aggieben

Cute. It's not an open protocol unless they make the spec public and free.

"While it is certainly possible that defensive technological development could outpace the development of offensive weapons and countermeasures to defenses, this does not appear very likely."

This is sort of what I was getting at: this is no longer a technical assessment, but also (or even primarily) a geopolitical and economic one. A technical assessment would consist of "a defensive technological development that accomplishes X goal can be completed in estimated Y time." Anything beyond that is garbage.

"The problem was that the OTA was reality-based and reality has a well-known liberal bias."

That's cute.

No, actually, it's bureaucrats that have a liberal bias. Meanwhile, in the absence of the OTA, we've been busy building laser weapons and missile interceptors.

I'm near Dallas, and this is close to my experience.

That's actually only true if you count all towns bigger than 2500 people as "urban". That's really not very consistent with what most people think of as "urban" vs "rural". I live in a town of 26,000 people that is very much rural culturally and economically.

I think I can summarize the OP thusly: "All economic and political powers should be in the service of the interests of big urban centers".

No thanks.

This would be more akin to judging an author based on what media company prints the magazine (Hearst, or Time, for example).

I really don't agree with the main thrust here at all, and I think I agree with the analyses the OP was trying to rebut: it basically boiled down to luck. There were other viable (and even better) chat products out there.

Lacking a "reply" feature almost kept me from using Slack. It is still the only new feature I want in Slack. I would trade half of the integrations (I mean, Giphy sucks, it really does, and the Hangouts integration is just a race condition with an icon) to have that one thing.

I think the OpenBSD code is quite nice, actually (maybe not the cross-platform bits).

Well, firstly I didn't learn all accounting. I learned enough to read a balance sheet, understand the accrual method, and do day-to-day bookkeeping (by the time my business is big enough to need more than that, I will hire an accountant, or bench.co, or whatever). It took about two weekends, and the OP was my most important source. A whiteboard is helpful.

> Accounting is the rare subject that's nearly impossible to learn on it's own.

This is total nonsense. Accounting isn't that complicated, you just have to commit to learning it just like any other topic. I learned the basics in about two weekends.

As someone who started a business structured as an S-Corp and running it without a professional bookkeeper, I found this site immensely helpful.

I do have a tax advisor, but I was on my own for day-to-day bookkeeping. It was well worth it to spend a few hours on this site absorbing as much as possible.

Yes, exactly. Some perspective is in order. Your examples are on point. Also: duels, anyone?

Today's C is still C.

Yep, I agree. They're definitely not all the same, and some are more helpable (better word please?) than others.

Well, I think we might mean different things by "homeless". The kind of people who prefer homelessness (and I know a couple, even in my small town) don't prefer it because they don't have a house. If someone were to just provide them a house, they'd be perfectly happy with that. No, they prefer their lifestyle to the available alternatives because it frees them of any responsibility for themselves.

Naturally, though, not all homeless should be categorized this way. A great many of them surely have serious psychological disorders that prevent them from living normal independent lives. Surely many of them have suffered in many ways, and many of them are surely in the circumstances they're in due to factors they couldn't control. These are the ones that really do need help of _some_ kind.

I sympathize with people like the mayor of the town you use as an example, but he's wrong: you don't give people dignity by giving them a place to live. Housing isn't the source of human dignity. When you give people with no dignity things of value, they don't value those things, and then eventually they become valueless through abuse and neglect. That's why homeless shelters have to have volunteers to monitor when they house the homeless. That's why simply building a big apartment complex and giving keys to the homeless isn't a long-term solution and in all likelihood a fast-track to a destroyed property and a bunch of people spending some time in the clink.

Outside of personal interventions and great investment of resources into individuals, I'm not sure there are really any great solutions. It makes me sad, but I don't have any great ideas for how to help them better (writ large), than try to meet some basic material needs (food pantries, temporary shelters) and keep them safe.

Has anyone noticed this in practice? All the news reports are explaining this as a past-tense thing; as in, gun-related posts are already banned. I have noticed zero effect so far. The gun groups I'm in are still chugging along as normal.

+1 for discourse

Mailing lists are the only thing worse than IRC. Seriously.

Uh, no. So much no.

So many things are better than IRC. Even Jabbr.net is better.

I had to re-read this about three times to figure out that I agree with you ;-) The "yes, but..." really threw me off.

I'm curious how they're actually going to do this. I mean, they can shut down buyer/seller pages dedicated to guns, but those same groups can just set up generic group pages and carry on pretty much as before, except price and location won't be as prominently displayed. At worst, the moderators of those groups will simply be more inconvenienced.

I think it's just the latest convenience. I doubt very much that FB's move will make any difference whatsoever (not that I'm not bummed, because I find it convenient to follow gun trader groups in one place).

That's pretty much how FB sales go.

A: "I have this gun I"ll sell for $400." B: "I will buy it from you." A: "Ok. Let's meet at the police station parking lot. What time is good for you?" B: "How about 5:30?" A: "Ok, see you there."

> ask the community

That's what meta is for. If you want to be a part of the community that gets asked things, you have to participate on meta.

I feel exactly the opposite: I'm independent now, and I can walk away from my current gig without all that much disruption in my life because I don't depend on an employer for benefits or what have you. While I'm not walking away, I've got more flexibility than I might with an employer (depending on the employer).

You're 100% right about having a buffer, though. That's a pretty immovable prerequisite no matter what your professional situation is.

How is this different than a franchising model, where a parent corporation (say, Taco Bell) sets a bunch of conditions on the franchise license, but independent operators actually execute the restaurant business?

...or simply trading those "rights" for the freedom to be responsible for their own lives. One gives up a lot of freedom to be an employee. That tradeoff might be worth it for some people, and not as much for others.

This is sooo yummy. Nomnomnom.

You cannot hold dual citizenship and get a security clearance, and a clearance is required for many government contractors (certainly defense contractors, anyway).