FreeKill

I always like to think of these things from the worst likely scenario. What's the worst likely scenario that could happen from quitting to pursue your own ideas and travel? You take the 2 years, try out several startup ideas, none of which ultimately pan out, and you blow through your savings, forcing you to come back and look for a job that may be worse than your current one. Meanwhile, during those 2 years you got to travel, meet new people, experiment with new technologies you otherwise wouldn't have had a chance to in a corporate setting, and you took a shot at building something that can sustain you continuing in this lifestyle longer term. Even if they don't work out, they were likely stimulating and challenging ideas directly of interest to you.

When you think of it that way, what is there to be afraid of? At the end of the 2 years, you'll still be young with an improved tech skill set and in a great position to find solid employment when returning home. Maybe you don't end up working at Google anymore, but there are plenty of other opportunities out there. Don't be afraid, go for it...

To bring this more in line with HackerNews usual content, what do you guys think the chances are that the voting machines will actually show a significant discrepancy from the paper receipts? Will this recount actually involve an audit of the voting machine software at all?

I have my doubts the outcome will be significantly changed, but I'd love it if the process involved an auditing of the voting machines, just from a curiosity standpoint...

Yeah, makes sense from that perspective. If your payments are based on eyeballs and not clicks or conversions, then absolutely I can see why they try to get around it...

Pretty interesting. I don't really understand why PornHub or others put so much effort into getting around ad blockers, unless it's purely to pad their statistics when it comes to getting new Advertisers to partake or I guess even to try and trick people into accidental clicks etc. using shadier practices.

You'd have to imagine that a visitor to their site, who has taken the time to actively setup and run an ad blocker, is probably the least likely user to actually click on an ad in the first place.

Seems like it's coming back up! My resources are reachable again.

Guess it would depend on whether the entire justification for the R&D and thus the expenses incurred as a result was due to a fraudulent claim that your original tech violated a patent. Without that fraudulent claim, would Company A have invested in any of that R&D?

This is handy. I find the documentation at the official website to often be severely lacking in many cases, so any additional resources are most welcome.

Yeah, I was curious about that as well. I wonder if the internet and the resulting increase in spread of knowledge about diseases, symptoms, etc. has played a statistically significant part? I'd wager that at the least, it has helped people to realise they need more of an experts opinion when certain symptoms arrive that are linked to more serious illnesses.

Very interesting and I think many have suspected as much for quite some time. Our culture of late has tended to place kids in a metaphorical bubble preventing them from many things which current research now seems to confirm may be harmful long term in the development of healthy immune protection.

In addition, based on this study, I wonder if it is worthwhile studying whether there is a "point of no return" in terms of protecting anyone from severe allergies. For instance, if you haven't been exposed to a severe potential-allergen prior to the age of 5, does it become exponentially more difficult to develop any kind of immunity that lasts long term?

nice, that's a good step. I think maybe too late though for a lot of people... I had hundreds of posts over there, and I eventually deleted them all because of the change.

Does it still cross link comments from other Google properties like YouTube if you post a video for example? I liked using Google+ a lot as more of a blogging platform instead of a social network, but as soon as they integrated that, it completely killed it for me. Every time I made a post with a video embedded, it would add all the horrible racist, hateful, trash comments from YouTube making it seem like those commenters were actually in my social network. I just couldn't risk that someone in my professional network might be equating the terrible commenting with me personally, so I gave up on it.

Also, it didn't say anything about the effects of the strains. I personally know very little about pot, but when you say things like "It’s smooth on the tongue and nose, while giving a delicate blend of sativa and indica qualities that make for a well balanced hybrid." it basically means nothing to me as a total novice. I think it would make a lot more sense to list the effects of the strain and what an intended user might experience. I'd make your listing much more geared to newbies, who would likely benefit the most from a sampler style offering.

I'm very intrigued by Bleep, I think that attempting to leverage the bitorrent protocol in a chat platform is a unique take, that I would like to see continue to evolve.

However, I think it's important that they open the source up for this project and even potentially offer the ability for me to install and run my own server. I think until they take those steps, it will be difficult for them to gain any kind of large following.

I agree that one thing that's lost is the ability to discuss episodes with people as a show progresses. Since you never know what episode a person is on you can't really risk discussing things until you're sure the person has caught up. With weekly shows like Game of Thrones for instance, you can feel pretty comfortable discussing an episode amongst other fans. Not sure if that's really something I'll miss when it's gone, but it's definitely a big change with Netflix that ultimately started as a smaller disruption with DVR devices...

I suppose personally my feelings on the matter is even though I might lose the few advantages that you mentioned, the disadvantages far outweigh it and I won't miss the airing of shows like Breaking Bad or Suits that took one season and split them in half with gigantic gaps in between (months or even years), to the point where you can't even remember where the show was going by the time it returns. I like the freedom to watch at whatever schedule I prefer, without any kind of arbitrary limitations that may or may not suit my lifestyle at the time, and the confidence to know I'm going to be able to see a story through from start to finish once devote time to it...

Is that because you don't trust yourself not to watch it all in a binge situation? The shows on netflix could easily be watched one episode at a time on a regular schedule if that's what you prefer. You get both options (and hundreds of other scenarios) instead of just the one decided by someone else (or else having to record it on a DVR to make your own schedule).

The data was hacked, true. I also wish hackers respected people's privacy, but they don't appear to share that sentiment.

If the people responsible are ever apprehended, I'm sure they will face substantial jail time or worse, depending on their country.

None of this information leaked would stand up in court, as it should be, because it was attained by illegal means.

With all that said, just like any other piece of information in history that is leaked to the press, from government documents to private communications, if it has news value, it is reported on. Doesn't justify what the hackers did, but collectively sticking our heads in the sand about the contents of the hack, simply because we disagree with the way it was attained, is idealistic fantasy with no basis in reality. On that premise, any piece of information ever leaked by a whistleblower would have had to have been discarded immediately because it was illegally obtained. Sure, I agree that a lot of the stuff reported in this Sony hack, like Joel McHale wanting a discount on televisions, may not have been newsworthy. That's certainly up for debate, but clearly this information is newsworthy and I don't see any reason why the media shouldn't report on it, the media didn't do the hacking....

Personally, the biggest improvement to Windows for me would be the ability to install the same copy of the OS multiple times, personally, for a reasonable price. I have a laptop, desktop, and I'd also love to run a couple of virtual machines as well. I think having multiple personal uses is pretty common, and they need to change their licensing to be more flexible for that type of environment, without needing a separate license for each installation...

Thanks for the detailed reply. Very informative. Much appreciated... I had no idea those big progressive jackpots were actually managed by the slot machine makers and not the casinos themselves. It does make sense though, when you think about it, because how else would it work cross casino?

From a software/hardware engineering perspective, how difficult is it to get into the slot machine game? I imagine it must have quite a rigorous set of guidelines and testing procedures that must be followed diligently to avoid running afoul of regulations set out by gambling states.

Also, I assume it must require a lot of trade show visits to try and sell major casinos on your machine, since the number of customers for your machines is severely limited. Is it an upfront cost business (aka, they pay you $XXX for each machine) or is it more of a partnership with the makers where the casinos share profits on the machines with the developer/designers? Off the top of my head, I'd think the latter would be more feasible as I'm sure popularity of machines must be somewhat short lived, as there always seems to be different machines all the time.

Anyway, I'm curious if anyone with more experience in this area could give some brief highlights on what it's like working in that arena. I've always been curious :)

Not only that, but there is a substantial body within countries like the United States who benefit a lot from it being legal. For instance, the for profit prisons incarcerate non-violent drug offenders. Also, law enforcement relies heavily on policies such as seizures as a source of funding. These types of institutions also have a lot to lose when it comes to drug legalization...

Agreed. Also, I like that they seem to be extremely transparent when it comes to any issue at all. Both these issues, and the one from a year or so ago, where they thought maybe their servers were hacked, were clearly explained to their customers. I really appreciate that as a user.

I know this is a little off topic, but I always wonder if Cannabis becoming legal in more places, like the US, would result in more innovation with regards to the actual smell of cannabis. Perhaps more convenient ways of ingesting/inhaling that don't result in such a strong odor? Maybe biological manipulation of the strains to specifically eliminate the aspects of the plant that give it such a strong smell while maintaining the effects? You have to think that the primary providers of Cannabis to date have not had much incentive to tackle this problem, but like you said, the more and more prevalent it becomes in society, the more necessary it may become.

I found the recent episode of the tv show VICE that focused on the booming entrepreneurship in Colorado around cannabis to be really interesting and it will be interesting to see what comes of that test environment within the US.

Interesting, I wonder if this will ultimately lead to a competitive environment where prices decline due to competition? I've read it elsewhere before, but I believe diamonds are only "rare" due to strict control of what comes to market. Will be interesting to see if this affects that strict control.

This is especially interesting considering Tiffiany's earning reports this week which showed a substantial part of their post recessions profits is now in the low end consumer goods.

Unfortunately, it's a total non-starter for me if there is no desktop app.

Thanks, that's definitely one that wasn't on my radar thus far :)

Nice site, thanks for the link. I really think there is an underserved blogging market for curation of apps and games, especially with a specific theme such as this site does.

I know this might be crazy, but what about Apple/Google setting a floor on app prices? What if no app could sell for less than $2.99 or even $4.99? Although, I'm sure that would probably result in less money overall for Google and Apple, so it would never happen, but if customer expectations were at a higher price point, maybe the developer options would increase.

Whether it's a pain or not depends on how you have the domains setup. If you use Digital Ocean and Dreamhost for your DNS, it won't be a problem at all, you just transfer and it copies the correct DNS with the transfer. If you are using Godaddy as your DNS as well, then you'd probably first want to transfer the DNS to Dreamhost/Digital Ocean before initiating the transfer.

I love the added incentive to move. With domains, it's so easy to just stick with the status quo since you only have to think about it at max once a year, and transferring is actually a bit of a PITA.

Whenever I read a story like this (there have been dozens lately), I simply don't have the background to determine how big of a problem this is going to be. Are these bugs antibiotic resistant just to current antibiotics? Is the only reason we have nothing that currently kills them is because it's not profitable for research into fighting them? Basically, what I'd love to know is are we on the cusp of a new Black Plague type of scenario with antibiotic resistant bugs or is it simply a problem that we haven't been working on?

I read somewhere a while back that no one has really been focusing on new forms of antibiotics because the old ones worked, and it's not profitable for pharmaceuticals to research it, as it's the type of drug a person takes for a limited time only (aka non-chronic) so the profit potential is much lower than say AIDS medication. Not sure how much truth there is to that however...