eyeJam

I don't disagree with you. But this is a private company that has decided that being associated with, doing business with, or providing a platform for neo-nazis (real or pretend) is bad for their bottomline. They made the correct call.

I stand corrected

> can't break your headstock off — a quite common way to damage your guitar

Really? Are people using their guitars as hammers? I think it's pretty damn hard to break a headstock off. Much more common damage to a guitar is denting the frets, distorting the neck or busting the tuning pegs. I'd put "breaking off the headstock" as the 99th percentile of common ways people materially damage their guitar.

You are correct, and I admit that I grossly simplified the situation to make it succinct.

Most large commercial lawsuits settle before they ever go to court. From my anecdotal experience, maybe only 10% go to court. Litigation is a very long and expensive process. Some files last decades before they resolve. When litigation is ongoing, both sides are engaging in legal wrestling to try and get the most favorable position. Once one side has gained a clear advantage, they will start pressuring the other side to settle. Its very expensive to go all the way to court and then lose, so most corporations will concede and settle once they lose the upper-hand. Therefore if a case does finally make it to court, its because (1) both sides have a decent chance of winning, or (2) one side - or both - hate each other so much that they refuse to settle. The first option, (1), is the most common: the case is so close that its essentially a coin flip. Remember, you only hear about the cases that go to court, and most settlements are confidential and never hit the news. So the public's perception of commercial law doesn't include the full picture.

I'm almost positive that litigation will never be fully automated. Some aspects of it already have (such as document review and discovery). But the majority of the work (negotiating with the other side, questioning witnesses, arguing pre-trial motions in court, researching legal questions, writing memos and briefs, advising clients on strategy) is far too reliant on humans to ever be replaced.

Is it unjustified? By what measure? Alcohol taxes fund the social welfare system, and alcohol taxes the social welfare system. Alcohol tax is rationally connected to it's purpose. It isn't arbitrary, and if it does infringe on your rights (very dubious argument), that infringement is minimal. Alcohol tax doesn't outright prevent you from purchasing alcohol.

I can never find sympathy for people who complain about high alcohol tax in Canada. Is this something that really affects your quality of life? Or is it more of personal inconvenience? Alcohol taxes violate vertical equity. And they should. Lower income individuals should not be encouraged to purchase more alcohol, since they are more likely to be vulnerable to the negative social, mental and physical effects of alcohol consumption. Reducing alcohol tax leads to a greater burden on the healthcare system.

Really? I think he knows exactly what he's doing. He realized he could make a name (in infamy) for himself by co-opting the abomination that is the alt-right. And no, I don't really give a sh*t if he actually believes what he preaches. The damage is the same nonetheless.

That is a dangerous oversimplification of the law of contracts. The doctrine of consideration is very old. Commonwealth courts have made many, many exceptions to that doctrine. It is a okay way of conceptualizing contracts, but it isn't 'good law' and shouldn't be relied on.

(I'm providing legal information, not legal advice; hire a lawyer and please don't rely on legal advice you get from comment sections; if you truly want to avoid lawyers and do it yourself, I would suggest reading E.A. Farnsworth's "Contracts")

I don't see any sources linked in the article, nor any quotes from any officials or excerts from any documents. Not saying this article is bunk, but what's the foundation for these claims?

I think my favorite part of this bot is that the bot replies don't even reference what the troll said. It just spits back a different phrasing of "you're wrong" over and over and over.

Only if there was any reasonable basis to believe that infringement had taken place. Most countries have some sort of pre-trial hearing before a civil suit to determine if there's merit to the accusation. You're generally not allowed to go on fishing expeditions without a reasonable basis for your claim(s).

i've noticed when i'm called by telemarketers that it's dead silent when i answer. no background noise, no static, just the click that this guy is talking about. if i don't say anything or make any noise and wait for them to say hello first, the autodialer disconnects the call after a couple seconds.

Look, I know this article is a bit diluted, but haven't you always wanted to hear your favourite music filtered through an obnoxious reverb filter? Imagine, you can now have the experience of hearing Bob Marley perform in an opera theatre!

In all honesty this has to be one of my favorite quotes from the article: "But there are good arguments to be made for embracing USB audio, Saunders said, and the companies that make USB controller chips are very excited about the idea." Wow, the people manufacturing this thing are excited about it? No way

this is pretty great man! i've been playing with it for a couple hours now. my only complaint is that it's pretty hard to time the drop since there seems to be some lag between when i click and when the track starts playing (could just be my computer though).

Use the volume sliders! I've been mixing without the fader for years now. You get way more control that way.

I don't really know what I'm talking about here but...

If two such devices were identical in every way and started from the same conditions (i.e: the sands were placed in the devices the exact same way) then over a sufficient amount of time the sand mixture in the two devices would reach an identical equilibrium state of mixing. At least that's how two gases would act. No idea about sand.

Every time I see one of these 'XYZ start-up is going to change the legal world' I shake my head. There seems to be this misguided idea that lawyers are essentially programmers, and that legal work can be entirely automated. There is a huge amount of humanity in law. It is in essence a codified system of dispute resolution.

Legal work involves a huge input of social capital and human-to-human communication: negotiating, interviewing, mediating disputes, arguing, schmoozing clients, networking with lawmakers, smoothing over conflicts with clients and other lawyers, etc... I don't see computers ever replacing this aspect of legal work, and no, AI is not the answer for the same reasons that AI is not a substitute for friends or significant others.

Clients with millions of dollars on the line will never want to place their fate in the hands of an algorithm. They want a reputable team that they can talk to and place their trust in. This is why large corporations continue to use expensive 'name brand' law firms even though much cheaper firms could do the same work. Same goes for criminal law: do you want to place your liberty (and life if you're an American citizen) in the hands of an algorithm? Anyone who has been confronted with the power of the criminal justice system will tell you that its scary. You need a human you can talk to, who can explain and reassure and humanize this otherwise cold and harsh system.

I'm not going to name names, but I've seen some start-ups who offer contract templates and claim that you'll save oodles of money on legal work by using their contracts. First of all, if you haven't studied contract law, how do you that what you're paying for is actually useful? Are you going to ask a lawyer to review it for you? Secondly, if there's ever a dispute over one of these contracts, you're going to have to hire a lawyer anyway. Finally, judges tend to frown on template contracts. A custom contract will always come across as stronger in the mind of a judge or arbitrator.

The law is not binary. It is murky and cloudy and flawed. There is rarely a 'right' answer to legal questions. Judges will frequently make seemingly arbitrary decisions. At this point in time there is simply far too much humanity integrated into law for computers to deal with.

However I do see lots of potential for technology to make legal work faster and more efficient. Programmers are light-years ahead in their work-flow and tools. Whereas programmers take pride in having the slickest workflow, lawyers tend to be allergic to software and hate having to learn new systems. They bang away at buggy old versions of Microsoft Word since they hate having to learn new versions. They use bizarre and inefficient methods to collaborate and share documents. In fact, an IDE for legal work that combined version control, word processing, time accounting for billable hours and access to research databases would be the killer app imo. Also, encrypted email and chat that is extremely user-friendly would be a big big hit among lawyers.

if warming up is just a myth, i dare you to deep-squat two plates without any warmup or mobility exercises. even better, try it after a day at the office sitting for 8 hours. i'll have the wheelchair ready to wheel you out when you slip a disc.

Practicing law at a firm is very similar. Even from the beginning when you're at the lowest rung you're given tasks and it's assumed you'll figure it out on your own or go find help. Very little micromanagement. As you progress upwards you gain the autonomy to find your own clients and manage your own files. Eventually you reach a point where no one gives a hoot what you're doing as long as you bill enough hours. Some people I know work from home and only go into the firm once or twice a month.

Well i'm extroverted around people. I get a huge burst of energy. I get too excited and can't focus. I just want to keep talking to people and moving around. When it's time to dig into a rats nest of JS code I need serenity and quiet. The reason I don't really buy the whole introvert/extrovert thing is that its way too broad of a distinction and presents this binary of personalities when it's really more of a continuum. I think you just made my point.

100% with you on this point. I'm pretty extroverted (whatever the hell that even means) and I can't stand open plan offices. When I get home from a workday in an open-plan I'm much more stressed and mentally exhausted. Whereas if I'm working in peace and quiet all day in a mini-partition in the bullpen I come home feeling refreshed and satisfied with my workday.

The extra noise and distractions in an open-plan force me to use more willpower to focus and end up depleting my mental energy. After complaining to my boss many times I eventually started wearing earmuffs and turned my workstation towards the corner so that I couldn't see people. Of course being the control-freak psychopath that he was he mocked me in front of everyone else for wearing earmuffs and when that didn't work he started calling me into his office every 5 minutes and would get angry at me if I didn't hear him calling. Wow what a shitty boss and so glad I got out of there.

I think you have an interesting argument here but I would like to raise some points as counter-arguments:

1. Your argument is premised on the fact that since you personally have been offered a credit card, and you personally have almost no credit history, that therefore credit card companies don't make money from charging interest on late-payments. That's an absurd premise.

2. I believe, based only on my subjective observations, that you are the exception in your use of credit. Many people are irresponsible in how they use credit cards and end up paying exorbitant interest to credit card companies. Mostly lower-middle class individuals who are trying to live beyond their means. In Canada the average citizen carries ~20 000$ of personal debt (excluding mortgages) and the majority of that is credit card debt.

3. I think you're ignoring the "brand" value of having market saturation for your product. For example, Coke vs Pepsi. Yes they are not exactly the same product but they're very similar and there's no doubt that Coke has reaped a huge benefit from having dominant market share. When you go to a diner and order a burger, and they ask you what you want to drink, if you want a cola you say "I'll have a Coke please". Its understood by that request that you want a cola, and would likely be okay with either a Coke or a Pepsi, but regardless you said Coke, and there's the value of market saturation. So yes the credit card companies want to get as many customers as possible to use their product in an attempt to saturate the market.

4. Credit card companies also charge merchants for using credit cards so even if the customers paid all their bills on time the credit card companies would still be making money. I don't imagine they make the majority of their money from charging merchants but it is still revenue they want in their coffers.

5. Your final point borders on a conspiracy theory.

This is a fascinating article for me. I was a self-taught web developer, but I had studied engineering (not software/computer) in my undergrad so I was very fluent in algebra - which seems to be what programming is mostly about. I struggled to convince anyone that I was qualified, eventually got a crappy job at a fairly high-traffic website and bootstrapped my way up from there. However, along the way I met several programmers, some in high managerial positions, who actually sucked at programming. They could regurgitate bits of code and patterns if they had to, but as far as solving novel problems or teaching themselves new frameworks etc. they were totally lost.

One thing I noticed in undergrad is that it was hard to tell if some people just couldn't "do math" or if they weren't trying hard enough. No one understands complex math concepts the first time they see them and I certainly had to grind really hard in some classes to learn the concepts. But maybe they would have to grind 100X harder than me to learn them? Who knows. I like to think anyone can learn math if they work hard enough but I'm optimistic.

Disabling the cameras would make it much harder to identify and catch the thief and therefore recover the stolen property. And so, on a balance of probabilities, 'but for' disabling the cameras the damage (loss of property) would not have occurred.

I see what you're saying, but there's a strong argument to be made for finding the camera-disabling guest negligent. If I was advising a client I would never state things as matter-of-factly as you did, but maybe its okay in the court of HN.

You're 100% correct and I want to add that most people haven't trained themselves to taste well-enough to tell the difference. Taste is a trainable sense just like eyesight and hearing: a good painter must learn to "see" and a good musician must learn to "hear".

Your second point is dead-on though. Only food obsessives would really notice or care that Mast Bros are frauds.

As someone who is fairly obsessed with cooking and eating good food I've probably gone deeper into this area than the average consumer. There are plenty of authentic, "artisanal" (??? I don't even know what the fuck that means) small-batch food suppliers out there who provide a vastly superior product. I'm friends with some of these people in my area and they are obsessed with their craft and obsessed with putting out the best product. It borderlines on OCD and often leads to a deeply technical knowledge to go along with their sensory skills. I also know a couple frauds who've adopted the trappings of an expert and bluff their way to success. Same as any industry.

At the end of the day, most people aren't capable of tasting the difference anyways. It takes a while to develop the palate required to discern great from good. Most people eat their daily food quickly and don't really pay attention to the flavours of the ingredients. They just want something salty, sweet, crispy and fatty. That sounds condescending but its true and I don't think there's anything wrong with it. Lots of people let the radio or pitchfork tell them what music to listen to and don't care enough to expend the time refining their tastes. Their enjoyment of music is no less valid or real than anyone else's.

To commit a criminal offence, one needs the criminal act (actus reus) and the guilty mind (mens rea). If someone deactivated the security system (actus reus) with the intent (mens rea) of helping someone else burglarize, that would definitely be a crime. However if someone deactivated the security system and without criminal intent helped a criminal, then it would be a much murkier issue. Most countries have various offences on the books for criminal negligence to deal with this situation.

On the other hand if the homeowner or the insurer wished to SUE someone for disabling the security system and thereby facilitating the loss of property, that someone would most likely be fucked. Civil liability doesn't require the accused to be the sole cause of the damage; one can be a contributory cause and still get roasted for huge damages. IANAL and this comment is not legal advice

Created by the DLPAJ on December 1st, the report contains all the police measures that the police (and maybe French military, "gendarme"?) wish to see included in two bills currently being debated: one on the state of emergency and the other on anti-terrorism.

Well I think he found his niche and now he just panders to his base.