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masterzoraon Passwords For Your Facebook Account

Given a reasonably sized keyspace (which FB does have) a factor of three should not be a big deal.

masterzoraon Passwords For Your Facebook Account

Rather than asking questions I tried some science. Last time I changed my FB password was roughly 6 months ago and I am only able to get the correct-case password to allow access. I'm not too inclined to spend much more time on this but surely someone who hasn't changed their password in a while can try it out. They can see if the alternate casings work, change their password and see if they work then, etc.

masterzoraon We Rejected Dan Shipper (And What I Learned About Hiring)

Caution is certainly warranted but assuming that they did wrong rather than asking if they did right is generally a bad way to go.

masterzoraon Show HN: made a game you can play safely at work

There's a text editor in there? I've always thought it was a great operating system but it's annoying to fire up vim every time I need to throw together a few lines of text.

masterzoraon Yelp, You Cost Me $2000 by Suppressing Genuine Reviews. Here’s How You Fix It

Have you seen the questions they use? They range from "which of these addresses have you previously lived at" to "which of these companies do you have a loan with" to "how much is your loan payment" among others. They're pretty creepy and made even more so by the fact that these are the same questions you answer to prove your identity to, say, the credit bureaus or your creditors. It's not the sort of stuff one should be answering lightly.

masterzoraon I Guess I'm Not A 501 Developer

How about incentivised? Months back there was an HN post about a company that gives bonuses to people who take off... I think it was at least 25 days per year to ensure that people understand that taking time off is not a bad thing.

masterzoraon Job Posts That Sell

If you've got the numbers to show that this sort of thing leads to more active and involved users then I can't really argue against it but you should stop pretending that this is the only way you could possibly give a good first experience. Off the top of my head it seems you could have an awesome first experience by starting with a bare minimum style quiz. I haven't seen what you have so far but odds are you wouldn't need the entire quiz you currently use up front. From that quiz you can present a page with a handful of selections that would fit the user's responses, giving them a rough view of what they can expect. From there you can prompt the user to properly sign up and take the full signup.

I have no idea what the numbers would look like, but it would certainly provide a pleasing no-registration initial experience.

masterzoraon Why I'm considering giving to beggars.

which is why I've deliberately ignored the absolute extreme

You are a confusing individual. I try to discuss moving away from the extreme and you insist you were commenting on the extreme. I try to meet you there and discuss the extreme and you insist you are avoiding the extreme. If you're going to keep pushing the goal posts back and forth like that I don't know why we're bothering to discuss anything at all.

That is precisely what I suggest.

I won't deny that a few people are likely taking advantage of the situation, but you need to drop the notion that anything resembling a significant fraction of beggars are doing so by choice. Said notion is disgusting, offensive, and untrue.

masterzoraon Why I'm considering giving to beggars.

If you look at the top comment, I was originally responding to "Would it be possible to be a beggar if everyone who passed you on the street did their utmost to help you out?", and the answer is clearly "yes". Furthermore, if everyone who passed a beggar on the street did their utmost to help out, there would be an explosion of beggars, as I demonstrated in my previous comment.

I still fail to see how you demonstrated that. You have failed to take into consideration important variables that I have attempted to address. In particular, you have applied a type of thinking that some people have today to a situation that would necessarily require them to have a different type of thinking. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to simply transfer it over as such. Granted, we don't have a whole lot of experience with a society where everybody is individually motivated to help, but I think you'll find at the very least that the people who are altruistically inclined to help the homeless or what have you these days don't really decide to swindle everyone.

Also, it does not require everyone to think the same way for this to happen; in fact, very few people have to think this way.

I'm not sure I agree that 1 in 100 is "very few", but point taken.

I don't mind other people giving to beggars, but one thing I have noticed is that beggar-friendly cities tend to attract far more beggars (San Francisco and Vancouver are two that come to mind).

This point is simply irrelevant unless you mean to suggest that the increase is due to people trying to take advantage of the lucrative beggar market rather than working.

masterzoraon Why I'm considering giving to beggars.

I think you should read the names of posters, but I am more than happy to take the position you stated so we'll call it good.

I think what you are leaving out of your analysis is that, in this scenario, there is no compulsion to help the beggars. Thus, if everyone actually is helping they are doing for their own reasons: that it is good, that it is right, that they want to help. I find it hard to imagine that a significant number doing so would then take advantage of the same system in the manner that you describe.

"But", you say "it is ridiculous to even assume that everyone is going to willfully give as such in the first place." This much is obvious, so trying to comment on the above utopian ideal has its limits. I am inclined to believe, however, that if everyone who actually would be willing to help beggars of their own accord to make things better did help that it is likely that this would only be done in such numbers that the beggars could be helped but not such that it would become such a lucrative market as posters have described.

masterzoraon Why I'm considering giving to beggars.

Are you sure you're not? The thread pretty much looked like this when I posted that:

"This won't work because people will react the way I think."

"No, it will work because people will react the way I think."

"You can't just assume everyone will think the same way as you. Here's some anecdata to prove everyone thinks the same way I do."

Please help me here, because I'm failing to see the difference. (Granted, I think in both cases it's not so much "everyone thinks the way I do" as it is "sufficiently many people think the same way I do", but all the same.)

masterzoraon Why I'm considering giving to beggars.

Or maybe you just make the common mistake of assuming that everyone else thinks the same way you do.

And you're not doing the same?

masterzoraon Why I'm considering giving to beggars.

I disagree. If everyone is willingly and of their own volition giving money to beggars every time they saw one in an effort to make things better (note that the post is not about any sort of mandatory giving or a government program or anything else of the sort) it seems silly to conclude that everyone, or even most people, would then become beggars.

On the flip side, "If NO ONE gives to beggars there won't be any beggars!" is also correct, but not for the reason given. Reality is that most beggars would die relatively quickly because they're not there by choice or because they think that begging to live is better than finding a job. Yes, a few are there by choice for one reason or another, but I really hate the world where people choose to let the honest ones dies to spite the few freeloaders.

masterzoraon Why I'm considering giving to beggars.

Even if 10 of them use it for booze and drugs, that 11th one that you give to and feeds her kids for the night is worth every penny that the others use to chemically escape their realities.

To be honest, I think it's worth those pennies for helping the first 10 as well. To steal a quote from Sports Night:

Isaac: Danny, every morning I leave an acre and a half of the most beautiful property in New Canaan, get on a train and come to work in a fifty-four story glass high rise. In between I step over bodies to get here - 20, 30, 50 of 'em a day. So, as I'm stepping over them I reach into my pocket and give them whatever I've got.

Dan: You're not afraid they're gonna spend it on booze?

Isaac: I'm hoping they're going to spend it on booze. Look, Dan, these people, most of 'em, it's not like they're one hot meal away from turning it around. For most of 'em the clock's pretty much run out. You'll be home soon enough. What's wrong with giving them a little novacaine to get 'em through the night?

masterzoraon Sweet sanity: 75% of Americans say infringement fines should be under $100

I've been over this already: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3246010

masterzoraon Sweet sanity: 75% of Americans say infringement fines should be under $100

That is a very valid line of reasoning and one that I would implore everyone to explore in such a situation. But, as you said, "perhaps". It does not directly follow that it is necessarily a bad law.

masterzoraon Sweet sanity: 75% of Americans say infringement fines should be under $100

I disagree, for a number of reasons.

1. I don't agree with the statement "shoplifting is necessarily immoral" so it makes no sense for my own argument to hinge on such a fact. 2. My argument does not only work for an immoral crime; it is merely illustrated by an example of a law people think is not wrong. Shoplifting is merely a counterexample to the logic "If X is a law that a lot of people break then X is a bad law". I do not take this on to conclude that X is not a bad law which would be begging the question. 3. The original logic was begging the question, not I. The statement "If X is a law that a lot of people break then X is a bad law" only holds if X is already a priori a bad law (and, even then, it requires a few more statements to actually work).

masterzoraon Sweet sanity: 75% of Americans say infringement fines should be under $100

I agree with your second statement but that does not imply the first. Your second sentence leads to a different conclusion: Such a situation indicates that causes should be examined. It does not indicate what the cause is.

masterzoraon Sweet sanity: 75% of Americans say infringement fines should be under $100

Goddammit, I knew someone was going to trot that line out.

You see, I never said copyright infringement was shoplifting, or related to shoplifting, in any way. Just because someone uses the words "copyright" and "shoplifting" in the same post doesn't mean that they are saying copyright infringement is shoplifting.

In my above post shoplifting was only an example. My post makes just as much as sense if I replace shoplifting with murder and copyright infringement with cannabis possession. Or shoplifting with arson and copyright infringement with being left handed.

The underlying logic I quoted is what was wrong, not the categorisation, so stop jerking your knee.

masterzoraon Sweet sanity: 75% of Americans say infringement fines should be under $100

First, it does indicate a problem with the copyright system when such a large number of people (+50%, per Free Culture) are 'felons' under US law and liable for hundreds of thousands in damages.

While I agree with your conclusions, the logic here is flawed. If everyone started shoplifting, for example, it wouldn't indicate a problem with the laws that people are now criminals.

(Sidenote: Only a small number of people are felons on account of copyright. Under US law, to be a felon you have to have been convicted of a felony.)

masterzoraon Think twice about that F-bomb in your next talk

I think HN's title here is more accurate than the actual article. Do not expunge "fuck", or any other word, from your vocabulary just because it can be misused. I can misuse many words just as easily as peppering "fuck" everywhere but he doesn't seem to be arguing to get rid of anything but swears.

If you're preparing a talk like that, you should be thinking twice about everything you prepare, though, not just "F-bombs". Did you put that "fuck" there to sound edgy? Unless you're presenting to a group of 12-year-olds nobody's going to think you're edgy.

On the other hand, I love to use "fuck" to establish tone. A few judicious and well-placed "fuck"s and you can easily establish that you're just like everyone else in the room and you're essentially just chatting rather than talking down at them or anything like that. Sure, if you banned yourself from using this word you could establish the same tone via a variety of methods but, sometimes, you just need to fucking cut through the bullshit and stop pussy-footing around.

masterzoraon How Google did their barrel roll trick

What, the barrel roll thing? I've gotta say, you're looking at it incorrectly.

It was implemented by a single engineer who thought it would be a humorous thing to do without considering marketing at all.

Or did you mean that them allowing this is the cynical marketing move? It'd make more sense, but I don't think I'd agree with it.

masterzoraon Who will dominate neighborhood networking?

(Obligatory disclaimer: I'm an engineer at Nextdoor.)

GoGoVerde didn't do anything wrong, per se, but shutdown as a matter of funding. A few key folk from GGV are now working with us at Nextdoor, however, lending the experience gained from GoGoVerde.

A bit more info here: http://redwoodcity.patch.com/articles/city-moves-virtual-nei...

masterzoraon Subtle Patterns: Free textures for your next web project

It looks to me that the Attribution is only conditionally waived. That is to say, if you're using it you don't have to add the attribution but if you're sharing it or a remix of it the attribution is still required.

masterzoraon Quixey Challenge: $100 for a 1-Minute Coding Puzzle

Thanks for the microphone warning. Was just about to try it out until I read that.

masterzoraon Humble Indie Bundle back with Humble Frozen Synapse Bundle

May I ask why you were paying below average? The average has always been what I would call "ridiculously low" and, except for some form of financial hardship, I don't understand what good reason there is for not ponying up a more respectable amount.

masterzoraon Humble Indie Bundle back with Humble Frozen Synapse Bundle

It's kind of new. The second bundle included the first one by default for a while and eventually the added the "pay more than average" trick. It's an entirely different game to start it that way from minute one.

masterzoraon Humble Indie Bundle back with Humble Frozen Synapse Bundle

Of course they're wildly successful: they're selling a number of copies they otherwise wouldn't and make a good chunk of change for the devs and for charity. But that doesn't mean I can't be sad at the low averages as well.

masterzoraon Humble Indie Bundle back with Humble Frozen Synapse Bundle

I like the new twist where you only get the extra games if you beat the average. It's always pained me a little bit to see how low the averages have been on these things for some quality games. I understand that the participants in these bundles are willing to accept those prices or they wouldn't do this so it's not as if they're unfair or anything, but I'd hope that people would have given better value judgments. I hope this new twist helps!

masterzoraon Mojang vs. Bethesda Scrolls Case Heads to Court

This seems reasonable to me... like if I created a new game called "Warcraft" that let you build siege weapons and launch attacks against castles filled with orcs. I would fully expect Blizzard to come after me.

Yes, if you create a game with the exact same name as Blizzard's and with very similar gameplay, expect to see a trademark dispute. This, however, is not the guess with The Elder Scrolls series and Scrolls.