Hacker News Reader

S_Daedaluson Hunter S. Thompson on Finding Your Purpose (1958)

"All advice can only be a product of the man who gives it"

That's on a par with, "Buy the ticket, take the ride." I think.

S_Daedaluson The Fall of a High-End Wine Scammer

I understand why that would seem... goofy, but to give a concrete example that we all know and love... The Vidalia Onion!

If you plant them in Vidalia (or anywhere with sandy soil and low sulfur content) you get lovely, sweet, onions. Plant them anywhere else, and they're just as piquant as any other white variety. That's a really big example of "Terroir", without the mystical crap attatched. Grapes as I understand it, in relation to their water/sugar/acid content, vary greatly with relatively minor changes in climate.

At least in part, this is why climate change is likely to do quite the number on French wines, possibly forever, definitely for a very long time.

S_Daedaluson The Fall of a High-End Wine Scammer

...So you're saying we're just going to have a bunch of new mistakes to amuse ourselves with? Oh good!

S_Daedaluson The Fall of a High-End Wine Scammer

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2002/08/19/the-red-and-the...

Granted, "Study after study" was clearly wrong.

S_Daedaluson How connected cars are turning into revenue-generating machines

Popularize a corollary! Paying for something doesn't protect you from being monetized.

Or something like that.

S_Daedaluson The Fall of a High-End Wine Scammer

Power cables.

I feel as though I've lost my mind over the course of a single, brief conversation online. This is the "golden umbrella stand" of the electronic world.

S_Daedaluson The Fall of a High-End Wine Scammer

Hahaha...

Googles

Ok seriously, stop, I can only take so much of this whiplash. That's right up there with not wanting to breath the same air as the "Peasants".

S_Daedaluson The Fall of a High-End Wine Scammer

I phrased that poorly, I didn't mean in this case. I'm thinking in general of study after study that shows most people can't tell the difference between red or white wine without the color as a guide.

Also, "Wine" to "Why am", classic autocorrect. I wonder how much longer we're all going to get to enjoy them?

S_Daedaluson The Fall of a High-End Wine Scammer

This is a very funny joke, right? No such things exist at those pricepo-

Google

Oh god no. I'm genuinely surprised, although I shouldn't be.

S_Daedaluson The Fall of a High-End Wine Scammer

Beer is not fine if you have a real sulfite allergy.

S_Daedaluson The Fall of a High-End Wine Scammer

Powerful, respected people, or just people with enough money to demand to be treated as such, do not like to be made fools of any more than you or I, some even less so. Do they want to believe that they're so thick they've been swilling crap and scammed? People usually believe what they want to believe, for as long as possible.

S_Daedaluson The Fall of a High-End Wine Scammer

$4 rental on Amazon, it actually looks worth it to me. Free if you have Sundance, but I somehow doubt that there are a ton of cable subscribers on HN...

S_Daedaluson How connected cars are turning into revenue-generating machines

This is going to be a dumpster fire, at least for a while until the best overtakes the best-funded and marketed.

S_Daedaluson The Fall of a High-End Wine Scammer

It's almost as though the world of fine wine is full of rich suckers who truly believe they have a rare and golden palette.

Delightful.

S_Daedaluson Paywalling the laws of the universe

I understand that this is the law, and seems like a law to be worked around and a fine time for piracy to do something useful.

S_Daedaluson An MIT Scientist Claims That This Pill Is the Fountain of Youth

It doesn't matter what scientists claim, it only matters what scientists can demonstrate, reproducible, and subject to review. I get it though, I wish I were a lot less skeptical and could believe in something that would ease the terror. Maybe in 30 years or so I'll choose on some level to fantasize rather than be terrified. Maybe there will be other options, but I doubt that this pill is one of them.

S_Daedaluson Why Tim Berners-Lee is no friend of Facebook

It's hard to imagine anyone who understands the adage, "If you are not paying for it, you're not the customer; you're the product being sold." -Andrew Lewis not agreeing with you. That doesn't mean that Facebook should be stopped or censured though, just that only fools should be left using it with their real identities.

S_Daedaluson Why Tim Berners-Lee is no friend of Facebook

It would be a powerful argument, except that Thiel's money wasn't as instrumental in killing Gawker as Gawker's own behavior. The same attacks levied against, say, the NYT wouldn't have accomplished anything except losing Thiel money.

S_Daedaluson Why Tim Berners-Lee is no friend of Facebook

Less like a silo, and more of flytrap for the unwary and unprepared.

S_Daedaluson Flaws uncovered in the software researchers use to analyze fM.R.I. data

We go through this with each new tech, such as with EEG and Jello.

S_Daedaluson The origins of the Nazis’ secret horse breeding project

A link to the Nazis? They were a key player in IG Farben, the people who bought Haber's delightful patent for... Zyclon B. Nazis wouldn't have spread beyond Germany frankly, if not for IG Farben turning conquered areas to mass industrial production.

S_Daedaluson How Your Brain Becomes Addicted to Caffeine

Generally speaking, greater tolerance of a drug is correlated with higher rates of addiction, but... "correlated", so...?

S_Daedaluson There are no particles, there are only fields (2012)

Even better, thanks for that link!

S_Daedaluson The Battle of Gettysburg, or How the American Civil War Was Lost in an Hour

I'm sorry, but that war was lost the moment it was waged, and that wasn't a mystery even then.

"You people of the South don't know what you are doing. This country will be drenched in blood, and God only knows how it will end. It is all folly, madness, a crime against civilization! You people speak so lightly of war; you don't know what you're talking about. War is a terrible thing! You mistake, too, the people of the North. They are a peaceable people but an earnest people, and they will fight, too. They are not going to let this country be destroyed without a mighty effort to save it… Besides, where are your men and appliances of war to contend against them? The North can make a steam engine, locomotive, or railway car; hardly a yard of cloth or pair of shoes can you make. You are rushing into war with one of the most powerful, ingeniously mechanical, and determined people on Earth — right at your doors. You are bound to fail. Only in your spirit and determination are you prepared for war. In all else you are totally unprepared, with a bad cause to start with. At first you will make headway, but as your limited resources begin to fail, shut out from the markets of Europe as you will be, your cause will begin to wane. If your people will but stop and think, they must see in the end that you will surely fail."(Gen. Sherman)

Which is precisely what happened.

S_Daedaluson There are no particles, there are only fields (2012)

It's either this, or something like objective collapse really does happen, physically, which seems less likely.

S_Daedaluson There are no particles, there are only fields (2012)

Is any of it available on Sci-Hub, or be made to be available there?

S_Daedaluson Wushu Watch: Ki, Chi and Everything Between

That was quite an interesting read, and something I've been reading about for a while since the internet has shown what Akido has often become. I think it's nice that people have a good time in a kind of active, spiritual endeavor, but like the author of the article I wish they'd cut the bullshit. It's OK to be a martial artist who never intends to fight anyone; you may not be taking martial arts for that purpose. It's not OK to be a teacher who tells them that their meditation and stretching is going to make them deadly hand-to-hand combatants though.

S_Daedaluson Court Finds Sheriff’s Raid to Find Blogger Who Criticized Him Unconstitutional

ITT: I learn just how pitifully limited and inaccurate my knowledge of insurance is. Is there a good place to learn more about this topic, online?

S_Daedaluson In rich and poor countries, researchers turn to Sci-Hub

I'm thinking more of long-term effects on science publishing, that survive after Sci-Hub is potentially taken apart or subverted as Napster was. Napster wasn't that great, but it taught a lot of people directly, just how much better they could be doing in terms of digital distribution. Hopefully sci-hub will have a similar lasting impact, as a result of the reduction in waste you're talking about.

Even if it dies, people won't accept it; that's what I hope.

S_Daedaluson In rich and poor countries, researchers turn to Sci-Hub

You're right, but now you don't have to buy any more than a buck's worth of it if you don't feel like it, which is an improvement. Still, a dubious one I think.

In any case, scientific writing needs to be out in the open for everyone, including those with a buck to spare, to have access to. Never mind all of the other ridiculous aspects of a publisher making mint on this.