Hacker News Reader

steve_bon William Golding's Island of Savagery

It’s interesting to compare Lord of the Flies with a real life example of children being marooned on an island: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/may/09/the-real-lord-...

steve_bon Samsung's 60% DRAM price hike signals a new phase of global memory tightening

Companies would then outsource their low-paying jobs to other companies.

steve_bon A Love Letter to People Who Believe in People

Not quite. She was killed by someone who started out as a fan but then became one of Selena’s employees, who was then caught embezzling.

steve_bon Cheap material converts heat to electricity

I think that's backwards: P-type has more holes than electrons, n-type has more electrons than holes.

https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/P-type_semiconductor (property 2)

steve_bon Jaguar Land Rover to suspend output due to chip shortage

For the subtle variants, I believe it's how they price discriminate. It's all the same part, but they use fuses to disable various peripherals. Way easier to do that than to fabricate a whole bunch of different chips.

steve_bon Violence breaks out at Wistron Corp’s iPhone manufacturing plant near Bengaluru

Who paid for the new looms?

steve_bon The ergonomic Ultimate Hacking Keyboard 60: v2

I used jk for a long time until I found out that control-C escapes pretty much every mode. No mapping necessary!

steve_bon How to waste your career, one comfortable year at a time

What you or I want is no longer a question afforded to us sadly.

I'm genuinely curious: Are there periods of history where people could choose what to go into without it having a large effect on their income or quality of life? From my point of view, it seems like our standard of living is at an all-time high and our freedom to choose what we do with our lives is unprecedented. But I'd be open to being shown empirical evidence to the contrary.

steve_bon Ask HN: What is your favorite motto?

Brute force is rarely the answer.

steve_bon Ask HN: What do you do with your Raspberry Pi?

I use it do Anki on my bike ride to/from work. Wrote some scripts in Python. They take my deck, convert it to speech using IBM Watson’s TTS. Then i made a small PCB with 4 buttons that is fixed to the handle bar. That way I can interact with the program.

steve_bon Ask HN: Did reading HN bring anything valuable into your life?

I received Experimenting with Babies as a gift and loved it. Looking forward to both Newlyweds and Preschoolers!

steve_bon Statement by FTC Regarding Reported Concerns about Facebook Privacy Practices

There's a really good Econtalk podcast called Weapons of Math Destruction about this: http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2016/10/cathy_oneil_on_1.ht...

steve_bon Ask HN: Who is hiring? (January 2018)

www.empresseffects.com | Embedded/DSP Engineer | Ottawa | REMOTE or ONSITE | $110k CAD

We're a small 10 person company that makes some of the most sought after guitar effect pedals. https://empresseffects.com/products/echosystem

Our products are programmed in C and contain Blackfin DSPs and PIC microcontrollers. Embedded programming and DSP experience would be great. Electronic design experience would also be great.

Email with subject heading starting with HN if interested.

steve_bon Cable giants interrogate Montreal software developer and search his home

I'm going to guess it's not how it's supposed to work, since "A Federal Court judge would later declare the Anton Piller order in this case 'unlawful...'"

Here's got a campaign up on Indiegogo to help with his court battle. I think it's in everyone's interests that he wins.

steve_bon What It Costs to Open a Restaurant in San Francisco

Profit and margin aren't the same thing though.

steve_bon Evidence-based advice we've found on how to be successful in a job

If you're talking about self-help books, the ones I've seen are usually one or two page ideas which are crammed with filler. This webpage seems to be much more dense with information.

steve_bon Self-Driving Cars Have a Bicycle Problem

It seems you might be wrong.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2009/dec/15/cycling...

steve_bon The Black Technologist Who Invented the First Internet Search Engine

Why so sexist? Does it matter that it was a man?

"The sentient being who invented the first search engine" would have more appropriate.

steve_bon Pugs are anatomical disasters. Vets must speak out–even if it’s bad for business

sorry, i came across way too bluntly. i really should have noted how suprised i was the an expert thinks its a misconception to think of ourselves as apes.

in any case, i think the author is very much in favour of science.

steve_bon Pugs are anatomical disasters. Vets must speak out–even if it’s bad for business

We aren't apes or monkeys.

http://johnhawks.net/weblog/topics/phylogeny/taxonomy/humans...

steve_bon Tech workers pledge to never build a database of Muslims

Unfortunately, cause this is the internet, I cant tell if your joking. If not, source?

steve_bon Tech workers pledge to never build a database of Muslims

"Some social workers have observed that they simply have absolutely no respect for authority - it's meaningless to many of them"

Sounds like a bunch of Richard Feynmans.

steve_bon Snowden: Stop Relying on Facebook for Your News

I think you may be begging the question. You might be right that we're here because of our irrationality, but using your conclusion as its own argument isn't very convincing.

steve_bon 'Black Mirror' Is Back, Reflecting Our Technological Fears

Have you seen White Bear? It's one of the most terrifying and thought provoking things I've ever seen. Sure you could probably find elements of that episode in other shows/films, but that's probably true of everything.

Honest question: what are you watching that makes Black Mirror trite and obvious by comparison?

steve_bon Backpage Raided, CEO Arrested on Sex-Trafficking Charges

Coercion requires threats or force. Do you think all prostitution involves threats or force?

And wouldn't autonomy include the freedom to do with your body as you see fit?

steve_bon Why billions of dollars of goods are stuck at sea

When someone is commenting on a field outside your wheelhouse, what signs lead you to believe they are a faux expert?

steve_bon We have an epidemic of deeply flawed meta-analyses, says John Ioannidis

I read "The Control Group is Out of Control" last night right before bed and it seemed like time stood still, it was so engrossing. So I thought I disagreed with your "essay length is an issue." But it turns out the essay is close to 5k words!

I haven't read much SSC, but something tells me I'd like his lame jokes.

steve_bon To Master Vim, Use It Like Language

bonus is that Ctrl-C gets you out of pretty much any mode.

Also, while in insert mode, using ctrl-h for backspace and ctrl-w for delete word are really nice.

steve_bon Vim's 400 line function to wait for keyboard input

do you have any links to these talks? thanks!

steve_bon Code Specialists Oppose U.S. and British Access to Encrypted Communication

I should have just wrote "homicide" instead of "murder". The two sources I gave separate suicides from homicides.