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Do HN users have much to say about Brave? I've been hearing quite a bit about it lately but haven't tried it out yet. I'm figuring that if I switch browsers, it would be to something with some interesting edge like this, rather than going back to Firefox.

Eek- my scanning wasn't quite efficient enough! Thanks for correcting me.

I'm in the middle of reading Owning Our Future: The Emerging Ownership Revolution by Marjorie Kelly, which talks extensively about Maine lobster fishery rights.

Along the sensitive areas of the coast, only owner-operated boats are allowed to fish, and these people must all have certified lobster fishing licenses. Their licensure also gives them voting rights around regulations for lobstering- in a sense, they own the commons and collectively make rules governing it. Kelly argues that this ownership of the lobstering commons, in a cooperative-like structure, leads to greater sustainability.

Large corporate boats can operate only in designated areas. Instead of permitting limitless liberty to absentee owners for the seeking of wealth -- by hired hands indifferent to local custom -- Maine set spinning a new governing pattern…. That the right to make a living comes before the right to make a killing. That fairness for the many is more important than maximizing for the few. That sustaining the prosperity of larger living systems, both human and wild, is the root condition for the flourishing of all. (page 138)

I'd highly recommend the book, which introduces the dichotomy of "generative" organizations (which by design seek to produce social value in addition to profit) vs. "extractive" organizations (which maximize financial value above all else).

I'm surprised this article skips over this topic entirely.

I'm sure you're well read and educated. I won't ever be as knowledgeable on the subject as you.

I have the benefit, though, of not having my entire livelihood and career dependent on my faith in the systemic health of mainstream medicine.

Maybe you're right. Honestly based on the tone of your initial comment, I have written off your impartiality, and so have little desire to learn from you. I'm sure you feel the same towards me. So here's to coming to a stalemate while putting other people down on the Internet. Maybe that's the important learning point, for me.

I will reflect your outrage back to you now:

Why on earth would you NOT assume that institutionalized greed affects the results of medical science?

Who is funding the science? What are their financial motives? Who conducts the research? What are their financial motives? Are incentives aligned to produce quality medical research with the patient's best interests in mind, or the bottom lines of medical companies (pharma, medtech, even hospitals, etc.)?

I'm shocked and surprised at your shock and surprise. I don't think your arguments are irrational. I simply think they are naïve.

Scientific value != value. I view theology as a study of how humans characterize their relationship to that which is beyond logic: god, infinity, existence, whatever. To me, this study has individual and collective value even in modern times, despite the fact that it has no scientific value.

Interesting discussion at the tail end of the document:

(a) We have all become very marker-prone, but shouldn't we nevertheless admit that, in the end, despite all we try to do, the most effective "marker" for any intruders will be a relatively limited amount of sickness and death caused by the radioactive waste? In other words, it is largely a self-correcting process if anyone intrudes without appropriate precautions, and it seems unlikely that intrusion on such buried waste would lead to large-scale disasters. An analysis of the likely number of deaths over 10,000 years due to inadvertent intrusion should be conducted. This cost should be weighted against that of the marker system.

Don't like one of your professors this semester? It's a pretty easy equation. Drop out of college.

Not happy with NSA collecting dragnet surveillance on you? It's a pretty easy equation. Renounce your citizenship.

Neighbor making too much noise at night? It's a pretty easy equation. Move out (or kill them?)

Why can't someone that's party to a relationship make a complaint about an aspect of that relationship?

exactly his point

Makes sense. I'm curious though, do you mean that even with the same number of categories for each it's too difficult? ie. instead of using hierarchical groupings and all categories no matter how small, use only the top ~10 and bucket the rest into "Other" similarly to a pie chart or bar.

Is "evil" really the word?

I default to using treemaps for viewing composition of a whole http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treemapping

Not directly (but I agree). I'm saying that averages ignore distribution. If you combine one part of 100% growth and nine parts 0% growth then overall you have 10% growth. Does that mean all the parts are growing, or even most of them are growing? Nope.

This article condenses arguments being put forth by econ/finance blogs but fails to connect the dots. One angle: Banks have been receiving money at 0% interest rate for 5 years now due to ZIRP (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero_interest-rate_policy) but can't lend it to fund quality investments across the entire economy. Instead of growth across all sectors, we have exploding valuations in Internet Tech indicative of investors "chasing returns" -- a bubble!

Meanwhile the middle class continues to shrink without growth of jobs in other sectors. Food stamp demand and low labor participation rates further validate this assumption that the economic recovery hasn't come for most Americans even as high-level averages such as GDP and stock markets tell us otherwise.

Echoing what they said in the linked article, it doesn't fit into a left/right paradigm, so "direction" might not be the right word. Instead I'd elaborate: editors there have opinions about political matters, and they frame their own political opinions as fact.

I cancelled my Economist subscription recently due to finding myself frustrated with their political bias. It seems they often assert controversial opinions as accepted truth. I would much prefer that any statements of policy preference were backed up by references, data, or at least given with a nod to opposing viewpoints. Although, that would probably make publishing on a weekly schedule more difficult.

A couple comments mentioned wanting to build this in the Bay Area. I've been wondering for awhile why there's not an active group here.

Let's meet up to discuss more, how about a Google group to organize? https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/sf-meshnet

No, Asheron's Call was an MMO in every sense of the term. There was no free to play (at least in the pyreal scarab bug time period), monthly sub fee was it, and the game would have been wholly uninteresting without the full on massively multiplayer element.

Yep, thanks for the clarification, I don't disagree but just taking issue with parent's point that dollars lent = dollars loaned therefore it's impossible for policies to affect lending rate.

Regarding your point about the lending vs borrowing:

The use of the word "encouraged" makes sense to me. If people are "encouraged" to lend vs borrow, that means they will have more desire to lend vs borrow. This has an important effect on the supply vs. demand equation. Supply of loans, ie. people willing to borrow, goes down and the demand, ie. people willing to pay money now for interest later, goes up, causing prices (interest rates) of loans to go up (down).

In other words even though every dollar lent must be a dollar loaned, people's willingness to lend affects supply and demand.

Good story.

I recall that Fortres had an admin password common to all installations, so that their support people could access and troubleshoot machines. The "quick and dirty" way to get past the app, I guess.

Our staff also didn't find "net send *" very amusing...

Autodesk is getting into the consumer space, trying to build a community of creators via acquisition. Another example of this strategy was the Instructables acquisition last year.

I don't know what they specifically plan to do with SocialCam but I'm sure it fits into this consumer community strategy in some way.

A good friend had some traumatic experiences due to hallucinogen-induced psychosis. Experiences from LSD, mescaline, and the like prior to the episode were embraced with open arms and handled well. There seemed to be some switch that flipped, not due to any sort of internal fortitude but instead some purely biochemical reaction. He's been on antipsychotics since.

That said, he holds the substances in high regard for their ability to open the mind. Users should simply be aware that predisposition to psychosis can't be identified before the episode, something like 4 in 1000 will have such a reaction (http://www.maps.org/research/abrahart.html - see Cohen and Malleson research discussion)

Could this be the only serious thing ever created by Maddox? His new homepage header is more like the Maddox I remember though: "I hope SOPA PASSES. Update: it didn't :("

What you did to help seems very friendly and supportive, but it's apparent to me that you're taking out some unmentioned frustrations in this post. Truly, it sucks to give someone a shot and not get the thanks you deserve for that. This guy sounds like a flake.

I still think that it's possible that you did a nice, commendable thing to help him, AND it was a dead-end job to him. It sounds like changing things up was exactly what he needed. Also, moving to a (very) foreign country to make a living doesn't sound easy- I think it's easier for me to "hack it" here in Silicon Valley than to move overseas in search of happiness.

Different strokes for different folks.

Palantir open sourcing their software could and should be viewed through a PR lens, an action meant to build favorable reputation in the developer community. Maybe caycep could have elaborated on this more, but I understand the point: Palantir has a mixed history, so we should take the positive with a grain of salt and beware.

FYI- HasOffers does affiliate marketing for them

I didn't presuppose any of that. I was only pointing out that you framed the question as: "Do I want a good thing, or a bad thing?" - obviously you want the good thing

When in reality the question is: "Do I want a thing with good and bad attributes, or another thing with good and bad attributes?" - this reflects the reality of the situation

For sure. But parent was wondering why Google cares about our data- so I'm explaining why that is.

The better way to frame the choice is 1) less intrusive data collection or 2) ads relevant to what you might actually be interested in.

Some people don't like simple remarketing, but I do. It's not so bad that Bonobos reminds me to buy pants from them every once and awhile... I like their pants ;)

And I'm not sure of the brand effect display ads have had on me but I know I'd rather see something relevant to business, finance, or tech, as opposed to feminine products or entertainment magazines.

Yes, I'm speaking the advertising industry party line, but I do kind of agree with it.