HNHacker News
TopNewBestAskShowJobs

orbenn

589 karma · joined December 13, 2010

[ my public key: https://keybase.io/jonnyelm87; my proof: https://keybase.io/jonnyelm87/sigs/AIJ20jWXMNt3iBFvL2w1akKzZgpyTlhPz1ttC90DLrY ]
submissionscomments
orbenn··on [dead]
Happy? :)
orbenn··on Suspect in YouTube Shooting Posted Rants About the Company Online
In that case you're robbing the people who own the corporation (shareholders). They're the victims, not the corporation itself.

A corporation is owned by people. It is not "made of" people like some grotesque colossus.

orbenn··on Suspect in YouTube Shooting Posted Rants About the Company Online
If you get in a car accident, no one counts your car as a victim. This is the same thing.
orbenn··on Hunting Down My Son's Killer
"Unfortunately, we can't just order a batch and inject Bertrand.

We need to get FDA approval, and we'll need Genzyme's cooperation.

Even though his disease is life-threatening, his seizures are worsening and he continues to lose white matter, we'll need to prove that it's safe."

It's shit like this that makes me hate the FDA.

orbenn··on Petition Obama adminstration to require free access to publicly funded research
A lot of people assume that making all research that included federal grant money free to the public would be unilaterally good. I like the idea in general because I actually like to read scientific papers sometimes, but my primary interest is to maximize the amount of research that happens. Or more precisely to maximize the speed at which we acquire knowledge/technology.

Are there any existing examples of places where this has been put into practice that we can compare to see which state of affairs is better? I'm unsure it would be beneficial because most of the public wouldn't read/understand the actual journal articles anyway, and I expect most of the scientists who do work in the field already have subscriptions. I'm worried there might be harm because government mandates of all kinds very often have negative unintended consequences and I'm curious what those might be for this area.

orbenn··on A schemaless, embeddable Python ORM on top of SQLite (or, an embeddable MongoDB)
At first I was annoyed that you spelled shemales wrong, but then I tried reading it again.
orbenn··on Whitehouse.gov petition to veto SOPA
Didn't work for me in Chrome, but it worked in IE. Figures eh?
orbenn··on Whitehouse.gov petition to veto SOPA
What is SOPA and why should you care about it?

Short serious video: http://youtu.be/1ngRPuXpCIw

Long sarcastic video with a British accent: http://youtu.be/JhwuXNv8fJM

orbenn··on [dead]
What's SOPA and why is vetoing it important?

Short serious video: http://youtu.be/1ngRPuXpCIw

Long video with lots of sarcasm and a great British accent: http://youtu.be/JhwuXNv8fJM

orbenn··on Drug Cartel Murders Another Blogger
Real drug lords are part of the 1%. Most 1%'ers only work in one industry or a few related ones.

US policy is less about who would benefit from legalization (everyone) and more about who would suffer. If prohibition were ended there would be massive cuts in the budget and staff of the ATF, DEA, police, the entire boarder security industry, infantry defense contractors, prisons, courts and law firms.

Many politicians went to law school. No one wants to put their friends out of work.

orbenn··on Drug Cartel Murders Another Blogger
The US police/government/courts are less corrupt and have more resources to crack down on the more visible violence.

There is more violence in America than most people realize. It's considered mundane so you don't see it in the news as much.

The US is selling arms to the cartels in Mexico, so their violence is escalated there.

Mexican cartels aren't larger in the US than in Mexico because their supply sources are in Mexico, they lose momentum over distance and face domestic competition as they move across the US.

orbenn··on Drug Cartel Murders Another Blogger
If we assume drug lords are in it for the money and/or power they'd cut their losses ASAP.

For any of them that are really in it for the thrills the time would depend on their reserves, but I doubt it'd last longer than a few months for any of them.

orbenn··on Drug Cartel Murders Another Blogger
True. Luckily it's a much smaller market to begin with since most of the population drinks and only a relatively small fraction is interested in drugs besides marijuana.

I'm not really worried about the employment angle because cartel jobs aren't productive jobs. Essentially you're freeing up labor for the productive part of the economy which makes for a higher standard of living for everyone.

It might take a year or two to have nicely packaged heroin from well known companies available in pretty boxes in liquor stores, but I think you'd be rid of all the cartel violence within 6 months.

orbenn··on Drug Cartel Murders Another Blogger
They'd have the capacity for a moment, but they'd have lost their primary source of income. Human trafficking and extortion don't come anywhere near the risk/reward ratio or volume of drugs.

Some of the cartels would go legit to become drug companies. The ones who wanted to remain criminals would have to downsize their organizations to fit the remaining markets.

orbenn··on Drug Cartel Murders Another Blogger
Legalize all drugs and all of this ends tomorrow in the blink of an eye.
orbenn··on Krugman on BitCoin
That would be true if owning bitcoins had intrinsic value, but they only have value in terms of the things they can purchase, so no. Bitcoin maturity will actually cause bitcoins to decrease in value as inflation in the rest of the economy outpaces the rate of new bitcoin creation.
orbenn··on How to damage your brand in one smooth shot - Way to GoDaddy
This is stupid. If the elephant is going to be shot by a warden anyway, WHY NOT let some rich american shoot it? Why does it matter WHO shoots the elephant? It doesn't!

If you want to argue about whether the elephant SHOULD have been killed, that's fine. There is plenty to debate there. But who does the shooting is of no importance.

That said he's right that as a CEO you represent your company--especially when you're handing out swag. Probably not a smart PR move.

orbenn··on How one man tracked down Anonymous—and paid a heavy price
And from what I hear Boxxy is the queen of /b/

http://images2.memegenerator.net/ImageMacro/4642541/QUEEN-OF...

orbenn··on How one man tracked down Anonymous—and paid a heavy price
this is the kinda thing that makes you think "shit, I've gotta teach myself to use proxies and then sign up!"

I mean, who doesn't want to be part of something that's specifically directed ONLY by what's the most fun?