defense has the burden of getting the weak claim dismissed with pages and pages of arguments (because they don't want any chance of it slipping through).

The bar for a "shotgun" complaint is way too high in the legal system.

New comment by tothrowaway in "Anyone can push updates to the doge.gov website"

tothrowaway — Sat, 15 Feb 2025 01:10:36 +0000

That's been the case for a long time. I made a big stink about not being able to fill out my census survey to my congresswomen. It got nowhere.

New comment by tothrowaway in "Tokyo University Used "Tiananmen Square" Keyword to Block Chinese Admissions"

tothrowaway — Sun, 08 Dec 2024 19:09:16 +0000

This post caught my attention because I do the same thing! Yes, it absolutely works.

New comment by tothrowaway in "Data sleuths who spotted research misconduct cleared of defamation"

tothrowaway — Fri, 13 Sep 2024 02:55:05 +0000

I would agree. I'm the defendant in a (frivolous) trademark infringement case and my firm (which does work for the EFF) averages about 2 hours per (substantial) page, at a rate of $500/hour. I do wonder in the back of my mind if I'm being taken to the cleaners...

New comment by tothrowaway in "Ask HN: How to handle cc disputes when customer fraudulently backdates request?"

tothrowaway — Sun, 17 Mar 2024 19:38:19 +0000

1. Is it possible to cancel without contacting support?

2. Is it possible to refund the last charge within 3-7 days if the account hasn't been used (without contacting support)?

3. Do you send an email before each recurring charge?

New comment by tothrowaway in "Ask HN: Do most startups simply ignore international taxes?"

tothrowaway — Tue, 13 Feb 2024 12:51:21 +0000

Small businesses do not routinely send pennies to the UAE. Countries do not have unlimited resources to chase after you. The law cannot be universally enforced, so the government has to pick and choose its battles. And they aren't going to bother with you. You need to be concerned about the tax law in the country you reside and have citizenship.

New comment by tothrowaway in "Car insurance in America is too cheap"

tothrowaway — Sat, 03 Feb 2024 19:48:04 +0000

Can you share which company your $5m policy is with? I'm considering umbrella coverage, and $25/month is a crazy good deal.

New comment by tothrowaway in "A couple of messages about changes to ianVisits"

tothrowaway — Sat, 30 Sep 2023 08:28:56 +0000

If you are the target of automated copyright trolling, inspect your server logs whenever you get a notice. Some troll bots will (surprisingly) use an honest HTTP user agent so you can easily block it.

New comment by tothrowaway in "Show HN: Automatically check into SW flights with a bot"

tothrowaway — Tue, 26 Sep 2023 16:28:42 +0000

Careful. Southwest is litigious about this.

https://paloaltoonline.com/news/2012/10/23/stanford-grads-we...

See also Southwest v Boardfirst https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.txnd.15...

New comment by tothrowaway in "Ask HN: Take AWS to small claims court?"

tothrowaway — Thu, 07 Sep 2023 19:44:05 +0000

I've done this a few times, and was pleasantly surprised it actually worked. It's a lot easier than going to court.

New comment by tothrowaway in "Tell HN: If you're asked to implement geofencing, push back"

tothrowaway — Thu, 31 Aug 2023 17:20:24 +0000

Someone tell this to the US Census Bureau please. They send you threatening letters demanding you fill out a survey ("Your response is REQUIRED by law"), but then block every non-US ISP from accessing it. I wrote my congresswoman, the US Digital Service (it was a hail mary) and Kevin Deardorff (the "chief" of the particular survey I have to take), and no one cares about the millions of Americans abroad.

I could probably sign up for a VPN service and take it, but then again, they could be blocking VPN services too.

New comment by tothrowaway in "The Twilight of Neoliberalism"

tothrowaway — Thu, 03 Aug 2023 06:02:48 +0000

> Friedman wrote, “implies that government is the patron, the citizen the ward, a view that is at odds with the free man’s belief in his own responsibility for his own destiny.” (Of course, Kennedy had said that Americans should not ask what their country could do for them. But never mind. It’s that kind of book.)

It's hard to take this article seriously when it makes a glaring mistake analyzing the first two paragraphs of Friedman's book. Friedman was critiquing both statements in Kennedy's famous line ("Neither half of the statement expresses a relation between the citizen and his government that is worthy of the ideals of free men in a free society.")

New comment by tothrowaway in "Ask HN: How do you find clothing?"

tothrowaway — Sat, 22 Jul 2023 03:54:01 +0000

The secret is JiffyShirts.com (or any other blank wholesaler). You can buy 3 or 4 tees for the price of one from a normal store. Buy a bunch of different "models", try them on, see which fits the best, and then order more. There is some variance in sizing if you buy the same shirt again, which is annoying. But at least it doesn't matter much at $5 a shirt.

New comment by tothrowaway in "Ask HN: Alternatives to Stripe?"

tothrowaway — Thu, 20 Jul 2023 04:37:43 +0000

Indeed. The problem may even be worse with other systems.

There are other trivial ways to prevent unsophisticated card testing. For example, I have a card tester who visits my checkout page every day via a direct link (he must have bookmarked it). Little does he know, the real checkout page is now located at a different URL. So I just reject every transaction at that page.

Should the US Eliminate Entry Barriers to the Practice of Law? [pdf]

tothrowaway — Thu, 13 Jul 2023 15:49:15 +0000

Article URL: https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/BarrierstoEntryLawWinston-1.pdf

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36711168

Points: 16

# Comments: 11

New comment by tothrowaway in "Ask HN: Another web app has plagiarized my app's name. How do I deal with this?"

tothrowaway — Sun, 02 Jul 2023 19:02:16 +0000

My opinion: It isn't worth it to do anything (especially because you only have a common law trademark). Even if you had the federal trademark, it might not even be worth it. A trademark dispute can easily be $100K and you won't get your fees paid for unless the case is particularly egregious.

Of course, someone will tell you talk to a lawyer. Getting legal advice from a member of the legal cartel is a crapshoot. There are so many terrible lawyers out there who won't hesitate to recommend legal action for every little thing even if it has zero chance of succeeding (I am currently on the other end of that). So proceed with caution. Do your own research on common law trademark rights before you talk to a lawyer. That will help you weed out the incompetent ones.

I would keep an eye out if they file a trademark application (check TESS periodically). You'll want to oppose it. That should "only" cost you a few thousand dollars.

New comment by tothrowaway in "[dead]"

tothrowaway — Thu, 01 Jun 2023 23:31:24 +0000

I was down for 10 minutes (almost exactly). But it's back up now.

New comment by tothrowaway in "California Court of Appeal finds geofence warrant unconstitutional"

tothrowaway — Thu, 27 Apr 2023 05:53:10 +0000

> Ultimately, the court’s CalECPA analysis proved fatal to the defendants’ case. Despite ruling the warrant violated the Fourth Amendment, the court refused to suppress the evidence, finding the officers acted in good faith based on a facially valid warrant.

Incredible. This is like the government version of a corporation laundering its bad behavior through an undercapitalized shell company to shield it from liability.

New comment by tothrowaway in "Dutch payment processor iDeal to become European standard"

tothrowaway — Tue, 25 Apr 2023 13:11:17 +0000

That window between the last two steps is a killer. PayPal Checkout supports iDeal, and I get complaints about how PayPal took their money, but their account (on my system) was never setup...because I never got the money/notification from PayPal! It drives me nuts.

PayPal seems to refund them after a certain period of time automatically, but it takes a while. Naturally, the customer is anxious and mad at me, and not likely to risk checking out again.