Hacker News Reader

Djvactoon 25% of Americans say they worry about money ‘all the time’

In my reading, this seems like a pretty common assumption for the average annual return (looking at a period of multiple years averaged together), used often by people in the FIRE community (places like /r/FinancialIndependence, or bloggers like MMM).

Djvactoon 25% of Americans say they worry about money ‘all the time’

How does owning an airplane change your personal travel? Like, what kind of logistics go into travelling with a privately-owned plane? Or is it timeshare'd and someone else handles the stuff that has to do with getting a flight path, etc?

Or is it a recreational airplane and all my questions are missing the mark?

Djvactoon Coca-Cola most common source of packaging pollution on UK beaches: study

I think a big part of the issue is also about what packaging choices are made, materials-wise. Surely not to say that people chucking their aluminum cans in the trash aren't also part of the problem, but corporations have a much bigger amount of influence and fault for pollution (packaging and non-packaging-wise).

Djvactoon Netflix Saves Kids from Up to 400 Hours of Commercials a Year

I do this just because I don't like watching trailers for movies I know I'll watch already (especially since trailers spoil more of the movie than the internet does sometimes), but taking in some in-ear earbuds (esp if they have noise cancelling) and just not looking at the screen is great if you wanna be more covert in your oddities.

Djvactoon Ask HN: What was your experience starting a tech consultancy?

I think this was Grey Goose Vodka?

Djvactoon Are Avocados and Almonds Vegan?

Because everyone has a different line and a different length to which they are willing to go, and because the definition can be interpreted differently.

There's even a qualifier in your quote, "strict" vegans.

I personally would eat (local/trusted) honey even if I were 100% vegan, because to me that makes more sense then not consuming it at all when we very much need bees to stick around, and supporting a local farm cultivating colonies is something possible for me to do, as opposed to taking up beekeeping myself.

Djvactoon World of Goo Update, 10 Years Later

His account was made in 2011, which makes me think maybe (hopefully?) he meant 'I would have guessed' and not 'been' 4 or 5 years.

Either that, or at 15 he is way more involved in software than I am now :P

Djvactoon Do people become happier after 40?

I'm going to liken your question to a similar but slightly different example: If I have diabetes, and I need insulin to be "healthy", can I ever truly be healthy?

You can swap that for any condition and any requirement of a substance, or even a requirement not to consume a substance. I personally feel like all your question does is invalidate the use of often needed medications, treatments, or other potentially stigmatized practices by people who need those things.

If I had depression, or anxiety, and someone was basically asking if I can ever be the same as others because I need medication, I think that would hit me incredibly hard. It doesn't feel like accepting or supportive language to me.

Djvactoon The Efficiency Is Everything Cookbook [pdf]

There are a number of reputable olive oils you can buy that aren't fake. I buy from the costco lineup personally. We prefer Ottavio, the one from Spain, but I believe the Kirkland Brand was also tested.

Also, can you elaborate more on why you don't use plant fats for cooking? We do the opposite here, so I'm curious.

Djvactoon Burger King is introducing a vegetarian patty from the start-up Impossible Foods

However, even if the animals require no food to be purchased by the farmer, there is still an environmental cost in the land being used, plus the opportunity cost of other uses of that land.

Not all land used for grazing can be used to grow plants, true, but in the cases it can be, you're using that land at a 10% kcal efficiency, so to speak.

Djvactoon Stoicism's Appeal to the Rich and Powerful

Nothing you are saying is explicitly wrong. Yeah life is easier when you have self discipline. But you're presenting what you're saying as a counter to what the other person is saying, which is that having all of those extra environmental factors (personal chef, housekeeping, etc) make it way easier. What you're saying is self discipline for the common folk is easier when they work on it vs if they don't. That doesn't negate that while them working/focusing on self discipline is easier by, say, a factor of 25% (numbers are just for explanation purposes), having to not worry about doing the dishes, planning your meals, etc makes it easier by 85 or 90%.

Everything is a matter of self discipline, sure, but that's one factor out of a billion. You seem to be arguing that losing weight or getting your life together can be as easy as it is for the rich and powerful if you want it bad enough and take some vitamin D. That makes it easier, but not as easy as it is for, say, Jeff Bezos to exercise every day.

Djvactoon The Unraveling of AT&T, Part 2

To anyone looking for the same thing I was, if you go to the bottom and hit "Meta" under categories, you'll find it only contains the first blog post where he details what the blog will be about, and then you can hit next post to start there.

Djvactoon The Unraveling of AT&T, Part 2

If it's chronological, wouldn't it be best to start at the beginning? I haven't seen a link to the "first post" yet, though it may simply be hiding from me.

Djvactoon Kickstarter’s staff is unionizing

I'm not claiming to be any sort of expert, but I would guess the tax system (not taxing the ultra-wealthy as much as you could/should, and corporations not carrying as much of the tax burden as they used to, once again arguably not as much as they should).

There is also a lot of structure around consumerism, debt, and the like, though this is split between societal/cultural structures and government/business structures.

Djvactoon Stomach of Dead Whale Contained 'Nothing but Nonstop Plastic'

It doesn't have to be all or nothing! My wife has been vegetarian since I've known her, and vegan for a year and a half or so, and I never fully stopped eating meat until about the same time she went vegan. Before that, what happened to my diet was a reduction in the amount of meat consumed, and (for unrelated health-reasons), the cutting out of most red meat (I started with pork, and then barely ate red meat for a couple years) and shortly before starting to eat a vegetarian diet, I started only eating meat when we ate out (which is maybe 2-4 times a month for us). A few close friends of ours actively try to cut out red meat on most weeknights, for example. Some other friends simply try to incorporate vegetarian/vegan substitutes once a week, or other similar amounts.

Whether your concerns are environmental, for health reasons, or about the ethical treatment of animals, you can adjust your diet as much or as little as you want and still have some sort of impact. Just like you don't have to sell your car and bike to work every day in order to cut down on your footprint by, say, biking to the nearby stores instead of driving.

Djvactoon Stomach of Dead Whale Contained 'Nothing but Nonstop Plastic'

I think you're being downvoted because of the "Withdrawn statements" comment. It looks like this has been posted multiple times in the same thread, but the statement was not withdrawn.

Djvactoon On the death of my family's dairy farm

I mean, I'm not super well versed in small-scale agriculture or anything, but a) Is there that big of a difference between subsist and profit in this case? It's not like the family is just consuming the milk/etc themselves, they're selling it (in the case described above) and b)is there even a such thing as subsist in our society today? Especially in America, capitalism makes it impossible to just subsist, as you always need to be earning more.

However, both of these are just as subjective as your suggested substitution, and I would like to express that I think Small-scale or Family Dairy Farmers are way better than any size factory farming.

Djvactoon Ask HN: How to get practical experience in developing scalable apps

I haven't done this yet, but you could always try building an app, and using something like stressgrid to test it.

Djvactoon A Climate Change Paper So Depressing It's Sending People to Therapy

I don't think the implication is that the Earth won't recover from our climate change issues (it will, we won't). So saying there was lots of life in the Cretaceous period doesn't really make sense, since I could also say there was plenty of life when organisms only existed in the sea. That doesn't exactly help our survival as a species, does it?

It's also not about whether temperatures at this exact moment are higher or lower, but the trends and the rate at which those temperatures are changing. If we're looking at the graph (I'm using [1] linked below for reference), and in 1000BC it was warmer by 2-4°F, but the slope of the graph is way less pronounced than it is now, that's not exactly reassuring.

[1] - http://www.longrangeweather.com/global_temperatures.htm NOTE: I'm just using this graph to visualize the trends, and since it doesn't provide exact numbers on the axes I'm just looking at the overall shape of the graph.

Djvactoon A Climate Change Paper So Depressing It's Sending People to Therapy

For what it's worth, it seems the companies that have been benefiting from the not "green" tech and society have been and still are spreading propaganda to minimize the fear/awareness/etc of climate change.

I mean, look at Trump and this coal stuff. Look at how much money Oil companies spend on this. One large difference, I think, is that the money being spent by the oil giants is influencing the opinions of fewer, but more powerful, people, such as congress-persons and other political figures.

I guess technically your guess about nothing happening is as good as anyone's, but it really doesn't seem like that is the case. I'd love for climate change theorists to be wrong and actually it turns out that the Earth is fine and we haven't caused irreversible effects to the climate and planet, but wouldn't you rather we work on cleaner energy and be wrong, than do nothing and be wrong?

Djvactoon A Climate Change Paper So Depressing It's Sending People to Therapy

Note that I haven't really researched this past personal perception, but:

This year NC was hit by a couple of hurricanes, both more severe (and to be honest, 2 more in frequency) than I ever remember growing up here, and for sure more than in the last 5-6 years.

Also, does your second comment imply that one of the 18 hottest years was in 1843, or like, well before humans were practicing agriculture?

Djvactoon Tyson chicken nuggets might contain rubber, USDA warns

I believe 'we' referred simply to himself and his familial unit.

But I'm making just as many assumptions as you are, so either could be the case. Based on his argument, though, I think it's not likely he was speaking for all of Sweden.

Djvactoon Tyson chicken nuggets might contain rubber, USDA warns

Almost categorically no.

My wife and I eat vegan at home, we don't buy specifically organic but we buy pretty much always high quality, and we indulge plenty, and our grocery budget in a MCOL city only hits $500 for 2. And that's with plenty of fresh fruit and veg, and buying things that are non-necessities, and including a couple of supplements for when we're not able to get enough of certain nutrients because of our dietary restrictions. We shop at a mix of Costco, Whole Foods, Aldi's, the local Farmer's Market, and the nearby chains like Food Lion or Wal-mart Neighborhood Market. I feel like with a little bit of sacrifice and a little bit of effort, we could easily cut that by $1-200, and if we went for the all out low end (different beans/legumes, nuts, rice, potatoes, and veggies) for all our calories, we could easily live on even less.

I'd consider myself an intermediate home cook at this point, but these numbers were still accurate when I first started cooking in college.

Djvactoon Tyson chicken nuggets might contain rubber, USDA warns

I think the other problem is people expect their first few times cooking to be the equivalent of a restaurant meal.

For one thing, the restaurant meals are often loaded with salt, sugar, butter, or other things our biology makes taste so good, but aren't good for you at all.

For another, you gotta start small. Learn the basics, if you will. There's also a difference between, say, when me and my wife make fresh pasta on date night vs when we use dry pasta (or better yet, a chickpea/edamame pasta) for meal prep. The first takes longer (way longer), and is more indulgent, but the second is more practical.

Djvactoon Programming: Mostly a hate story

The issue with this is the same thing that happens with all sorts of data breaches, regardless of whether it was caused by negligence.

Of course there's no problem if you do it right. It's just that guaranteeing you did it right is never possible with 100% certainty if you wrote the code, evaluated the code, and published the code.

More eyes means less mistakes. More hands makes less work. If you roll your own templating system, and you mess up, then some text on a page is displayed wrong. If you roll your own crypto to protect customer data and you mess up, whoops, that customer data is out there.

Djvactoon Canada's New Food Guide

https://www.livestrong.com/article/546054-disadvantages-of-c...

This was the first I'd heard of it too, but I looked it up and saw this page (as well as various similar pages). It looks like canned has way less nutritional value when compared to cooked from dry.

There's also the higher sodium content.

Djvactoon Costco opening a $440M chicken farm to escape America's chicken monopoly

I love finding new plant-based products at our costco, but sadly they rotate in and out and so sometimes we lose a product that I would have loved to keep buying. Hopefully I see some of my favorites back in soon. I understand Costco rotates products around sometimes, even if they did well.

Djvactoon Elixir v1.8 released

Being that the language is user-extensible, where do you see it going in the future? Will "finished" mean feature-complete, or will we see anything worth incorporating into the language?

This isn't directed specifically at you, but to anyone who might have ideas.

Djvactoon Study: Bias Drops Dramatically for Sexual Orientation and Race – But Not Weight

I feel like this varies based on your personal experience. For example, I've been exposed to a variety of these things in close family and friends from a young age (mental handicaps, eyesight problems/legal blindness, and elderly relatives who are now wheelchair-bound or otherwise restricted). With these experiences in mind, and evaluating the people I surround myself with, I encounter very little discrimination towards these types of people in my day-to-day. But that's just based on my perception and my limited experience. It could be that outside of my social bubble, there are people who actively discriminate against those with disabilities.

Could you elaborate on the kind of discrimination you're thinking of? I'm sure people who can't see have a harder time getting jobs (and for sure have to work harder to overcome things like websites with screen-reader-hostile content), but I'm not sure if you're referring to subconscious discrimination or explicit discrimination.

The subconscious stuff is harder to deal with because it might not even hit a surface level. On the other hand, the open hostility that the LGBTQ+ people faced was easier to 'diagnose' or recognize, and thus begin dealing with.

Djvactoon Meat-free 'Impossible Burger 2.0' tastes even closer to the real deal

In my experiences, both as a meat-eater for most of my life and about a year of not eating meat, most of the reason you (or I, previously) couldn't stomach that kind of vector is because (at least in my case) it's the difference between thinking about where the meat comes from vs not. I was fully aware of what animals were, and that they died so I could have that food, but I never really tried to think about it. Basically, it seems hostile because it makes us feel challenged. That's not to say that no vegans/vegetarians are ever hostile, because they can be, just as much as anyone else can. But overall, the general idea is a challenge to your/our current worldview, and no matter how they word it, we're going to feel challenged.