getpost

When the news of VW emissions fraud first broke, I thought, "corporate death penalty!" That'll teach 'em. Not playing by the rules on an industrial scale has the consequence that you don't get to participate in our economy at all.

Of course, the corporate death penalty would only amplify and accelerate the hardship of hundreds of thousands of "innocent" employees and others in the VW ecosystem.

Punishment doesn't work. We already know VW management doesn't feel responsible; they blame it on 'low-level' people. Does anybody seriously think VW or GM won't do this kind of thing again?

As a society, we can't allow crimes of this magnitude to occur in the first place. What do we need to change so things like this don't happen?

Agreed. This mentality doesn't only lead to being denied a bank account; it leads to murder, literally.[1]

How is this any different from any number of discriminatory practices in the past, which are now (at least superficially) illegal, such as "red-lining" black neighborhoods to deny home loans?

‘We Kill People Based on Metadata’ [1] http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2014/05/10/we-kill-people-based...

Huh? Airline deregulation since 1978 is one of the poster children for improved service to consumers. Any transportation business is inherently subject to the flux of fuel prices and demand as it varies with overall economic activity. If anything, difficulties airlines now face are compounded by the degree of regulation that is still in force.

This is true, and the difficulty is compounded because the government lies or is incompetent.

I remember a time in Menlo Park (unclear on the year, was it the late 70s drought?) when there were fears of the need for water cutbacks. The Water District said, "Please conserve now; it won't be held against you if rationing is imposed." But that is exactly what happened. When rationing was imposed, it was based on recent usage, which penalized those who had already conserved.

IIRC, the issue was that Menlo Park got its water from Hetch Hetchy Water District and HHWD set the rationing policy. Evidently, MPWD should not have made that statement, but nevertheless those who relied on it were put in a very difficult situation.

I agree. It's like Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server shows she's too clueless to be president.

For me, the most interesting part of the experiment was how it was ended. A moral person objected. That's a real lesson in leadership.

Wikipedia: "Zimbardo aborted the experiment early when Christina Maslach, a graduate student in psychology whom he was dating (and later married),[14] objected to the conditions of the prison after she was introduced to the experiment to conduct interviews. Zimbardo noted that, of more than fifty people who had observed the experiment, Maslach was the only one who questioned its morality."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment

In LA, Amazon same day delivery didn't deliver on the same day in 2 of 3 orders. The order that was delivered same day came at 10pm, much too late.

Of course, I only ordered same day delivery because I actually needed the item that day. I was trying to save a car trip (an especially valuable feature in LA), but had to go out and buy the items anyway.

The people who deliver same day seem to be freelancers, who don't seem to have any delivery tracking technology.

I can't see choosing this option again. Ordering for next day delivery almost always meets the delivery commitment.

This is a sincere question. It's one thing to be involved in a court case and have a gag order in place while a case is in progress. But here, I'm operating my business lawfully, and out of the blue, the government tells me what I can and can not say.

I'm curious, has the constitutionality of warrant gag orders ever been tested in court? How does the government's interest in a gag order trump my right of free speech?

The license prohibition on reverse engineering rubs me the wrong way, not that I'd bother to do that. This app should be open source, especially if it is used to gather evidence for use in court.

Should recent grads be making major engineering decisions for any established company? This article smacks of entitlement.

A very few recent grads may be able to make major contributions. How do you know if you're one of them?

No, it's not acceptable. I'm assuming you find the contact info by looking at interview records in the scenario you gave. You can't ever use any privileged information for personal purposes.

Interesting example, but then you're at risk of creating code paths that vary depending on whether boolean values are true, false, or other, which is contrary to the definition of a boolean value.

// Of course this is only an example, but except in rare cases when the value of a boolean is significant (e.g., interfacing code in different languages), don't compare to booleans! Not only is it redundant, it's another potential source of error.

if (!c_assert(p >= 0) == true) { return ERROR; }

// vs

if (!c_assert(p >= 0)) { return ERROR; }

// The following makes the error condition clearer, but it goes against the convention of having a hopefully true condition as the argument to assert.

if (c_assert(p < 0)) { return ERROR; }

With Google's track record of customer service and product abandonment, I can't see doing business with them, except when there is no alternative.

Why would a company as rich as Google want to be in the domain business? It can't ever be material to them. I wouldn't be surprised if Google abandoned this business and transferred domains to, say, Godaddy.

A search URL that does not change, preferably hosted on ycombinator.com. A search URL that does not redirect to Octopart, bless their hearts.

I've interviewed and worked with many people, MANY!, including e.g., Stanford MS CS graduates, who can't write real-world apps. I assume these people can score well on an algebra test. As far as I know, the ability to write non-trivial programs in a commercially relevant time frame can only be judged based on a candidate having already done so. If there's otherwise some way to predict who these people are, I'd love to know what it is.

Social factors in a workplace also seem to be important and hard to predict. Excellent work for one employer isn't necessarily reproducible for another.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi is the guy to read on flow. Try his book, "Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life"

Not exactly on your point, but here he is on video http://www.ted.com/talks/mihaly_csikszentmihalyi_on_flow/

For a different approach, try this article, 'Your Never-ending (and Needless) Pursuit of “the Zone”' 1) You are living in the feeling of your thinking—whose quality is constantly in flux. 2) negative thoughts (actually, all thoughts) are random, neutral, and powerless 3) simply stay in the game.

edit: Never ending pursuit link link added http://garretkramer.com/your-never-ending-and-needless-pursu...

edit2: The video does offer one response to your question, especially when he discusses the chart that appears at 15:28. Adjust arousal and control to home in on the flow state.

Speaking of oaths, the President's oath is to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution," not to protect the health or safety of Americans in general. Do NSA officials take an oath like the President's?

Every NSA employee knows they're violating the constitution. Keith Alexander's statement in an embarrassment, which only calls attention to the corruption or ignorance at the top.

Edit: spelling

If I understand correctly, this finding seems consistent Elon Musk's hypothesis on how the battery is fundamentally unsafe. "Large cells without enough space between them to isolate against the cell-to-cell thermal domino effect means it is simply a matter of time before there are more incidents of this nature,"

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5137641

Google 4, Bing 1, but I mostly use DuckDuckGo. But Google is unmatched for geographic terms, so I override with !gmaps

On another note, this gives me an idea for a product. Auto-delete all email in your main account after some designated period or other rule(s), but keep separate encrypted backup.

How long before every government requires this kind of disclosure? What other types of invasive personal disclosure (e.g., cell phone records, health records) will be required, now that it's possible because the data is online?

Requiring this disclosure at an international border is just a convenient pretext in the emerging dystopia. Human and civil rights need to be updated in light of emerging technologies.

Unfortunately, that seems unlikely given, for example, the US government doesn't honor even its own outdated Bill of Rights in the most basic ways (i.e., by asserting its authority to kill US citizens on the President's word).

I checked that link, and Google's profile of me is way off. Earth Sciences? Seriously? This is a comfort, since I figure letting the system run on bad information is just fine. It does suggest that Google isn't using some information it has on me. I'm sure it knows my birth year, but my browsing habits seem to suggest someone much younger. I must be 'immature.'

Agreed. Square's policy seems clear. Since Square pays out transactions very quickly, it's essential to be able to recover funds when there are questions. Merchants need to anticipate this. The alternative is Square holding the money for a long time, which nobody wants.

Clearing funds at any time (not just on business days), as Dwolla proposes[1], will mitigate some aspects of the OP's concern.

It appears to me that Square's service is superb and prompt, especially when compared with a traditional credit card processor that won't even accept email inquiries.

[1] http://blog.dwolla.com/ach-goes-real-time-with-fisync-free-f...

Endless scrolling is uncool if you want to click any of the links at the bottom of the page, Lists, RSS, Bookmarket. Maybe these links can be relocated to the top of the page? I sometimes go to Lists | bestcomments to find the creme de la creme.

I don't see how this could ever work, in practice. What constitutes a sufficient surveillance capability for a webapp that is constantly evolving? With every change to your app, you have to update the surveillance aspect as well. This seems like a real burden that limits innovation.

> The requirements apply only if a threshold of a certain number of users is exceeded

So, you start the next Instagram with barebones resources. You don't design/build surveillance into your admin console. Your service takes off, and then you have to stop accepting users after some magic number?

The government needs to get over the idea that surveilling everyone in all circumstances is the best way to promote a civil society.

>But how do you avoid mistakes you make by default?

For me, this is what mindfulness is all about. A mindfulness practice gradually develops the ability to be in the present moment and be aware of the choices you are making.

I've noticed the prevalence of alcohol in the tech workplace has increased in the last few decades. In the 80s, in Silicon Valley, a Friday beer bash was not unusual, but it wasn't every Friday, and alcohol wasn't offered at other times. Back then, for me as a young person, that seemed very cool and generous. It was definitely not routine among employers generally.

Lately, I've been to lots of meetups at tech companies in SF, and beer on tap seems to be freely available at all times at every location I've visited. In some cases, the tap is right smack in the middle of the main work area.

I have no problem at all with people who use alcohol or other drugs responsibly, but it's hard to see how providing alcohol in the workplace is skillful or wise. Possibly you're promoting camaraderie, but at what cost to clarity and wholesome connection and the long term of health of employees?

It would be interesting to do a study and determine whether freely available alcohol increases productivity or other measures of employee or customer well-being, and whether it and has any health effects. I'm thinking it has to be a net negative, but I'd like to see real data.

Times have changed on campus too. At nearly all colloquia I attend, there are snacks and beverages. I don't remember that ever being offered when I was a student in the 70s - no free food then.

So, we seem to be living in an increasingly generous world. People naturally want to give and that impulse is finding new expression. Food and drink are routinely offered. I expect free housing will be soon be offered in some places. Open source software is readily available. Knowledge on the web is freely offered. This is great! It's changing everything! The pitfall is that we're also being generous in ways that may work to undermine our collective well being.

Eating sweets does improve mood. There are several known mechanisms. e.g., carbs facilitate amino acid transport across the blood-brain barrier [1], and wheat stimulates endogenous opiate receptors [2]. But, if you want to influence brain chemistry therapeutically, eating sweets is probably not the best approach. Good luck!

[1] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3527063 [2] http://www.heartscanblog.org/2011/01/heroine-oxycontin-and-w...