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topher515on Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (April 2020)

  Location: Oakland / San Francisco, CA
  Remote: Yes
  Willing to relocate: No
  Technologies: Python, JavaScript, React, Docker, AWS, SQL, *nix
  Résumé/CV: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ckwilcox/
  Email: ckwilcox at gmail dot com

Full stack dev, with 12 years experience app developing in Python/JavaScript. 10 years experience building startups in Bay Area.

topher515on Trolls break into meetings on Zoom

I believe Zoom has the exact feature you’re describing—passwords for meetings.

https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/360033559832-Meeti...

topher515on Wearing masks is as much about protecting others as yourself

In the United States, where we seem to have a shortage of masks, all of this discussion goes out the window though. We need to ensure we have enough masks for health care workers and the sick, before we encourage the healthy to wear them.

(My understanding is that it’s not just N95 masks that are lacking, but simple surgical masks too.)

topher515on Containment gets harder every day we delay

From the "Appendix / methodology" section at the bottom of the page:

> "Day 1" is when a country reaches 100 cases. A country is "X days behind Italy" if they reached 100 cases that many days after Italy did.

topher515on Will We Run Out of Helium?

When you say humans "goto space", you're probably talking about going to orbit. As such, the problem isn't that space is "up high", it's that fast is "very fast".

This "XKCD What If?"[0] explains this concept pretty clearly.

[0] https://what-if.xkcd.com/58/

topher515on Turkmenistan on the brink of collapse?

The primary goal of the European “Federation” is not to create a “better” super-state, but to prevent war amongst the states by creating a common economic dependence and by aligning mutual interests.

topher515on California farmers are planting solar panels as water supplies dry up

This article made me think of the endless "solar farms" scene from Blade Runner 2049[1]

[1] https://youtu.be/u9L0pord5jE?t=68

topher515on World hunger not going down and obesity still growing – UN report

Human global population is no longer increasing at an exponential rate.[1]

It's very likely that by ~2060 human fertility rate will drop below "replacement rate" (2.1 children per woman), thus beginning a long, slow decline in population.[2]

[1] https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/POP/TOT/9...

[2] https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/FERT/TOT/...

topher515on Sweden Has a 70 Percent Tax Rate and It Is Fine

I suggest you take a look at this article[1] which reframes the idea of who “owns”, on first principle, your pre-tax income.

I’m not sure I completely buy into the article’s thesis. But I think it’s extrmely valuable viewpoint to consider on taxation.

And I do think it’s at least “coherent”, so if someone made it the moral framework with which they analyzed taxes they wouldn’t be being intellectually dishonest.

[1] https://www.taxjustice.net/2014/10/08/money-taxation-isnt-th...

topher515on Open Location Code

There's a feature that vastly improves the human usability for Plus Codes. The least-precision, first-four characters can be omitted and replaced with the City / Region name: e.g., "Nairobi PR6C+24". Considering that uniquely identifies just a few square meters of space on Earth that seems pretty good.

topher515on Anti-vaccination stronghold in NC hit with worst chickenpox outbreak in 20 years

> But somehow, in the US one unvaccinated child is a risk to a school full of vaccinated children? This doesn't make sense.

You're misunderstanding who is at risk in this scenario. It is not the vaccinated who are at risk; it is the unvaccinated.

The unvaccinated are protected by the "wall" of immune people separating them from the sick. The fewer and farther between are the at-risk, the decreased likelihood of transmission.

You might say "but those people took that risk on their own"; but thats not the case for many people. i.e., Newborn infants, Individuals who are immunodeficient due to HIV/AIDS, lymphoma, leukemia, bone marrow cancer, an impaired spleen, chemotherapy, etc.[1].

Essentially, those who cannot become immune are only protected by herd immunity. And every additional non-immune person in that pool increases the risk to all the others. So everytime someone chooses to remain immune they are hurting that whole pool, some of whom cannot choose.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herd_immunity#Protection_of_th...

topher515on Mimicking an impact on Earth’s early atmosphere yields all 4 RNA bases

You should consider reading "The Vital Question" by Nick Lane. Bill Gates strongly recommended it in one of his Gates' notes. It is an exploration of the central role that energy/metabolism has had in the initial formation and continued evolution of life. A subtext in the book is how biologist have been so fixated on the "information" side of evolution (DNA/RNA) they've overlooked the massive importance of metabolism.

Most intriguingly the book presents an extremely specific and extremely plausible theory for the very beginnings of life. i.e., resolving the questions: Was there a cell before there was metabolism? Or conversely, what is metabolism before there is a cell?

topher515on [dead]

This is a cool "concept", but appears to be a practical impossibility. Stupid laws of physics:

http://deepseanews.com/2014/01/triton-not-dive-or-dive-not-t...

topher515on Snowden applies for asylum in Russia

What you're talking about sounds like Max Weber's theory about the state being defined as any entity with the monopoly of the legitimate use of violence.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_on_violence

I think a valid question would be: can a government even exist without the possibility of exercising violence as a means of control? And if that's the case, is there any other means of organizing human beings which would enable this?