Hacker News Reader

Chardokon Iceland's attempts to replant its forests

Went into that article ready to argue, but I had to quote this line from it:

"But by insisting that wolves fixed a broken Yellowstone, we distract attention from the area’s many other important conservation challenges. The warmest temperatures in 6,000 years are changing forests and grasslands. Fungus and beetle infestations are causing the decline of whitebark pine. Natural gas drilling is affecting the winter ranges of migratory wildlife. To protect cattle from disease, our government agencies still kill many bison that migrate out of the park in search of food. And invasive lake trout may be wreaking more havoc on the ecosystem than was ever caused by the loss of wolves."

Great read, thank you for posting!

Chardokon UK spies using social media data for mass surveillance

Its not that simple. Facebook creates "shadow profiles" of people that don't use Facebook, and can be be populated by friends/family posting pictures of you or mentioning you/tagging you in a location. So - not their choice at all to have their information mined.

Chardokon The Grandfather of Alt-Science

I've always been attracted to the idea of science and medicine becoming more "open source", in the sense that all knowledge could be free flowing and lowering the entry to understanding and contributing to it. It could be a great way for the "alt-science" and official academia to benefit each other.

However, I am pretty skeptical on Robertson's approach to this, on several parts, but the most conspicuous is how his "alt-science" seems to be aligning a lot with modern GOP philosophies.

For example, while he explains plainly, "that human activity has not harmfully warmed the Earth", the article he participates in comes to a bit different conclusion, which is "Meaningful integrated assessments of the environmental impacts of anthropogenic CO 2are not yet possible because model estimates of global and regional climate changes on interannual, decadal and centennial time scales remain highly uncertain", which seems a bit dishonest to say the least.

Great article and fascinating read. Academia surely needs to be challenged, but I am afraid I would take more of Pauling's approach myself.

Chardokon Zucktown, USA

"This time around, though, that community will be bridled with union–busting and data-harvesting apparatuses sure to make even the most paranoid techno-tyrant salivate."

This is what worries me the most about something like Facebook running the town. I can imagine their Zuck-net would have plenty of mining to flag "potential unionizers" and snuff them out before they have a chance to begin.

Unions are really the only answer to balance the corporation's power and I fear they won't stand a chance.

Chardokon 19th century cyclists paved the way for modern motorists' roads (2011)

"Car culture" generally brings out the same primate programming you see in the "comments section". There's a level of pseudo-anonymity that brings out the aggressive asshole in all of us and make it unsafe for the most vulnerable.

Its night and day when you are on a bicycle versus a car. I get conversations and interactions with people while biking that makes the experience so much more "human" (for lack of a better word).

I have been preaching car-free downtowns for years, and continue to believe it is the correct next step for healthy city and town life.

Chardokon More Americans Are Falling Behind on Student Loans, and Nobody Quite Knows Why

Honestly we need to completely rid ourselves of the notion that education should be preparation for a job and instead looking at it as a betterment of society in general.

Chardokon Monsanto’s Weed Killer, Dicamba, Divides Farmers

Of course you can never truly prove someone is a "shill", but it was the entire purpose of Correct the Record during Hillary's campaign. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correct_the_Record

Chardokon Mark Zuckerberg's Political Awakening

That is by far the biggest red flag for his political aspirations. I cannot even fathom the conflicts of interest, the potential to misuse/abuse Facebooks front page rankings, and the massive data and insight he would have access to.

Chardokon Mark Zuckerberg's Political Awakening

"A study published earlier this year by the American Journal of Preventive Medicine found that heavy social media users were, on average, more isolated than their peers. Zuckerberg doesn’t see it that way, arguing that the best way to a better society is more Facebook."

"Zuckerberg sometimes talks about the promise of brain implants, which he believes will one day convey the entirety of one’s mental state to another human being"

Perhaps I have been watching too much Star Trek, but he is sounding just like the Borg.

Chardokon Facebook’s war on free will

Right, just in the same sense that Google and Equifax are not just websites, Facebook is not something you can entirely ignore without consequence.

Chardokon Facebook’s war on free will

Not only post your picture, but friends can tag it with a name along with time and location, and now association with certain circles of friends. You are probably not going to get that kind of context with a picture on reddit or imgur.

Chardokon Facebook’s war on free will

Thats not entirely true. Facebook will build a profile on you through like buttons and information shared from family/friends/acquaintances whether you choose to or not.

Chardokon Facebook’s war on free will

“In a lot of ways Facebook is more like a government than a traditional company,” Zuckerberg has said. “We have this large community of people, and more than other technology companies we’re really setting policies.”

And this is why I am arguing for a serious revamping of regulation on these companies. As they collect more and more data, build shadow profiles of non-users, conduct "experiments" on their users, attacking individualism and rights to privacy, they are operating much more like a government than a corporation. Combine this with the massive financial clout they have and we are having our actual constitutional rights violated, while being told our Bill of rights don't apply to them because they are a corporation, not the government.

Chardokon W3C abandons consensus, standardizes DRM, EFF resigns

Can anyone explain what are the possible implications of this?

I am imagining a bunch of annoying add-ons to access news articles and what not, but is there a potential to carry over to smaller or niche spaces?

Chardokon Why American Workers Pay Twice as Much in Taxes as Wealthy Investors

FTA “There is little empirical evidence showing that taxing investors less stimulates savings and growth,” said Emmanuel Saez, an economist at the University of California at Berkeley.

Chardokon Turn On, Tune In, Drop by the Office

I could see this as a potential avenue for the relaxation on the blanket schedule 1 classification on all psychedelics, which would hopefully lead to a better discussion on them in general.

Chardokon As Amazon Pushes Forward with Robots, Workers Find New Roles

I can certainly agree to that sentiment; we are not moving forward as a society if we artificially preserve jobs for the sake of the job itself.

However, the theme of this article seems to be "Automation came to Amazon and no jobs were lost, so don't worry about that pesky automation issue!", which seems blatantly misleading. While new jobs like robot maintenance will be created, I can imagine they will only be a small portion of the jobs that were replaced, and that is going to leave a lot of people unemployed and even potentially unemployable. That is an issue we certainly need to acknowledge and discuss.

Chardokon The Premium Mediocre Life of Maya Millenial

We can begin with leveling the starting point for all. Transportation, healthcare, education, internet and cell phone access - all of these are necessary for being successful, yet we put the responsibility on the individual for acquiring these things.

When you can free a person from worrying about how they are going to pay for their medical bills, or if they will be able to afford fixing that check engine light on their car, they will have the freedom to make better choices for themselves. They can better negotiate where they want to work, since they aren't tied to their employer's health plan. They won't have to take that awful job just because its close enough to walk or pays enough to afford their car repairs.

It ends up being a trap - you need a job for healthcare - so you need a car to get you there, you need internet and a cell phone to do interviews, you need to be educated to be hired - which all drain your income from the job in the first place, in which you have to swing from job to job as a means of life support to continue.

IMO, this leads to the "premium mediocrity" the article describes, where it provides a brief means of escape from this trap.

Chardokon 1st Amendment wins in self-proclaimed e-mail inventor’s Techdirt libel suit

Here https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140901/07280928386/huffp... seems to be the article in question, with a chain of followup articles about it here https://www.techdirt.com/blog/?tag=shiva+ayyadurai&start=20

Honestly the article provides a lot of helpful information about the claims and certainly backs it up with research and citations. Unfortunately it sounds like he won't be able to recover his legal costs for this, which Masnick is arguing (and I would agree with) that there should be greater risks with SLAPP lawsuits (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_lawsuit_against_publ...)

Chardokon When it comes to internet privacy, be afraid, analyst suggests

That was actually a very nice read! I just finished the book and certainly remember the meat factory scenes the most, but couldn't help but feel Upton would have been disappointed from the message he was trying to ultimately convey.

Chardokon When it comes to internet privacy, be afraid, analyst suggests

"Opting out doesn’t work. It’s nonsense to tell people not to carry a credit card or not to have an email address. And “buyer beware” is putting too much onus on the individual. People don’t test their food for pathogens or their airlines for safety."

This is a brilliant line and it works so well because he is absolutely right: it should not be on the burden of the consumer to make sure their products are safe, be it from listeria or a spy device disguised as a children's toy.

I don't know what needs to happen for people to get outraged, but privacy needs to be a mainstream political issue. Perhaps we need to see what Google and Facebook actually have on us...

Chardokon Samsung TV buyers furious after software update leaves sets unusable

More expensive, longer startup times, and strange proprietary buttons on the remotes that if you accidentally press them you have to wait 2-3 minutes before you can exit out of them.

Chardokon The Electric-Bike Conundrum

Its a conundrum right now, for sure, but I am all for getting more people on bikes, electric or not.

The main issue with e-bikes in the bike lane is obviously the speed and pacing are not going to match your average bicycle commuter. The same effect would result from a professional cyclist carving through the streets at speeds no one could match.

I think the issue would solve itself as they become more popular. If they can hit speeds of 20-40MPH, then they should be using a full car lane, and can benefit from each other's presence. Professional and highly trained amateur cyclists do this already.

Chardokon When Government Rules by Software, Citizens Are Left in the Dark

Ultimately it seems like the software issue is just a symptom of the greater problem that is our criminal justice system.

I think software could play a helpful role in all aspects of our government, but having closed source, proprietary algorithms play a hand in someone's life hardly seems like justice to me.

This needs to be stopped immediately, and some serious debate needs to go into how software can assist everyone in assessing the facts and making a judgement, instead of just increasing the speed they can process people.

Chardokon Bezos should put his billions in public libraries

I completely agree. Where I lived at in Houston, trying to find a place to sit and study quietly was near impossible, which is something I certainly took for granted.

Libraries provide so much public good: giving the public internet access, allowing people to read classics and better themselves for free, and giving some quiet space for those wanting to study (and not have to pay for a $5 coffee).

Chardokon How corporates co-opted mindfulness to make us bear the unbearable (2015)

Well said. Its hard to quantify it in an objective context, but there is something just viscerally disgusting about taking something so old and spiritually significant to humans and perverting it into a tool for efficiency.

Chardokon Almost All of FCC’s New Advisory Panel Works for Telecoms

"if you are invested in an issue, find a way to get involved (reach out to you representative etc.) and have a voice in the discussions, rather than waiting idly by and demonstrating against the result."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tu32CCA_Ig

The data seems to show that simply isn't true. It isn't malice, but only representing the interests of those who finance your campaign and ensure you have a job for the next election, which is entirely not the point of our federal government.

Chardokon US diplomats mysteriously go deaf, Cuba suspected of using sonic weapons

I did not know that! It looks like anything greater than 120dB could be entirely inaudible and can lead to hearing loss.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultrasound#Safety

Chardokon US diplomats mysteriously go deaf, Cuba suspected of using sonic weapons

"US investigators have concluded that the country's diplomats were being hit with an advanced device that can send out sound that is inaudible but can cause huge damage to the ears of a person around them, which appears to have been left either inside or near the diplomats' houses"

So is this an actual device they found or is it something they theorized existed? Does this technology exist now? If so, that is unsettling!