Hacker News: uola

New comment by uola in "Things I Wish I'd Known At 20"

uola — Wed, 02 Nov 2016 23:33:48 +0000

While I agree with most of this I think it's somewhat too strict. For many people their twenties is the only time they will have time, money and vigour. If you get the chance you should take advantage of that.

New comment by uola in "Visual Studio Code 1.7"

uola — Wed, 02 Nov 2016 22:53:24 +0000

Why not use git?

New comment by uola in "Signal and Giphy"

uola — Wed, 02 Nov 2016 17:47:55 +0000

It would be more interesting if people could reply why they disagree. I'm not the first one to come to this conclusion, hemlis is a public example. You simply can't compete with large companies several years after the fact without differentiating.

New comment by uola in "Signal and Giphy"

uola — Wed, 02 Nov 2016 13:33:48 +0000

A feature like this doesn't really matter in the context of competing with mainstream messaging services because their value is to a large extent in things like brand and network effect. The notion that you're just one feature away from mainstream adaptation is often a misconception. In reality there's limited potential in living in the shadow of something else.

New comment by uola in "Signal and Giphy"

uola — Wed, 02 Nov 2016 11:38:42 +0000

History shows us that you can't compete by being a lesser version of something else. There's nothing wrong with trying to make the application more attractive, but at the same time trying to shoehorn in features rather than doing things where you have an advantage is less likely to be meaningful.

New comment by uola in "Life is Short"

uola — Tue, 01 Nov 2016 15:15:09 +0000

I personally don't think the sentiment of "8 Christmases", as presented in the essay, is that helpful. The solution to scarcity isn't to rely on a few moments, nor necessarily to "prune bullshit", it's to create more good moments. Maybe there is only 8 Christmases, but there's 416 Sunday dinners and countless other Holidays. Christmas is only that special because that's the holiday that Americans still (somewhat) universally celebrate.

New comment by uola in "Peter Thiel Speaks at the National Press Club – Live Stream"

uola — Mon, 31 Oct 2016 15:43:09 +0000

Sort of expected a better interview when I heard "The National Press Club". This is mostly "What do you think about x? I think this and that" read from notes.

New comment by uola in "Sun, surf and low rents: why Lisbon could be the next tech capital"

uola — Sun, 30 Oct 2016 16:21:50 +0000

"Tech", as the article uses it, tend to be less Donald Knuth and more Woody Allen in the sense that "80 percent of life is showing up". The "best of the best" is mostly busy being the best. Cities usually fail to attract talent because there aren't enough substance to their claims and they therefor can't get people to show up.

New comment by uola in "Ask HN: Why are SIM cards still a thing?"

uola — Sun, 30 Oct 2016 10:48:26 +0000

Yeah, while I can appreciate the question (curiosity is a good things) I don't think anyone with experience of software should be surprised. When you consider things like passwords, credit cards, wifi login and e-mail addresses the question is really why aren't more things like sim cards. (which is kind of what Apple is trying to do these days?)

New comment by uola in "George Hotz cancels his Tesla Autopilot-like ‘comma one’"

uola — Fri, 28 Oct 2016 18:22:49 +0000

Hondas response to 34 questions was 22 pages long, plus presumably supporting documents.

https://www.nhtsa.gov/staticfiles/communications/pdf/Honda-r...

New comment by uola in "Travel Around the World from SF for $1160"

uola — Wed, 26 Oct 2016 20:53:27 +0000

Yangshuo, China would be my guess.

New comment by uola in "How can you tell if someone is kind? Ask how rich they are"

uola — Sun, 23 Oct 2016 10:30:45 +0000

> Our digital world is built on tech developed largely for free by people rich enough to be able to afford this unpaid labour.

Citation needed. As far as I know most Internet infrastructure was developed by government funded or commercial entities.

New comment by uola in "How can you tell if someone is kind? Ask how rich they are"

uola — Sun, 23 Oct 2016 09:36:37 +0000

Socioeconomic status is an important factor in how we behave. The argument here is that people with more money are less kind because having more money makes them less kind. Unless you're making a specific argument were someones skin color is the prime factor in making someone more criminal that statement isn't factually correct. So no, it's not the same thing, but your frequent rhetorical outrage is noted.

New comment by uola in "The Tech Bubble Didn’t Burst This Year"

uola — Fri, 21 Oct 2016 13:24:41 +0000

It's much harder to have a killer app when the technology isn't universally appealing yet. When (if) you can get 8k high frame rate displays, gigabit+ internet connection and better graphics card at a price that will make enough people buy it, then it will make sense to produce good content. We are probably not there yet for some time though.

New comment by uola in "Security bug lifetime"

uola — Wed, 19 Oct 2016 11:47:48 +0000

Sure, or if you find a way to find certain vulnerabilities quicker. A bug with 5 year life span that you can find in 1 month doesn't require you to find them too frequently and more projects that fixes such bugs in 1 year will also be vulnerable.

This is what I would assume someone like the NSA does. They would have calculated a window of where it's most advantageous for them to find a bug and will then spend the resources at that time. Both in terms of bug life time and severity, but also user share.

New comment by uola in "Security bug lifetime"

uola — Wed, 19 Oct 2016 10:33:59 +0000

I wouldn't say "all projects". The statement is based on that they introduce and remove vulnerabilities at a certain rate. A project that introduces less vulnerabilities or finds them faster would be less likely to have privately known vulnerabilities at any given time.

New comment by uola in "Shame on Y Combinator"

uola — Wed, 19 Oct 2016 00:27:33 +0000

> [...] but he provided ample explanations for his actions anyway.

As far as I know he hasn't provided any explanation for what people are actually concerned about.

> Is it me or you feel like you can decide who is part of the community and who is not? Why is that?

If you can decide that he is, why can't I decide that he isn't? In a society that respect the individual we can all decide who we want to associate with.

> Neither is fair or sane.

If people have the right not to support him then it's also their right to not support YC or any other organization they think is benefiting Thiel. You seem to expect a scenario where people should dismiss their own opinions so Thiel can enjoy more freedom.

New comment by uola in "Shame on Y Combinator"

uola — Tue, 18 Oct 2016 22:44:16 +0000

> No, that's not what I am arguing. What I am arguing is demanding that people will be purged from the community and everybody cuts ties with them because they views do not agree with yours is not a good thing. You can disagree with Thiel, you can argue with Thiel, you can ignore Thiel, you can do whatever you want. But if you demand that YC severs ties with Thiel because he committed thoughtcrimes - that's where lose my goodwill completely.

Thiel voluntarily choose to strongly support Trump without thinking he owed anyone an explanation. That's his prerogative, but it doesn't afford him much favors in the form of being a part of the community. People have the right not to support Thiel or organizations he is a part of. What do you suggest they do? Is it more fair to boycott YC and the companies they have invested in rather than to ask for the resignation of Thiel?

New comment by uola in "Shame on Y Combinator"

uola — Tue, 18 Oct 2016 22:14:36 +0000

As far as I know, freedom of speech protects you from the government. Since YC is not the government freedom of speech isn't applicable, but anti-discrimination or employment law could be. In fact if the government would limit YCs freedom to not associate with Theil, as guaranteed by freedom of speech, that could technically be a greater violation of rights. This is why some libertarians think that private discrimination should be legal.

> In short, we should condone private — but not government — discrimination, even if the rationale is that a service provider simply doesn’t want to deal with the persons seeking service. That rationale — however offensive it may be in some circumstances — is implicit in our right not to associate, which is the flip side of our constitutional right of association, guaranteed by the First Amendment.

http://www.cato.org/policy-report/marchapril-2016/libertaria...

But I don't have the best understanding of US laws.

New comment by uola in "Americans Work 25% More Than Europeans, Study Finds"

uola — Tue, 18 Oct 2016 16:17:53 +0000

I actually think it's easier to be ambitious in Europe. Both in absolute terms, since it's easier to access good education education and working environment, and in relative terms, since there's more room to work harder than everyone else.