dalek_cannes

From guidelines:

   In Comments

   Be civil. Don't say things you wouldn't say in a face-to-face
   conversation. Avoid gratuitous negativity.

   When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of 
   calling names. E.g. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" 
   can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."

Agreed. It's disturbing that there are so many members who are seemingly intelligent, but either haven't read the guidelines or think that guidelines don't apply to them.

> I don't have the mental energy to give everyone I come across the benefit of the doubt... people who don't take the time to try and understand me get dismissed pretty quickly.

So you basically demand others spend mental energy on you, but you refuse to return the favor?

No, he is being sarcastic. I believe that counts as gratuitous negativity: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

A few examples would help us understand the problem better. Based on just this description, it could be anything.

Sony is Japanese.

In other words, you want free content. But content costs time and money to produce. And content is inevitably colored by the source of the money. When the source is advertising, the content you receive is optimized for advertising. Of course, this is not a problem if you're happy with the content you're getting now.

Ongoing internal investigation? Or -- and forgive me, I don't know a universally inoffensive way to broach this subject -- because her being a gender/ethnic minority in her line of work makes Amazon reluctant to terminate her?

Incorrect. This is a prevalent yet still poorly understood phenomenon that has an impact not just on those in the tech sector (as many of us on HN are), but also on society at large. Philosophers and activists have repeatedly tried to explain this type of behaviour, but we still have no answer. I find it very curious.

You can hardly be blamed. This quote just on page 3:

My manager did not communicate to her management chain the positive impact I was having on the product - in fact, she once told me “You’re here to make me look good - you’re doing an awesome job”.

Isn't a contract that violates a law, Bad in Law?

I just realized this comment is irrelevant. This is the most important bit about this article:

> We know now that the explanation was that Simon was snared in a trap set by people who wanted to end the death penalty, no matter what the cost.

It seems a lot of America's 'justice' takes place in the absence of a judge or jury: in the presence of a prosecutor with a plea bargain offer. At least in third world countries, the coercion and bias is in plain view.

Paper is a technology that revolutionized the way we practice politics and law. It didn't lead to a utopia but made the system scalable beyond a tribe or village. Technology is meant to solve problems of scale here, not of human nature.

A damning indictment from Stockman's The Great Deformation (referenced in the article):

  The paper trail uncovered by congressional investigators shows that the
  $400 billion (notational value) of busted CDS insurance issued by the AIG
  holding company was held by a very small number of the world’s largest fi-
  nancial institutions, and virtually none of it was held by the banks of Main
  Street America which were allegedly being shielded from AIG’s imminent
  collapse. Moreover, the worst-case loss faced by the dozen or so giant in-
  stitutions actually exposed to an AIG bankruptcy would have amounted to
  no more than a few months’ bonus accrual.

Could it also be rephrased, "You know nothing, JS"?

> Illegal cannabis = freedom to live in a place where your children aren't exposed to drugs

You're abusing the term "freedom". Freedom is the right to act, not immunity from the effects of others' actions.

I thought on HN, disagreement is expressed through refutation, not down-voting.

Downvoted because this has become an almost knee-jerk reaction against any attempt at consolidating or unifying multiple standards, which should be the goal.

I think you might be mistaking HN for reddit. Have a look at the guidelines (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html).

Replying to this comment because it seems to be the only properly argued, non-partisan 'against' comment at the time of this writing.

I don't agree with some of the author's conclusions, but I agree with this idea: when your body and mind naturally deteriorate to a point where it makes living a happy life either impossible or extremely difficult, you should have the choice of ending it without society (especially the parts of society who haven't experienced the same problem) judging you.

If by the time the author reaches 75 and fairly non-invasive medical means are available to maintain his health (note: I said health, not life), I'm sure he would avail himself to them. If he's denying that, then he's not being entirely honest.

Browsing through the backer comments, I find that about half the reactions to that demo are similar to this one:

> I too am very disappointed with the bare bones tech demo you created. I had high hopes for CLANG - I bought the Razer Hydra expressly for it and then realised how pathetic the prototype really was.

> I don't believe you properly fulfilled the reward pledges at all and it sounds like our backer money was simply wasted. I would love a refund, however failing that I would like to see code open sourced and released to the public.

Isn't that a good reason as any to not put all our eggs in the Google basket? One of the two major browsers and two major blogging platforms are already run by Google; the world's biggest search engine; the dominant mobile platform; the most used free email/map service, to name a few. I love Google, so I don't want it to get to a point where corporate execs can turn it into something that its founders didn't intend it to be.

Because democracy without an underlying system of values is indistinguishable from a tyranny by the majority (in other words, it cannot be two foxes and a hen voting on what's for dinner). That underlying system of values, as I understand, is the constitution. A law can be unconstitutional even if the entirety of congress votes in favor. While specific needs of American society have changed, I don't believe the values espoused by the US founders have changed a great deal over the past two centuries.

Disclaimer: not an American.

This comment does not warrant downvotes, even though it makes a hard-to-agree-with argument. I myself disagree with this on many counts, but the poster does present a legitimate question. Over-pathologization and trivialization both take place. The disagreement here is about the degree and prevalence.

We have had a similar discussion in the past: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6663098

Not really. Eight hours for sleep covers almost everyone's biological requirements. It's hard to decide in what proportion to split the remaining 16. So split it 50-50 unless someone can propose something better!

8 hours for work, 8 for leisure, 8 for sleep and 2 rest days a week seems reasonable, at least mathematically speaking. If it were up to me, I'd include commuting time in those 8 work hours as well, making the number no more than 7 hours.

First, the answer to "Hey, Have you seen Dave?" should be "In his cubicle/office". If a coworker (or worse yet, the boss) does not know this, then there is a different problem. But yes, it does work well for management-by-surveillance. Whether that's a good thing is yet another different problem.

Second, not all readers of HN are American. Nor do they subscribe to the same political/ethical/social beliefs. The article was about whether open offices are productive or not, not whether we should or should not have them.

Could I raise a somewhat academic question? The idea of conviction is binary: either you're convinced beyond reasonable doubt of guilt or you let the man go. In a way this is good, but in a way, because of it, prosecutors end up putting a lot of innocent people behind bars while defense attorneys get a lot of guilty people off the hook.

What if there is a slight -- repeat slight -- spectrum? Personally, I would not mind being theoretically "conditionally detained/penalized/sentenced" provided:

1. The penalty is low -- police surveillance, fine that will be returned if exonerated

2. You're compensated if exonerated

3. These penalties carry no more stigma than jury duty

A scheme like this might allow the criminal justice system to move a bit faster. Or does this sound completely outrageous?